Stormy Seas : Dispute Looms Over the Harvesting and Preservation of Kelp Beds

Thanks to Mother Nature, 1990 was a very good year for the handful of companies in California that harvest giant kelp from state-owned beds in the Pacific.

The state Department of Fish & Game predicts that the 1990 harvest will be significantly higher than the 133,000 ton-harvest in 1989. Through the end of September, harvesters had taken 122,000 tons of kelp from the state’s 76 beds, which stretch from San Diego to Monterey. An additional 30,000 tons were probably taken during the rest of the year, the department estimates.

Marine biologists generally view the increasingly abundant harvests of recent years as proof that the kelp beds are recovering from widespread damage that occurred in 1983, when El Nino weather conditions produced warmer-than-average water temperatures and severe winter storms tore plants from the ocean bottom.

The beds, which thrive in cool, clear ocean water, generally have benefited from an increase in numbers of sea otters that are natural predators of sea urchins and abalone, which feed upon kelp. Similarly, the fledgling commercial sea urchin fishing industry also is believed to be reducing the number of predators that feed upon kelp.

But, although the state’s kelp beds are in relatively good health, commercial and societal pressures could change how the state’s 68 square miles of kelp beds are utilized.

State Proposition 132, approved in November by California voters, calls for the creation of four natural preserves along the state’s coastline. Kelp harvesters, commercial fishermen, recreational divers and naturalists probably will be at odds over the location of the reserves.

And, some scientists want the federal government to create a reserve that would encompass all or part of exceptionally lush beds in the Channel Islands National Park. The proposal has generated strong opposition from the state’s commercial fishing industry, which relies upon the Channel Island kelp beds for a hefty percentage of its annual catch.

The scientists, pointing to declining quantities of marine species that live in or near kelp beds, also are pressing the state to reconsider regulations that govern how much kelp can be harvested from the state-owned beds that sit within California’s 3-mile territorial boundary.

The wave of interest in the kelp beds is a relatively recent development, said Rob Collins, marine resources supervisor for the state Department of Fish & Game. “There are now a lot of competing uses and views . . . and one thing about Proposition 132 is that it’s going to intensify (that debate),” Collins said. “It’s been relatively calm in the past.”

Offshore kelp beds consist largely of brown kelp, which includes the more familiar giant kelp as well as bull kelp.

For most Californians, kelp is best known as the irritating stuff that washes up on ocean beaches after storms. But California companies have a long history of harvesting brown kelp, a seaweed that provides extracts used by a variety of industries.

During the early part of this century, kelp was used to produce potash for the production of fertilizer. Before World War I, kelp byproducts were used in the manufacture of munitions.

Those uses have fallen by the wayside, and San Diego-based Kelco is the only U.S. company still extracting algins, a chemical byproduct of giant kelp. Textile companies use algins to help stabilize printing pastes used to create printed designs on fabric. Algins also are used to stabilize foam in beer, to improve the consistency of salad dressings and in the manufacture of fine paper.

Although Kelco is the only U.S. company still harvesting giant kelp for industrial uses, a company in Maine harvests red seaweed. And other U.S. companies import giant kelp byproducts that are extracted by foreign seaweed harvesters in France, China, England, Canada, Norway and India.

“The Chinese probably have more plants than anyone,” said Paul Ulrich, Kelco’s manager of business development. “They probably use more kelp (extracts) than anyone else for their textile industry.”

Kelco, a division of Rahway, N.J.-based Merck & Co., has been taking kelp from the Pacific since 1929. Kelco executives declined to discuss production figures, but 1990 “was our best harvest ever,” said Ron McPeak, Kelco’s manager of marine biology.

But Kelco executives bristle at suggestions that the company has been taking too much kelp from the state-owned beds.

“It’s a renewable resource, but we’ve very concerned about future harvests,” said Ron McPeak, Kelco’s manager of marine biology. “It’s a renewable resource, and we obviously have to take care of it because we want to be in business for a while.”

The company uses monthly aerial surveys to determine which beds are ready for harvest, McPeak said. “Unlike a fish population (which can be difficult to track), you can see kelp on the surface, whether it’s growing or not. . . . You can also estimate how much we’d be able to harvest from one bed.”

Some kelp beds, including those offshore from Santa Barbara, have been slow to recover from the 1983 storm and El Nino weather conditions, McPeak said. But kelp beds offshore from Kelco’s San Diego plant “are in their best shape since, probably, the 1940s,” McPeak said. “If there were problems from harvesting, we’d be sure to see it.”

Although Kelco is the only company harvesting kelp for industrial purposes, a growing number of California-based aquaculture farms are using seaweed to feed commercially grown abalone. Last year, state regulators modified regulations governing the leasing of kelp beds to better accommodate the fledgling aquaculture farm industry.

Kelco operates a fleet of three massive ocean-going “mowers” that lop off the top 3 feet of kelp beds. Conveyor belts carry the kelp to the ship’s hold. The kelp is off-loaded at Kelco’s plant in San Diego.

Aquaculture farms utilize similar technology, “but it’s just smaller in scale,” said Hugh Staton, president of Abalone Unlimited in San Luis Obispo County.

“There are a whole plethora of uses for kelp, and there are going to be more and more demands as time goes on,” Staton said. “But fortunately, kelp is the fastest-growing plant in the world and there’s good evidence that a harvested bed is in better shape and produces more kelp.”

Staton acknowledged that it will be difficult for “a rabid environmentalist to see kelp getting cut . . . their first impression is that it shouldn’t be happening. It’s difficult to get around that corner.”

Commercial abalone farms use relatively little kelp. “Kelco still does over 90% of the harvesting, but there is increased interest from abalone farmers,” Collins said.

The fish and game department charges $1.91 per wet ton for kelp harvested in state-owned beds, and California collected $231,000 from kelp harvesteres during 1989, according to Collins.