State regulators are proposing a new approach to regulating fishing: creating no-fishing zones in critical habitat, reports the County Times.

The proposal to be considered by the state Fish and Game Commission would establish 22 marine protected areas limiting or banning fishing in 20 percent of state waters from Half Moon Bay to Point Arena. The goal: to help boost beleaguered populations of everything from rockfish to Dungeness crab to abalone by essentially leaving their habitat alone.

Rather than traditional rules that set fishing rules for individual species, like salmon, the idea is to set aside important areas such as kelp forests and underwater rock formations where all species can rebound and grow larger, away from nets, traps and hooks. ...

California has jurisdiction in the ocean out to three miles off shore.

Within that area, the proposal would ban fishing in 11 places, including: off Montara along the coast of San Mateo County; in state waters around much of the Farallon Islands; near Point Reyes National Seashore; off parts of Sonoma County, including Bodega Head and much of the northern Sonoma coast; and off Point Arena in Mendocino County.

Fishing also would be limited in 11 other areas, including near Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in San Mateo County, small parts of the Farallon Islands, waters further off shore from Point Reyes National Seashore, Bodega Bay and areas north of Gualala. The rules would affect commercial and recreational fishing.

Paul Perkovic is MWSD Board President but his letter expresses his individual opinion, not official Board or District policy. He’s running for re-election this year. Coastsider welcomes letters from all candidates for public office on the Coastside.

The risks resulting from San Mateo County allowing private wells without adequate groundwater studies are highlighted in the article “Midcoast water policies blamed for failing well” in last week’s Half Moon Bay Review and Pescadero Pebble.

Montara Water and Sanitary District, not the County, initiated Local Coastal Program changes to give existing homes priority for new public water connections when their wells fail. Coastal Commission action on that LCP amendment has been postponed again. Meanwhile, rather than moving other existing homes with wells to public water supplies before their wells fail, the County wants to reserve priority water for even more “affordable housing” – beyond the hundreds of units already proposed – before allowing new connections.

Contrary to the claim in the HMB Review article, MWSD has never “bailed out a private household well.” MWSD has operated the Montara / Moss Beach water system only since August 2003, during which time the District has developed a major new source of low-cost, high-quality drinking water, among many other improvements. The Review’s reporter asked me about an alleged case from the early 1990s, but that would have been considered by the California Public Utilities Commission regarding the prior corporate owner of the Montara water system, Citizens Utilities Company of California. I explained that I did not know the details of any exceptions to the moratorium considered by the CPUC.

Public water wells, as opposed to wells for single-family homes, must go through extensive environmental studies and monitoring to ensure they do not have adverse impacts. I support development of a groundwater management plan for the Midcoast that would determine safe yields from each of our many Coastal aquifers as a pre-requisite for permitting further private wells. As indicated in the recent Kleinfelder report to the Board of Supervisors, the cumulative effects of the County’s current policy could leave many homeowners with private wells in the same situation as the family in your article, if aquifers are overdrawn during an extended drought. The County has not studied the interactions of many wells in close proximity.

MWSD is working to bring existing well-based homeowners onto the public water system as soon as possible. Everyone in our community should enjoy adequate supplies of safe, reliable, high-quality water sufficient to meet their needs.

Looking for a fun and free event? Join us at Pillar Point Harbor on Thursday, August 6 from 4-7pm for this month’s Cool Harbor Nights classic car show. Vehicle enthusiasts from all over the Bay Area bring their coolest machines for display, discussion, and drooling over. (Well, watch the drool, please. It’s not good for the paint).

The event takes place in the parking lot just in front of Princeton Seafood Company. Admission is free, but you can purchase raffle tickets for great prizes. Proceeds from the raffle benefit the Coastside Boys & Girls Club, supporting academic success and creative enrichment programs for our local youth.

Stroll around, have a bite to eat, maybe even visit a few harbor shops. This is community fun at its best! Hosted by your friends at Princeton Seafood Company (where locals love to eat!)

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District is holding a public meeting in Half Moon Bay August 12 to consider purchasing the uplands area of Elkus Ranch, located south of Half Moon Bay.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
6:30 p.m.
Elkus Ranch Retreat Center
1500 Purisima Creek Road
Half Moon Bay, CA. 94019
   
The District’s board of directors will consider purchase of this 450-acre property from the University of California, who would retain the 150-acre lower portion of the property including buildings that house a retreat center, environmental education and 4H programs.  The District’s purchase of the uplands would help sustain these programs, which provide hands-on environmental science, California history, animal care and agricultural education to over 6,000 youth and adults from the greater San Francisco Bay Area each year.

San Francisco’s Seal Rocks are covered with an unusually large number of seals these days.  This El Niño year is kicking off with a surge in sea lion population that has resulted in the wave of dead sea lions we’re seeing on the Coastside, reports the Chron.

A bumper crop of 59,000 California sea lions born last year means more animals along the coast. And scientists say El Niño is sending warmer water to the California Current, the band of water that stretches from British Columbia to Baja California, bringing more sea lions to Central and Northern California. ...

The animals are moving farther north, perhaps following fish that are seeking colder water. On San Miguel Island in the Channel Islands, where they’re born, there has been a higher-than-normal mortality rate for pups and yearlings, she said.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists are still watching to see whether there will be a full-blown El Niño this year, bringing tropical rain to the western United States from October to July.

In the meantime, fishermen are catching sardines - the sea lions’ favorite food - as well as white sea bass and mackerel that have migrated in with the warmer water.

August 12 is the deadline for filing to run for the Midcoast Community Council (MCC). You should run.  Here are ten reasons why.

• The MCC advises the Board of Supervisors, who are the government for the unincorporated Midcoast on the issues on the Midcoast.
• At least one incumbent isn’t running this year, so the deadline for filing has been extended to August 12.
• It will be easy to get on the MCC this year because there are four open seats and there may not even be four candidates.
• The Board of Supervisors has forbidden elected officials from running for MCC for the first time in its history.
• The MCC played crucial role in creating the current Local Coastal Program, our key planning document. Ignore for the moment that the Supervisors rewrote it to be friendlier to developers and Realtors.
• Private wells in certain areas of the Midcoast may very well run dry because the Supes can’t stop themselves from approving new ones and they’re not collecting data on the ones we have.
• Our roads are miserable.
• Big Wave is coming.
• The Midcoast needs parks, trails, and better thinking about transportation.
• You’re tired of being treated like a colony of Redwood City.
• What’s your reason?

There’s a lot of information on the county’s website about how to run. Or, if you’re not sure what to do, I’ll get you in touch with someone who can help.

Lines are already being drawn in the next big battle over Beachwood. Half Moon Bay will take possession of the property at the end of August. At that point, the city will have a strong incentive to maximize development of the property.

On July 20, the Sierra Club’s Mark Massara has sent Half Moon Bay mayor John Muller a sharply-worded letter seeking clarification about quotes from Muller and city manager Michael Dolder about the future disposition of Beachwood in the County Times.

In particular, Massara took issue with Muller referring to the city’s 100 foot wetlands buffer as arbitrary and outrageous, and the city manager’s reference to repackaging Beachwood for sale.

You can see the letter after the jump.

There will be a meeting at Cunha on Thursday to discuss cuts in the Coastside’s online bus service, Route 17.

You should care about this even if you never set foot on a bus, because many of these riders would the on Highway 1 in rush hour traffic.

The route is a real success story and shows the impact of decent service on ridership. After a grant allowed adding service to Montara, extending hours to 9pm, adding Sunday service, and additional service for children in 2007, daily ridership went from a 5% decline to a 65% increase. After stop was added at Main St and Lewis Foster Drive near the high school in 2008, ridership increased another 10%.

There’s a map of Route 17 after the jump.

Lots of big news for our little Market!  Sunset Magazine just singled us out as being one of the 4 best Farmers Markets in the Greater Bay Area, and "Worth the Trip" for some of the finest, freshest truly Local produce you can get in the region. 

To say we are tickled pink does not quite cut the mustard, but it does put the strawberry on the shortcake, Sally! Thank you from the bottom of our bushels to all of you FOFM’s for helping us grow into the little gem we’ve become over the years. 

And, speaking of strawberry shortcake ( which I have not done often enough) have you ever put fresh lavender buds into a mason jar with about a cup of cane sugar, put a lid on it, and left it in a sunny window for a day or two?  No?  Well, try it.  Because when you open the jar the next day, and use a few spoonfuls of the perfumed sugar to sweeten some fresh cream, sprinkle another scant tablespoon over a few baskets of halved strawberries, and the rest in your shortcake dough, well the whole creation escalates from the sublime to the resplendent, and many an argument or quotidian concern dissolves over dessert.  Or breakfast if you, like my friend Bonnie, are a bit of a pessimist. Really, it will cheer you up and make you believe in the rest of the day, even if the day ahead involves repairing a garbage disposal.  Which my Sunday does, so I’ll be picking up lavender and berries on Saturday, of that you can be certain.

The question is what kind?  The great thing about our markets is that you can take the opportunity to really get in there and notice the differences in the varieties of strawberries our unique coastal environment so generously supports.  Right now you can try the Seascape and Albion types and see which you prefer.  See if you can taste the sea air infused in the ones grown on the ocean in Pescadero, or the warm sunny fragrance of those grown a little further inland north of San Gregorio.  Fair Warning: Once you’ve really tasted a really fresh and carefully grown strawberry, you will become reluctant to disappoint yourself with the sorry substitutes on offer in the stupor-markets, so if you are smoothie dependent, I suggest buying a few cases in the coming weeks and freeze them so you don’t suffer overmuch when winter sets in.

Phase 3 of the Midcoast Groundwater Study, which has recently been discussed at meetings of the Midcoast Community Council and the Montara Water and Sanitary District, will fill some of the data gaps necessary to help us all better understand Midcoast groundwater resources now that we are in the third consecutive dry year.  Time is of the essence to collect data about groundwater during drought conditions.  The Resource Conservation District is looking for landowners who are interested in participating in this study.  We would like to monitor wells that:
-Have no pumps, or the pumps are inactive
-Are near vacant parcels if possible or near streams/ wetlands
-Are not near nurseries

We will install a gage into the well that is about the length of a pen and an inch thick.  It will collect continuous data about water levels which can then be downloaded once or twice a year.

If you think you might be a good fit, or just want more information about the study, please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].