Marin Voice: Protection of National Marine Sanctuaries Vital for Local Communities

In addition to providing pure and healthful drinking water to 186,000 people in Marin County, the core mission of Marin Municipal Water District includes a comprehensive stewardship effort to enhance the habitat of Lagunitas Creek and Walker Creek watersheds. Both provide habitat for endangered native species including steelhead trout, coho salmon and freshwater shrimp.

The Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries off the Marin coast both play an indispensable role in our efforts to protect these species from extinction.

Each of the areas designated as a National Marine Sanctuary has been carefully studied to establish their qualifications for protected status.

The Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank sanctuaries provide habitat and refuge essential for the survival of the coho and steelhead that spawn in Lagunitas Creek and Walker Creek. Both creeks empty into Tomales Bay, which itself is within the protection of the Greater Farallones Sanctuary.

Unfortunately, both of these nearby sanctuaries are targeted for mineral, gas and oil exploration and extraction under President Donald Trump’s ill-conceived Executive Order 13795.

Executive Order 13795 seeks to re-evaluate environmental protection for these and other National Marine Sanctuaries based on an “opportunity cost” analysis which focuses on the potential revenue generated by extraction of mineral resources from these natural treasures. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which administers the National Marine Sanctuary program, defines opportunity cost as “… the value of the next most preferred use. Opportunity costs exist only in situations where there is a scarcity of the resource.”

Given the abundance of developed and recoverable energy and mineral resources in the United States, there is no basis to conclude that exploitation of such resources located in National Marine Sanctuaries is necessary “to accommodate all of the existing demands.”

While the Trump administration has characterized the National Marine Sanctuary program as a “massive federal land grab,” Executive Order 13795 stands that concept on its head by facilitating the corporate colonization of these public assets.

The president’s opportunity cost analysis weighs short-term monetary gains posted by resource-extraction industry against the enduring public health and economic value of a healthy ocean habitat. The subsidized profits of the fossil fuel industry should not and cannot be weighed against the long-term benefits generated by our sustainable local economy including recreational and commercial fishing, tourism and aquaculture.

Recognizing the inherent danger that subsurface oil and gas drilling present to the ocean habitats and nearby coastal communities, both the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine sanctuaries have specific management provisions that prohibit the exploration, development and production of oil, gas and minerals.

Extraction of gas and oil resources in these sanctuaries is incompatible with their core mission to conserve “sanctuary resources,” which includes the endangered coho and steelhead which MMWD, and its public partners, are trying to preserve for future generations.

Our community’s health and much of its economic vitality depends upon the health of our watersheds, and the health of those watersheds is inextricably intertwined with the adjoining marine habitat of both the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine sanctuaries.

In recognition of this timeless environmental relationship, on Aug. 15 the Board of Directors of the Marin Municipal Water District unanimously passed a resolution opposing the Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to abolish key protections for the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marin sanctuaries.

While some have derided these sanctuaries as “environmental elitism,” in truth each was designated in recognition of their singular importance to the interconnected web of planetary life, including endangered local native species and future generations of Marin residents.

Originally published in the Marin Independent Journal: September 7, 2017 at 5:15 p.m. | UPDATED: July 19, 2018 at 11:39 a.m. https://www.marinij.com/2017/09/07/marin-voice-protection-of-national-marine-sanctuaries-vital-for-local-communities/