Kelp reforesting could get boost

Paul Clinton

CRYSTAL COVE -- Staff members of the California Coastal Commission are

urging their board to allow a local environmental group to plant kelp

seedlings on the ocean floor off the state park in an effort to regrow an

underwater forest that has been disappearing since the 1960s.

The commission will consider whether to grant Orange County

CoastKeeper the permit at its monthly meeting on Tuesday. If approved,

the group would be given five years to regrow the kelp forest.

For the past two years, the group has been dropping seedlings of

California giant kelp into the ocean in an effort to reforest the

once-lush ocean jungles of the plant.

There is almost no kelp off Newport Beach today.

The forests have died off in recent decades for several reasons.

Pollution and sediment, warmer water temperatures during El Nino years

and the declining population of sea otters, who feed on the animals that

in turn feed on kelp, have all played a role.

With the permit in hand, the group would embark on a full-scale

reforestation effort, group leader Randy Seton said.

Their plan is to cultivate the kelp seedlings on tiny ceramic tiles.

Between one and eight juvenile plants are grown on each of the tiles,

which are placed in plastic carts. The seedlings are attached to the

tiles using latex rubber bands.

Once the plants grow into their adult phase, they are transplanted to

the rocks off the cove. The commission’s five-year permit would give

Orange County CoastKeeper a rare opportunity in Orange County, Seton

said.

“We [would be] allowed to do transplants of adult plants and

juveniles,” Seton said. “We’ll be the only people allowed to grow kelp.”

Another Newport Beach environmentalist hasn’t been as successful in

securing the statewide panel’s endorsement to grow kelp. Marine Forests

Society founder Rodolphe Streichenberger was denied a permit to grow kelp

on a man-made tire reef about 300 yards off the Balboa Pier. After the

commission ordered Streichenberger to remove the reef, he challenged the

decision and the commission’s constitutionality. A final court ruling has

yet to decide the issue.

If they secure the permit, CoastKeeper will push ahead, Seton said.

Several hundred tiles will be placed in the cove as early as May, Seton

said.

On Sept. 28, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration gave

$480,000 to California CoastKeeper to regrow kelp. The Orange County

chapter is one of five statewide; the group can tap into that grant

money.

“They have done the background work they needed to do,” said Robin

Bruckner, a fishery biologist who oversees the program for the federal

agency. “Now they can begin some serious restoration [of the kelp

forest].”