Now tie in the other prurient interests and groups disconnected from the day to day reality of one who actually is IN the ocean every day, and it is pretty safe to say that a Civil Rights violation of enormous scope is taking place.

The irony (one point anyway) is that tax dollar fed positions being held by Govt Employees implemented that violation and breech of the public trust. Then you will have the membership of the Environmental groups who eventually will realize that their own interests have been misrepresented.

Thank you for your diligence Ted, and thank you to the Editor of the Independent for taking the truth by the gills.

Great article! I applaud you for covering the private funding behind the MLPA in detail.

Here is the transcript of my testimony before the Legislature regarding the South Coast MLPA, prefaced by a short summary of the hearing.

Ten Big Questions about the MLPA Initiative

by Dan Bacher

Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro (D-Arcata) chaired an oversight meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture at the State Capitol in Sacramento on February 17 from 10 am to 12 noon focusing on the South Coast Study Region of the controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.

Recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and grassroots environmentalists exposed the many flaws of the MLPA Initiative, while representatives of corporate environmental NGOs lauded the process for being “open, transparent and inclusive.” About two thirds of the speakers were critical of the MLPA, while about one-third praised the South Coast process.

After the public comment period, Chesbro noted the divergent perspectives presented by those who testified. “People here today described the process as both the best and the worst process they have experienced,” said Chesbro.

Chesbro said the Legislature doesn’t have the authority to change the already adopted network of marine protected areas for the South Coast. However, Chesbro emphasized that to make marine protected areas work, it is important that users of the ocean serve as partners in the process. “It is very good for the Committee to shine the light on this process,” he concluded.

The controversial marine protected areas imposed under the MLPA Initiative, the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail and green sturgeon, and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build a peripheral canal are all part of the unfortunate environmental legacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history.

Below is a transcript of my testimony before the committee in which I pose the 10 questions that proponents of the controversial, privately funded process refuse to answer:

Assemblymember Chesbro, thanks so much for convening today’s hearing.

In my 28 years of journalism covering fish and water in California, the MLPA Initiative is the most corrupt process that I have ever covered. Here are the 10 questions I have posed to MLPA Initiative advocates and officials regarding the many flaws in the South Coast MLPA process. To date, they have failed to answer these questions.

1. Why did Schwarzenegger and MLPA officials install an oil industry lobbyist, a marina developer, a real estate executive and other corporate operatives with numerous conflicts of interest on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast to remove Indian Tribes, fishermen and seaweed harvesters from the water by creating so-called “marine protected areas” (MPAS)?

2. Why was Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, allowed to make decisions as the chair of the BRTF for the South Coast, a panel that is supposedly designed to “protect” the ocean, when she has called for new oil drilling off the California coast?

3. Why has the MLPA Initiative taken water pollution, oil spills and drilling, military testing, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and all other impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in its bizarre concept of marine protection?

4. Why is a private corporation, the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, being allowed to privatize ocean resource management in California through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the DFG?

5. Why do MLPA staff and the California Fish and Game Commission refuse to hear the pleas of the representatives of the California Fish and Game Wardens Association, who oppose the creation of any new MPAs until they have enough funding for wardens to patrol existing reserves?

6. Why were there no Tribal scientists on the MLPA Science Advisory Team and why were there no Tribal representatives on the Blue Ribbon Task Forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast or South Coast MLPA Study Regions?

7. Why does the initiative discard the results of any scientists who disagree with the MLPA’s pre-ordained conclusions? These include the peer reviewed study by Dr. Ray Hilborn, Dr. Boris Worm and 18 other scientists, featured in Science magazine in July 2009, that concluded that the California current had the lowest rate of fishery exploitation of any place studied on the planet.

8. Why did the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force hold illegal secret meetings, including those held in April 2007 and on November 3, 2008, December 10, 2008, February 25, 2009, October 20, 21 and 22, 2009, as revealed in a 25 page document presented to the California Fish and Game Commission on February 2?

9. Why did it take a lawsuit by a coalition of fishing organizations to get the emails and correspondence by MLPA officials documenting these private, non-public meetings disclosed to the public?

10. Why did it take the outrage over the arrest of an independent journalist last spring to open work sessions of the MLPA to coverage by video-journalists?

I urge you and other Legislators to think hard about these questions and begin a formal investigation into the violation of laws that may have occurred under the MLPA as soon as possible.

Thank You
Dan Bacher