Kelp restoration efforts advance

Three years of effort to restore kelp along the Orange County

coastline has added more than an acre of the brown algae to local

waters, according to a recent report.

The report, released Tuesday by the California Coastkeeper

Alliance, covers kelp reforestation efforts from 2001 to 2004. The

alliance coordinates the activities of multiple water-quality groups

in the state. The report summarized progress in kelp restoration from

San Diego to Santa Barbara.

During the period covered by the report, Orange County Coastkeeper

was in charge of planting and monitoring kelp near Crystal Cove and

Laguna Beach. Coastkeeper was one of four organizations that planted

kelp, and the reported 4,500 square meters of kelp restored along the

local coastline was the largest amount of kelp added by any of the

groups.

During restoration efforts, volunteer divers attached kelp spores

to reefs. According to the report, 70 volunteer divers made 170 trips

to help bring kelp back to Orange County waters.

Divers also relocated more than 11,600 sea urchins that lurked

near Orange County kelp beds, according to the report.

The sea urchins were “just picked off and carried elsewhere,”

Coastkeeper Alliance executive director Linda Sheehan said. “They’re

not cuddly.”

Sea urchins eat kelp, and the report blamed urchins, as well as

pollution, coastal development and storms for the decline in Southern

California’s kelp forests. The Coastkeeper Alliance believes kelp

levels in Southern California have dropped 70% in the last century.

Marine biologist Nancy Caruso leads kelp reforestation work in

Orange County. She said the kelp beds planted near Crystal Cove still

need time to grow before teeming forests of algae can be seen from

the shore.

“They’re not huge giant kelp beds yet; they’re still young,” she

said. “If you dive in off the reef, you’ll see it, but it’s not

thriving in gigantic masses.”

Kelp is important, Caruso said, because the algae provides a

habitat for fish and marine life. Fish like to hide in kelp forests

and can feed off the algae itself or animals, such as sea snails and

crabs, that live in kelp forests.

“It becomes like a nightclub,” Caruso said, describing kelp

forests as a gathering place for fish.

Orange County Coastkeeper left the Coastkeeper Alliance in March,

and the Coastkeeper Alliance took over management of the kelp project

in Orange County. Around that time, Caruso was laid off by Orange

County Coastkeeper but was later hired to continue working on the

kelp project by the Coastkeeper Alliance.

Orange County Coastkeeper leaders said they wanted to focus on

urban-runoff-related issues when the group broke away from the

Coastkeeper Alliance.

In early August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration awarded $220,000 to the Coastkeeper Alliance to fund

continued kelp restoration efforts. The California Coastal

Conservancy gave the group $200,000 to restore kelp in December.

* ANDREW EDWARDS can be reached at (714) 966-4624 or

o7andrew.edwards@latimes.comf7.