Laguna Beach MLPA Workshop Report

[Mr GreenJeans]

Just got back from the workshop, so I thought I would put up a report. There was a pretty good crowd there, with quite a few fishermen. I saw a few familiar faces, but can't say if the kayakers were well represented, or just a few.

I stayed for over an hour and chatted up the staff and stakeholders trying to share the kayaker's perspective. Learned a few things too. Most interesting was that many of the existing "pocket reserves" are being maintained primarily because people are used to having them be there. Case in point is that most of the proposals maintain the existing LJ SMCA, even though it is too small to meet the existing MLPA guidelines. And the Lapis SMR off the LJ point is too small to meet the MLPA guidelines too. So why are these pocket reserves being maintained or newly proposed? Couldn't find an answer. So I used the comment form to ask that these pocket reserves be removed. I also dropped off my prepared remarks with more general comments.

My thanks to the DP and OC guys (and any SD guys too) that could make it to Laguna Beach.

David