Marine Conservation

Leveraging the Law to Protect Ocean Environments from the Effects of Finfish Aquaculture

February 7, 2023 by Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

Channelkeeper recently joined the Center for Food Safety, other environmental organizations, fishing groups, and the Quinault Indian Nation in suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over its issuance of Nationwide Permit 56, which authorizes the development of finfish farming structures in state and federal waters. We are challenging that the Nationwide Permit was approved without a thorough analysis of its potential detrimental impacts on our ocean ecosystems, water quality, public health, fishing communities, and endangered and threatened species.

Nationwide Permit 56 allows the installation of cages, net pens, anchors, floats, buoys, and other structures in marine and estuarine waters over the outer continental shelf. It’s the primary program that will be used to permit all future finfish aquaculture development in federal waters throughout the United States. However, the groups who have filed the legal action are concerned that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers skirted mandatory environmental review processes when it issued this permit. We claim that the agency failed to consult, as required by law, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, as about potential effects on threatened and endangered species protected under the Endangered Species Act, nor consult on the impacts to Essential Fish Habitat under the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Further, the Army Corps lacks the legal authority to take this step in the first place without new authority from Congress, which it has not gotten.

The Nationwide Permit 56 originated from a Trump-era executive order promoting the rapid expansion of industrial marine aquaculture facilities under the guise of addressing pandemic-related food insecurity. Federal officials have begun identifying locations as potential sites for commercial aquaculture operations. The Santa Barbara Channel—along with areas in the Gulf of Mexico and waters off Marina del Rey, California—was selected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as one of the first areas to assess for future aquaculture development. The Santa Barbara Channel currently has two active aquaculture projects along the coastline.

Certain types of aquaculture projects, such as those for shellfish and seaweed, generally may have benefits that outweigh the drawbacks. However, offshore aquaculture operations for finfish (such as tuna or tilapia) present significant risks to the environment. These include, but are not limited to:

water quality impairment from dead fish, fecal waste, and antibiotics;
 spread of disease that can impact populations of wild fish caught by commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishermen;
escape of farmed fish into the natural environment, risking the genetic integrity of wild populations; and
depletion of small fish populations that are used as feed for farmed fish and thus, less available for wild fish, birds, and marine life.

In addition, there is currently no regulatory program in place to adequately oversee aquaculture operations in federal waters or strong standards to protect the marine environment from the impacts of finfish aquaculture. 

By signing on to this lawsuit, Channelkeeper hopes to ensure that all appropriate precautions and measures are in place to protect the Santa Barbara Channel from the potentially destructive impacts of industrial, offshore finfish aquaculture.

Marine Protected Areas Enhance Lobster Fisheries Through Spillover Effect

August 25, 2021 by Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

Marine Protected Areas, or MPAs, are parks and protected areas that provide safe havens for marine wildlife to reproduce, grow, and replenish. MPAs support the long-term conservation of marine wildlife and habitats. In 2012, California completed the nation’s first statewide network of underwater parks in an effort to cultivate stronger and more resilient marine ecosystems. The Santa Barbara Channel includes a network of 19 MPAs, five along the coast and 14 surrounding the Channel Islands, which protect over 350 square miles of marine waters and habitat types, including kelp, eelgrass, and rocky reefs.

Marine Protected Areas are considered one of the best conservation tools available today, and they generally function by restricting certain forms of fishing, which can make them unappealing to many fishermen. However, many MPAs provide benefits to fishing communities. Scientists and resource management specialists around the world have long observed fishing benefits from well-designed and well-managed MPAs. This outcome was recently documented in our own backyard.

A study conducted by UCSB professors Hunter Lenihan from the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, Dan Reed from the Marine Science Institute, and other researchers determined that marine protected areas have benefitted the commercial spiny lobster fishery in our area. In fact, the researchers found that establishing marine reserves enhanced commercial catches despite reducing the overall area open to fishing or that fishermen could fish.

The team compared lobster populations and catch records from waters off the coast of Santa Barbara and Goleta. From 2012 through 2018, divers conducted surveys of the size and abundance of lobsters at five sites. The data revealed that the number and biomass of lobsters increased in and around the marine reserves once fishing was prohibited. In one fishing zone containing two MPAs, annual lobster landings more than doubled in the six years after the MPAs were established despite a 35% reduction in fishing area. This indicates that lobsters were reproducing and growing inside the reserves and spilling out into surrounding areas.

Researchers have therefore concluded that marine reserves increase fishery landings by allowing lobsters to grow in size and numbers within the reserves and migrate into fishable areas.

These findings underscore the importance of Channelkeeper’s work to build stewardship in support of MPAs and educate the public about the benefits of marine reserves. Channelkeeper’s MPA Watch program works with trained volunteers to monitor human uses and activities at the MPAs at Campus Point in Goleta and Naples and Kashtayit MPAs on the Gaviota Coast. The data our volunteers collect can contribute to studies such as this one, by providing important information to help scientists understand how people are using MPAs and to determine how these uses correspond to biological changes in marine life.

Explore the many benefits of MPAs here and sign up to be an MPA Watch volunteer! Walk designated sections of the coast and use our datasheets to record human activities that you observe. Click here to attend a virtual training and get involved.

Santa Barbara Channelkeeper’s Plastic Film Festival

May 20, 2021 by Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

Watch, Learn & Take Action

Plastic pollution is a mounting global concern, and it has significant impacts locally, which is why reducing single-use plastic continues to be a major focus of Channelkeeper’s work. In an effort to help educate and inspire our community, we’ve compiled a list of seven informative films about plastic that are available to stream online. It’s the perfect opportunity to host a documentary film festival in the comfort of your home.

People often think of plastic pollution as litter. However, plastic pollution is more than the clutter of single-use items that wash down storm drains and collect on our beaches. Plastic has severe consequences throughout its lifecycle. From oil drilling and refining to plastic production and waste, every stage is detrimental to human health, and these harmful processes have created a social justice crisis, since the most vulnerable communities are often disproportionately affected.

Plastics are poisoning our bodies through the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Recent studies show that on average, each of us consumes a credit-card-sized amount of microplastics every week, which can carry toxic chemicals such as carcinogens and endocrine disrupters.

Plastic is also a contributor to climate change. More than 99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels. Today, about 4-8% of annual global oil consumption is associated with plastics, according to the World Economic Forum. Plastic production is expected to more than double over the next three decades. If this reliance on plastics persists, plastics will account for 20% of oil consumption by 2050.

Channelkeeper continues to work locally to educate the community about the impacts of single-use plastic and ways to reduce its use, while also continuing to advocate for local policies to reduce single-use plastic and helping to set an example for the state. With studies predicting that plastic pollution in the ocean will likely triple over the next decade, we recognize the urgency of taking immediate action to address this crisis.

We invite you to watch these films, discuss them–and then join us in taking action.

A Plastic Ocean (1hr 42m)
Available on: Netflix or Amazon
This 2016 documentary follows a team of scientists and researchers as well as record-breaking freediver and activist Tanya Streeter, as they travel to 20 different locations across the globe. Directed by journalist Craig Leeson, the film juxtaposes beautiful shots of the ocean with contrasting views of polluted cities and landfills teeming with rubbish. The film reveals how plastic in the ocean gets mistaken for food by marine animals, and goes on to harm organisms all the way up the food chain, including humans.

Frontline’s Plastic Wars (54m)
Stream on PBS
FRONTLINE and NPR team up to investigate the surge of plastic waste in the environment. Plastic Wars reveals how plastic makers have publicly promoted recycling for decades, despite privately expressing doubts that widespread plastic recycling would ever be economically viable.

Inside the Garbage of the World (54m)
Available on: Amazon Prime
This film explores the plastic island in the Pacific and reveals that the situation is actually more dire than anyone anticipated. Directors Philippe and Maxine Carillo evoke a sense of urgency in changing our behavior in order to preserve our planet and our way of life.

Microplastic Madness (1hr 16m)
Vimeo Trailer / Available on YouTube
Told from a child’s perspective, this film follows 56 fifth graders from Brooklyn as they investigate plastic pollution in their community. They collect data which they use to inform policy and set out to rid their cafeteria of all plastic.

Plastic China (1 hr, 22 m)
Available on: Amazon Prime
This film relates the story of people in China who live surrounded by plastic. Tons and tons of plastic are exported to China to be recycled and manufactured into something new. Yi-Jie is an 11-year-old girl whose family lives in one of these waste workshops. Plastic China shows the price that living and working under these circumstances has on their health and way of life.

Plastic Paradise (57m)
Available for rent on Amazon
This film takes us to Midway Atoll, an unincorporated territory of the US off Hawaii, and the site of the Battle of Midway during WWII. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no civilization nearby, the atoll has become a collection site for the waste of the world. Brought in by the currents and tides, the atoll is littered with a massive amount of plastic and garbage that is degrading the paradise which surrounds it, which has become the case all over the Pacific, leading it to be dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Journalist Angela Sun narrates, writes, and directs the film, interviewing a variety of ocean experts, scientists, and advocates.

The Story of Plastic (1hr 35m)
Available on: DiscoveryGo or for rent on Amazon
With powerful insight, this eye-opening film provides a comprehensive look at the global plastic pollution crisis and the ways in which the oil and gas industry has manipulated the narrative around it. The film highlights the fact that, as consumers, our everyday choices add up.

Watershed Hero: Joy Downing Riley

February 1, 2021 by Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

Some people see a problem and wonder how others will solve it—but not Joy Downing Riley. When she noticed that litter was impacting marine life along one of her favorite coastal areas—the Rincon Parkway—she leaped into action, not only by picking up trash herself but by addressing the issue at its upstream source.

Joy believes in the power of individual action to create positive change and over the years she’s served the community in a variety of volunteer roles. Until last spring, she volunteered as a literacy coach. But when the pandemic made it too risky to meet in person, she looked for other ways to give back and joined Santa Barbara Channelkeeper’s Watershed Brigade to help remove trash from public places. In the past nine months, she’s become a star volunteer—and a true Watershed Hero.

The Rincon Parkway, the stretch of beach along the Pacific Coast Highway between Emma Wood State Beach and Mussel Shoals, is a special place to Joy. It’s a vantage point from which she enjoys watching wildlife while taking in the island views and the ever-changing light. She appreciates that the Parkway is accessible to all and loves seeing the happiness on people’s faces–from fishermen and surfers to families.

When stay-at-home orders went in to place in March of 2020 and people looked to outdoor areas for recreation, Joy noticed an increase in the use of this area and observed more trash along the road making its way to the beach. She felt it was important to be out there cleaning the area, educating the community, and doing something positive.

Her experience locating and assessing stranded California sea lions and seals as a volunteer for Channel Island Marine and Wildlife Institute has provided her with firsthand insight into the trash eco-system while also fostering a sense of personal responsibility for the marine life. She has observed the impact that our trash and human street waste have on sensitive areas along the coast as the flow of stormwater runoff carries litter to the ocean and notes the direct connection between the health of wildlife and humans.

“Sea lions are important to study. They are sentinel mammals, and their health can be indicative of a number of environmental concerns,” she explains. “The trash we tend drop on the ground or let blow from trash cans, ends up in our roadsides, culverts, barrancas, and eventually in the ocean. Our degrading debris is toxic to wildlife.”

During her time clearing trash and debris from the Parkway, she’s seen beer bottles strewn by visitors, she’s watched dump trucks unload heaps of dirt, people change their oil, discard Styrofoam to-go food containers, diapers, dog waste, tangled fishing line, and cigarette butts (she once collected 150 in a ¼ mile radius), but she believes that when people know better, they do better.

Beyond cleaning litter from the coastal roadway and beach areas, Joy has taken measures to address litter at the source by educating the public and connecting with companies and public agencies to ask for their help. She talks with people and shares her passion for keeping trash out of waterways and habitats clean.

“My sense is that if people had a better understanding of ecosystems—and the flow of trash to the sea—that they would be more cautious about litter.”

While doing clean-ups in the neighborhood near Telegraph Road and Ventura College, she regularly noticed 10-12 Starbucks cups in the storm drains on her mile and a half route. In Ventura and Santa Barbara open storm drains flow straight to the ocean. So, she made an appointment to talk with the Starbucks manager and together they outlined a strategy to keep cups out of the stormwater system. Their initiatives included new signs reminding customers to dispose of their trash responsibly. She was also able to voice her concerns to the regional Starbucks manager and open a dialogue with local city officials about more expansive litter-prevention actions they could take.

Joy’s enthusiasm is infectious and her presence along this special stretch of roadway has not only shown people that she cares deeply about the Rincon Parkway, it has inspired others to join in.

“It’s as if my presence there—seeing me in my gloves and mask picking up trash has given people permission to go out there and do something positive too. That feels good.”

Joy is living proof of the power of citizen action. By doing regular clean-ups, meeting with store managers and City agencies, and launching an educational campaign to increase public awareness of the path trash takes through storm drains and creeks to the ocean, she has contributed to a community-wide movement and has empowered others to take steps toward creating change.

We are profoundly grateful.