How an Unbelievable Accident Led to a Deep Sea Coral Research Opportunity, and Another Challenge to the Fishermen of Monterey Bay
Photo courtesy of MBARI
By Mark C Anderson, June 3, 2024
Fact can be crazier than fiction. And that’s the case with a unique challenge facing our region’s fishermen and marine science experts alike.
That challenge comes to a crossroads with a Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) meeting this month in San Diego.
That’s where a final decision on potential new fishing restrictions will be made after a yearlong scoping process that could add to the woes of the local fleet.
More on that in a second. First, the craziest part.
Back in fall 2016, an old dry dock called YFD-70—a large vessel used to pull even larger vessels out of the water at harbor—was being towed down the West Coast to be dismantled in Mexico, all 500+ feet of it. The plan was to salvage the massive dock’s precious metals and complete its demolition.
Only the dry dock never made it past San Francisco. On the evening of Oct. 26, 2016, the vessel somehow lost connection to its tug vessel and sunk almost 4,000 feet down, coming to rest on the steep slopes of Pioneer Canyon. Its weighty footprint crushed hard-to-quantify amounts of coral-based habitat and marine life, much of it permanently destroyed.
A key detail there: That deep and steep submarine canyon sits about 20 miles west of Half Moon Bay, within the 600,000 square miles of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS).
The longer version of what happened next can be explored through hundreds of pages of legal documents, scientific studies, a 2022 Draft Restoration Plan and 2023 Scoping Document, which correspond to thousands of hours of research and deliberation conducted over months and years.
The shorter version goes like this:
• Under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) has a duty to “restore and enhance natural habitats, populations, and ecological processes” damaged by catastrophes like the dry dock accident, and hold the responsible parties accountable.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reached a draft settlement settling claims with the operators for $8.7 million to compensate for damages, and directed those funds to the MBNMS for restoration activities.
• Since Pioneer Canyon is so steeply sloped and so far below the surface, and YFD-70 is so colossally unwieldy, ONMS went about figuring out ways to heal the sanctuary’s ecosystems elsewhere within its boundaries.
• Because—understatement alert—the world’s corals are in crisis, and pioneering work in replanting corals has been happening in the sanctuary for more than a decade (thanks to marine science partners like the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), there is already a research plan to direct those resources towards coral replenishment.
• After extensive research, deep sea coral experts determined several ideal locations in MBNMS for outplanting and/or translocating corals. These locations qualify because of depth, temperature and water/sediment flow, and could yield helpful lessons on how to replenish coral communities as they’re dying at unnerving rates worldwide, with consequences beyond current scientific means of evaluation.
• In September 2023, the ONMS submitted a set of 10 locations within the sanctuary that would meet their criteria for coral research and restoration projects. By March 2024, that had been reduced to three areas. All three locations are already off limits to bottom trawling, but in order to protect the research sites, ONMS requested these be off limits to all bottom contact gear, such as traps and longlines.
• The three locations—parts of the Sur Ridge, Año Nuevo and Ascension canyons—also happen to be great places to fish for black cod (aka sablefish or butterfish). At present, this fish serves as a final lifeline for greater Central Coast fishers unable to catch Dungeness crab, salmon or nearshore rockfish. (Check out “Crab Season Confidential: A Look Back, Current Realities and What's Next,” “Salmon Season 2024 Realities and a Call for Water Policy Change,” and “Navigating the Quillback Rockfish Closure Complications” for more on those closures.)
• This June, The Pacific Fishery Management Council will decide whether to further limit bottom fishing in one, two or all three of those areas to allow for coral research and restoration. Fishermen would have to go elsewhere to target black cod and try to keep their livelihood afloat, which in their view will cause hardship. Assessing the potential effects of the closures on the fleet—in terms of effort and revenue—is part of the council’s analysis, but unfortunately data are incomplete and impacts are not well understood.
This is the crux of the challenge: protect corals, or protect fishing livelihoods—or somehow find a way to do both.
•••
Fact can also be scarier than fiction too.
Just ask a Monterey Bay fisherman, or a coral scientist.
Both of their torments are well-documented, ongoing and intensifying.
Local fishers—often on the far side of 60 years old—are hard to find as they turn to jobs as mechanics and micro-green farmers out of need, if not desperation.
Steep costs for permits, diesel fuel and offloading fees; infrastructure shortages; disadvantages against conglomerates, cheaper imports and aquaculture; threats from offshore wind development; sale prices artificially depressed by big corporate buyers; warming oceans; and the salmon and crab closures all haunt the fleet.
As the Trust reported in March, amid different fishing restriction proposals, “Describing the complexity of challenges facing local small boat fishermen can be a challenge in itself.”
Deep sea corals, like their more famous shallow cousins, face a barrage of attacks themselves, like pollution, mining, and ocean acidification that erodes their very skeletons. And any recolonization or regrowth can require centuries or more.
“[H]umans were already impacting deep-sea corals before they even knew they were down there,” MBNMS science communication intern Marisa Ferreira reports, drawing on notes from experts like the sanctuary’s research coordinator Andrew DeVogelaere, in a piece titled “Shedding Light: Saving Deep-Sea Coral Communities.” “These threats to deep sea communities only emphasize the importance of environmental stewardship and how we can affect marine life beyond what our eyes can see.”
Studies conducted by MBARI and sanctuary scientists at Sur Ridge demonstrate in biological and ecological detail how damaged corals can be restored at such depths—including transplants that hadn’t previously been attempted. They also reveal how much remains unknown, including how much recovery varies across species and conditions.
“Our actions have already proven to be consequential to these deep-sea communities…” Ferreira writes. “Deep-sea corals are greatly understudied and this research helps us understand how this approach to reconstruct damaged coral populations can work.”
However, expanding that trailblazing research with funds from the dry dock disaster as proposed will directly affect struggling fishermen. All parties involved, sanctuary officials and fishing community leaders alike, agree any closure comes at pretty much the worst possible time for Central Coast small boats.
The Pacific Council process creates at least three touchpoints where managers, stakeholders and the public can weigh costs and benefits of this issue. The ONMS request has been moving through this process over the last year, and will culminate with a final decision at the June meeting in San Diego.
Valerie Phillips, vice president of the Santa Cruz Commercial Fishermen's Association, seized the chance to comment ahead of the council’s upcoming decision. She testified at the March 2024 meeting, and is heading to San Diego to represent the association and its 44 members, as well as 23 commercial fishermen outside the association.
Phillips acknowledged the value of coral restoration and research—and the damage unleashed by YFD-70’s sinking—while making it clear that closing swaths of viable fishing grounds is unwarranted.
“We do not feel the true impact to the commercial fishermen who utilize these areas were fully investigated and lacks data necessary to make the conclusion that the impacts to fishermen would be negligible,” she writes in a letter addressed to current PFMC Vice Chair Pete Hassemer. “California Commercial fishermen in particular have been subject to increased regulatory burdens resulting in fishery disaster declarations and an unfounded amount of loss of fishing opportunity…With other fisheries in peril we can not afford to lose viable fishing grounds anywhere in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary…
“We respectively ask for a [r]estoration plan that can be implemented while coexisting with current fishing activity within the sanctuary.”
Karen Grimmer does outreach with fishermen like Phillips in her role as resource protection coordinator for the MBNMS, and emphasizes how much they mean to the environmental and economic well-being of the fishery.
She also lays out how vital the coral research is to preserve—and perhaps rescue—a battered ecosystem.
“Because of coral bleaching and ocean warming, we’re losing biodiversity, species, and the ability for the ocean and the planet to support life at the fundamental level,” she says. “The more we can do to try to assuage that and reduce those kinds of extreme threats the better. Corals are the building blocks of life in the ocean.”
She adds that the characteristics of the three spots proposed for research are determined by coral experts purely for their natural conditions (like depth and water flow), which some fishermen dispute, and the intent was to avoid affecting fishermen completely.
What also becomes clear is many sanctuary officials didn’t realize how critical those same areas are for struggling fishermen. It turns out that fishermen will fish as deep as 600 fathoms in search for larger black cod that fetch a higher price. The conflict makes it difficult for both interests to co-exist, especially right now.
In short, corals are fragile and valuable, but so are fishing communities.
Those curious to see how this story proceeds can tune into this topic on the morning of June 9. It is Agenda Item F2, and can be seen via the PFMC’s YouTube channel, or interested parties can tune in to the virtual meeting should they like to make a public comment.
Instructions for joining online meetings are posted to the June 2024 PFMC Meeting webpage, where briefing materials are also available.
For more information on deep sea corals in the MBNMS, check out this story map and links to other resources.