Commentary on Oregon Marine Reserve process

Paul Walker:
Oregon has a $3 billion budget shortfall. Most state employees, including ODFW, have to take mandatory unpaid furlough days. Eugene’s 4J School District employee’s also face mandatory unpaid furlough days. To make up for a $30 million budget shortfall 4J, among other cut backs, is planning to lay off 104 teachers, incr...ease class sizes, close 6 schools, & drastically cut back athletic & academic after school programs (Register Guard, November 05, 2010, front page).

Faced with a 13% cut in general fund operations, ODFW closed the 95-year-old Butte Falls Hatchery in southern Oregon. Butte Falls, the state's third-oldest fish hatchery, closed just seven years after making about $1 million in improvements. ODFW also plans to cut the Western Oregon Streams Protection Program, which worked on fish habitat enhancement projects. Seven full-time staffers & a two-year budget of about $767,000 were not included in the budget proposal from ODFW for the next biennium. The program is scheduled to end in July, 2011. The agency is also cutting a Roseburg watershed council coordinating position (Medford Mail Tribune, October 28, 2010). Big Creek hatchery is slated to stop production of 5.7 million Chinook salmon, the Sandy Hatchery will also be closed, & Bonneville will have severe cuts to their fishery management programs. (Big Creek Fishing Club, http://www.bigcreekfishing.com/FishHatchery/attentionFisherman08.htm).

In most tropical countries marine reserves are implemented to recover from an identified depletion in fish stocks, degradation of habitat, or both. This is not the case in Oregon. Aside from numerous malfunctioning septic systems & municipal effluents dumping directly into the nearshore waters, most nearshore marine ecosystems in Oregon are healthy. In addition, assessments of groundfish stocks in Oregon have been weak at best. Research needs to be done beforehand to identify the best ecosystem management practices & protections. The Oregon Nearshore Task Force would be the perfect vehicle for this research. (http://www.oregonocean.info/index.php option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=29&Itemid=21).
Implementing a medieval & expensive closure strategy is not a progressive approach to this question.

So how much are these permanent regressive marine reserve closures to sustainable harvest going to cost the tax payers of Oregon? What are they going to accomplish in the way of fishery management? Here are a couple facts to consider.

1. “This process is not designed to implement marine reserves as fisheries management tools to enhance fisheries stocks. It is designed to implement appropriate marine reserves & complementary MPAs to evaluate positive & negative aspects of this tool on Oregon’s nearshore marine resources & the people & communities dependent on them.” (Cape Perpetua: ODFW Agency Analysis of Scenarios Developed by the Marine Reserves Community Team, October 7, 2010, pg. 6, Section 1 Agency Analysis Report, item 6).

2. “Enforcement Response: Boat Launch Point - Newport or Florence (Florence has frequent bar closures or restrictions)
Trooper Callout to Boat Launch = 1 hour (minimum)
Launch Point to MR area = 1 hour
Time in Area = Varied / 1 hour on average
Return to Off‐Duty Status = 2 hours
Total Trooper Time = 5 hours/Trooper x 2 Troopers = 10 hours per incident
Est. Callouts per Week: 2 – 3 = 20 – 30 hours/week”
(Cape Perpetua Supporting Assessment Documents, ODFW, Section 2, pg. 22, Enforcement)

What this tells me:
1. This is a social engineering experiment with biological components, not an ecosystem or fishery management tool.
2. It will be expensive, we just don’t know how expensive yet.
3. We need to address the immediate fiscal & social problems confronting us in a practical manner & allocate our resources appropriately, rather than rabbit trailing down a non compos mentis experiment in social engineering.