MONTEREY ACCELERATED RESEARCH SYSTEM CABLED OBSERVATORY DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT/ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT PUBLIC MEETING TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS SESSION 2 Taken on behalf of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute at 8272 Moss Landing Road, Moss Landing, California, before Melinda Nunley, CCR #9332, a Notary Public within and for the County of Monterey, State of California. MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 2 APPEARANCES: 3 Vicki Hill, Consultant for Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute 4 Michelle Brown, Project Manager for California Lands 5 Commission 6 Keith Raybould, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute 7 Jon Davidson, EIR/EIS Project Manager from Aspen Environmental Group 8 Marsha McNutt, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute 9 10 --o0o-- 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 I N D E X 2 Page 3 Ms. Hill 4 4 Ms. Brown 8 5 Mr. Raybould 9 6 Mr. Davidson 14 7 Public Comments: 8 Tom Hart for Moss Landing Fishermen's Association 21 9 Conclusion 10 11 --o0o-- 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 Moss Landing, California, Thursday, April 7, 2005 2 6:35 p.m. 3 4 MS. HILL: I think we'll get started here. Unlike 5 our earlier meeting, we do have a member of the public 6 here, so I'm going to give sort of an abbreviated 7 introduction but we'll still want to go through the project 8 description and the summary of the EIR/EIS. Sorry, guys. 9 Anyway, welcome. Welcome all one of you. 10 MS. BROWN: One and all. 11 MS. HILL: Welcome to today's -- or this evening's 12 meeting which is being held jointly by the California State 13 Lands Commission and the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. I 14 think we all know the purpose of this meeting. I am a 15 consultant to the Sanctuary. My name is Vicki Hill, and we 16 are here to present information on the joint EIR/EIS for 17 the MARS Cable Observatory Project which is being proposed 18 by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, MBARI. 19 Did you sign in here? 20 MR. HART: Yes, I did. 21 MS. HILL: And would you like to fill out a 22 speaker slip? 23 MR. HART: No, I can pass on that. 24 MS. HILL: Okay. Well, if you change your mind, 25 you can fill out a speaker slip. McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 MR. HART: Unless you scare me with something you 2 say, and I'm listening. 3 MS. HILL: Okay. And you know that if you don't 4 make comments today, you have till April 26th to submit 5 written comments. 6 MR. HART: Right. 7 MS. HILL: And you also have a copy of the 8 EIR/EIS? 9 MR. HART: Yeah. 10 MS. HILL: Okay. Great. Other key agency and 11 applicant and consultant staff that we have here today 12 include Michelle Brown and Nancy Quesada from the State 13 Lands Commission. On the applicant's side we have Keith 14 Raybould and Mandy Allen. Keith will give us some details 15 on the project description in a few minutes, and then our 16 EIR/EIS consultant is Jon Davidson who is the project 17 manager for Aspen Environmental Group and Aspen was 18 responsible for preparing the EIR/EIS. 19 Okay. Just a little bit of background information 20 on the whole joint EIR/EIS process. The application was 21 filed in February of 2004 with both the State Lands 22 Commission and the Sanctuary, and shortly after that the 2 23 agencies agreed to prepare a joint environmental review 24 document to address the legislative -- or the legal 25 requirements of both the state and the federal governments. McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 Since the proposed cable crosses both state and federal 2 lands or waters, both the California Environmental Quality 3 Act for the state and the National Environmental Policy Act 4 for the federal government apply to this project. Since 5 these 2 legal requirements are very similar, the agencies 6 agreed to do a joint EIR/EIS. The document was prepared, 7 as I mentioned, by Aspen Environmental Group under contract 8 to the State Lands Commission and selected jointly by the 9 Sanctuary and the State Lands Commission. 10 It's really important to point out that the 11 EIR/EIS is not a decision document. It is purely an 12 informational document. It's a full disclosure analysis 13 presenting the environmental impacts of the proposed 14 project as well as alternatives and it doesn't include 15 recommendations on approval or denial of the project. Once 16 the document is finalized, it will be up to state and 17 federal decision makers to approve or deny the project and 18 they must consider information in the EIR/EIS in making 19 their decision. 20 Prior to starting the EIR/EIS, we conducted a 21 process called scoping that was initiated last May. We 22 solicited comments from interested agencies, public 23 interest groups, Sanctuary user groups and interested 24 individuals via a notice that was published in the Federal 25 Register and mailed out to a rather long mailing list. McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 After the notice was sent out, we held scoping meetings 2 last June here during which several fishermen and fishermen 3 representatives spoke. As a result of the scoping process, 4 we received 7 comment letters and they are summarized in 5 Appendix B of the EIR/EIS. 6 Now we're at the stage of reviewing the Draft 7 EIR/EIS. It was published March 11th and it's out for 8 public review through April 26. After the close of the 9 45-day public review period, we will get together with the 10 EIR/EIS consultant to prepare complete and thorough 11 responses to each and every comment that's made on the 12 document. Once those responses are completed, the Final 13 EIR/EIS will be published which will include all the 14 comments and all the responses. After the final document 15 is released, each permitting agency will be required to 16 take a separate action on the project so the joint process 17 sort of ends there once the final document is published. 18 The State Lands Commission, since it's the lead agency 19 under CEQA, will take the first action among the state 20 agencies, and the Sanctuary will take the federal action 21 which is called a Record of Decision. There are other 22 agencies that also have to act on the project, the Coastal 23 Commission, Army Corps of Engineers, and I'm sure there's 24 several others. 25 I think that's all I have for the -- the process. McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 We are expecting that the final document will come out in 2 the first part of July and that a decision by the agencies 3 will be made by August of this year. 4 I'll now turn it over to Michelle who will make 5 some comments and then we'll hand the meeting over to Keith 6 to go over the project description. Thanks. 7 MS. BROWN: Hi, my name's Michelle Brown. I'm 8 with the State Lands Commission. I'm the project manager 9 for this project. The purpose of this meeting is for you 10 to receive information about the project and for us to hear 11 your comments about the adequacy of the draft environmental 12 document which was issued -- 13 MR. DAVIDSON: March 11th. 14 MS. BROWN: -- March 11th. Yes. We have a 15 sign-in sheet on the table in the back that we'd like you 16 to complete for our records and also give your address if 17 you'd like to be placed on the mailing list for future 18 information on this project. Also there are speaker slips 19 beside the sign-in sheet, and I would ask that each person 20 who would like to comment on the project to please write 21 your name and agency or your affiliation on the cards and 22 bring them up to us at the front table. This will help the 23 court reporter properly identify you for the record and 24 will help us respond to your comments in the final 25 document. McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 Sorry. Now Keith Raybould from MBARI will be 2 presenting a description of the project, and following him, 3 Jon Davidson will give the overall details of the 4 environmental document. 5 MR. RAYBOULD: She said that hopefully. I wonder 6 if the projector's been switched off. 7 I'm going to give a project description and I'm 8 going to go through the proposed node location and cable 9 routes, purpose and need for the project, a description of 10 the node and the trawl resistant frame, the shore landing, 11 the type of cable and the installation process and then 12 finish with the schedule for the installation. 13 MARS route is shown here. It goes from Moss 14 Landing across the north of the canyon. The node is 15 located here on Smooth Ridge. There's 53 kilometers of 16 cable which is about 30 miles of cable. The node is in 17 approximately 3,000 feet of water depth. The shore landing 18 here I'm going to describe in detail towards the end but 19 the shore landing goes through a 5-inch horizontally 20 directionally drilled steel pipe. 21 The purpose and need for the project, there's 2 22 major purposes. One is as a test bed for a larger facility 23 that will be built in the future over the next few years. 24 This other major project up off the Oregon/Washington coast 25 is called NEPTUNE. It includes about 3,000 kilometers of McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 cable, approximately 30 nodes, and MARS will be a test bed 2 for first of all testing the technology that will be used 3 to build this NEPTUNE test bed. We have 50 kilometers of 4 cable with a single node, but it's an important step 5 towards realizing this larger facility later on which 6 hopefully should start in about a year or 2. Once this 7 regional cable observatory is built off Oregon/Washington, 8 MARS will be used for testing the instruments, testing 9 installation procedures for instruments on a regular basis 10 over its lifetime prior to instruments being located and 11 used on this cable observatory, NEPTUNE. 12 The other major purpose for MARS is for the 13 support of science. It enables a whole new way of doing 14 oceanography by providing power and band width which is 15 very much in excess of what can be made available with 16 stand-alone battery-powered instruments. Many different 17 science applications being proposed for MARS. I'm just 18 going to mention 2. This one here is the San Gregorio 19 Fault and other fault lines that run across the bay. MARS 20 will be located here. That will allow us to install a 21 permanently powered seismometer to the west of the San 22 Gregorio Fault. There are many instruments, hundreds in 23 fact, on the east side. This will be the only seismometer 24 located on the west of the fault, and this gives us some 25 very valuable information on understanding the fault McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 mechanisms and the location of seismic activity in the 2 region we live in. 3 This other one here is data from a hydrophone and 4 MARS will be used to support a hydrophone. This is 5 frequency and this is time. Here is signals from a whale 6 call, so it can be used for monitoring whale migrations and 7 patterns. This is seismic activity that was recorded. 8 This is a passing ship. So this will allow continuous 9 science capability for monitoring whale activities among 10 other things. There are many other scientific activities 11 proposed. I don't have time to go through all of them. 12 The Monterey Cavity is very active and we will be able to 13 instrument and try and understand what actually formed this 14 canyon going into Moss Landing. 15 The cable itself will be buried to the maximum 16 extent that we possibly can along the route. It's about 17 70, 75 percent will be buried. There's an area on the neck 18 of Smooth Ridge where the substrate is too hard for the 19 burial, but that's in the order of about 20 percent of the 20 cable that cannot be buried. 21 The facility has been designed for a 25-year 22 lifetime. During that lifetime new instruments will be 23 continually designed in different places around the country 24 and installed on MARS for testing. These instruments will 25 be placed within a radius of 4 kilometers of the MARS node McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 on Smooth Ridge and connected by a very lightweight cable 2 that will provide power to these instruments. The MARS 3 node itself can support 8 of these cables to instruments 4 within this radius. It will provide 10 kilowatts of power 5 and gigabits of band width communication between these 6 instruments and the shore, and this is, as I said, a 7 magnitude more than what can be done at the moment with 8 battery-powered instruments, so it will provide a whole new 9 way of doing oceanography from the bay. 10 The node itself is in 2 pieces. There's this part 11 here which is called the node. This is inserted inside the 12 trawl resistant frame so it will be protected inside there. 13 This is the cable that comes back to Moss Landing. These 14 are the cables which go out to the individual instruments 15 around the node. It's been designed in this way so the 16 unit here is trawl resistant. The electronics, the light 17 components are inside this node so that they can be easily 18 brought back to shore for maintenance. There will be no 19 need to bring the cable ship for repairs if there's 20 problems with the electronics. We can bring this node back 21 on a routine basis using the ships that are in and out and 22 in operation daily from Moss Landing. This is the trawl 23 resistant frame itself. It's being manufactured and you 24 can see it matches up with the original design. 25 Shore landing, the shore landing is here. From McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 this position there'll be -- finally there'll be a very 2 small hut there for the power supplies. From this location 3 there will be a horizontally directionally drilled pipe 4 that will be drilled from here across the Moss Landing 5 harbor entrance along a distance of approximately 4700 feet 6 to an exit location here. After drilling, the pipe that 7 was used for drilling will be left in place. It's a 5-inch 8 diameter steel pipe. The cable will enter the pipe at this 9 location and then come through to the shore landing. 10 This is a cross section of the drill route. This 11 is the entrance here. It actually goes approximately 50 12 feet below the ocean surface and the exit point is here 13 4700 feet, as I stated, to the other side of the canyon. 14 For cable installation, this is the vessel for 15 cable installation. It's the Alcatel a cable laying 16 vessel. The cable is approximately one inch in diameter. 17 It's armored. It's single armored and a lightweight 18 protected cable, and as I mentioned, it will be buried 19 approximately 70 percent of the route. 20 The installation of the cable itself with this 21 vessel will take 3 or 4 days. The node will take a further 22 2 or 3 days to install, and then we'll postlay inspect and 23 do postlay burial of the cable where needed. That will 24 take another 1 to 2 days. The schedule for the 25 installation, the HDD we hope to start September 2005. The McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 node installation will then follow the HDD and we plan this 2 in October/November this year, and we really want to get 3 this installation completed before the gray whale southern 4 migration comes about along the coast. The shore landing 5 will be installed November/December ready for operations in 6 early 2006. That's all I have for a project description. 7 Any questions? 8 MS. HILL: No questions? Okay. Thanks, Keith. 9 Okay. Jon Davidson will take over to summarize 10 the EIR/EIS findings. 11 MR. DAVIDSON: I'll just briefly summarize some of 12 the highlights of the Environmental Impact 13 Report/Environmental Impact Statement, and primarily I want 14 to focus on what's critical in this type of document which 15 is the impacts that are considered potentially significant. 16 First we started by -- with the decision to 17 analyze these 9 issue areas on the screen. These were 18 topics that, through the preliminary investigation of the 19 project or the preliminary evaluation of the project by 2 20 lead agencies and through the scoping process that Vicki 21 mentioned, these were topics that were potential leads to 22 result in significant impacts, and as a result, the 23 environmental document focused on just these topics in 24 detail. It turned out not all of them resulted in 25 significant impacts when it was finally analyzed. And then McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 in the second part, if you're interested, in the EIR, you 2 can find explanations of the topics that weren't considered 3 as significant and the reasons why they weren't analyzed. 4 The approach to the analysis of the Environmental 5 Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement is pretty 6 standard if you're familiar with these types of documents. 7 If we start in Section 4, which is the impact analysis, 8 kind of the core of the document, for each topic we start 9 by discussing current conditions and establish the baseline 10 we're going to compare those impacts to. We're also 11 investigating the critical regulations and describing those 12 so you know what regulations are going to be applied to the 13 project in addition to whatever is imposed through the 14 EIR/EIS process or through the approval process that the 15 project has to go through. 16 And in order to compare the impacts to current 17 conditions and determine what's significant, which is the 18 key consideration, we established significance criteria, 19 and these are thresholds that we can use to determine 20 whether an impact is significant. Basically if it meets or 21 exceeds a threshold, then we consider that significant, and 22 those are criteria that are developed by the 2 lead 23 agencies in consultation with the EIR/EIS consultants. So 24 the impacts are then identified and evaluated against those 25 significance criteria, and for those impacts that trigger McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 the significance criteria, we identify them as potentially 2 significant impacts and then we apply mitigation to those 3 potentially significant impacts to determine if we can 4 reduce those impacts back down to a level that is not 5 significant. 6 There were 34 impacts identified in the Draft 7 EIR/EIS. These include 2 types of impacts, those that are 8 potentially significant but can be mitigated to less than 9 significant level, what we call Class 2 impacts, and then 10 Class 3 impacts were also identified, and those are impacts 11 that are adverse but were not significant enough or were 12 not large enough in magnitude or severity so that we would 13 call them significant. We didn't have any impacts that are 14 what we call Class 1 impacts which means that they are 15 significant and cannot be reduced to a less than 16 significant level. 17 So the 4 impacts that are potentially significant 18 were in the 4 areas listed on the screen which are air 19 quality, cultural resources marine vessel traffic and 20 noise. As I said, all of these can be reduced to a less 21 than significant level with the mitigation measures 22 suggested in the Draft EIR/EIS. Since they're so few, I'm 23 going to go through each one individually. 24 The first potentially significant impact relates 25 to air quality, and this is an impact that is fairly McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 typical with construction activities, and that is that the 2 various equipment, vehicles, in this case vessels, that are 3 involved in the construction process will produce emissions 4 from their operations, and based on the calculations in the 5 document, a threshold established by the Monterey Bay 6 Unified Air Pollution Control District will be exceeded, 7 the daily threshold, and therefore, that's our trigger for 8 considering the impact significant. The mitigation 9 measures that are recommended by the air pollution control 10 district, the first is to use certain types of low emission 11 fuels for diesel vehicles. There are only certain vehicles 12 that those can be applied to but there are certain fuels 13 available that can help reduce the emissions, and the other 14 is to contribute to various programs that are run by the 15 Air Pollution Control District that don't reduce the 16 impacts of this project but are paid into a program to 17 offset other emissions in the region and have a positive 18 effect on air quality. 19 The second impact is a cultural resources impact. 20 Basically the applicant, MBARI, has done a good job of 21 selecting a route that avoids any direct effects to known 22 cultural resources, and the cultural resources we're 23 currently concerned with in that regard is shipwrecks, so 24 they've avoided any known shipwrecks and they've done 25 reconnaissance of the route to make sure there are not any McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 unknown shipwrecks that they may have. So far there aren't 2 any. The one concern, though, is that there could be 3 prehistoric resources, and those are basically sites that 4 may have been established when sea level was much lower and 5 thousands of years ago Man may have used some of these 6 areas that are now submerged and there may be some cultural 7 resources, cultural resource sites along the path of the 8 cable that haven't been identified so far, so the 9 mitigation for that is to more closely examine the data 10 that the applicant has already developed in the second 11 route, but to look at it from a different point of view, 12 and that's to combine the expertise of geologists and 13 archeologists in that respect and see if there's anything 14 that makes them think that there might be cultural resource 15 sites there and determine if that's the case and so avoid 16 those locations. 17 The other potentially significant impact is the 18 cumulative risk of conflict with vessel operations out in 19 the bay, and that has to do with the fact that the cabling 20 vessel would have to operate near or potentially near 21 operations of another research project which is a bore hole 22 project which would be located in close proximity to the 23 location of the science node, so if the 2 vessels are 24 operating at the same time and in close proximity, that 25 could be a potential problem and there's actually a McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 regulation that requires that vessels of this type, which 2 are vessels of limited mobility, that there be a one mile 3 buffer around each other, that these vessels should stay at 4 least one nautical mile away. There's potential at least 5 that the 2 projects could have vessels that are closer than 6 that, so the mitigation is to schedule the operations but 7 to continue to coordinate them so that there is not a need 8 for the vessels to be operating at the same time in close 9 proximity. 10 The final measure is a noise mitigation measure. 11 This is for the terrestrial portion of the project which is 12 the shore landing and the shore facility. There's 13 horizontal directional drilling proposed as part of the 14 coast project to bring the cable to shore through a conduit 15 that Keith described, and due to the nature of the 16 equipment that's being used, the noise levels from that 17 equipment could exceed 85 decibels at a distance of 50 feet 18 which is a threshold that's been established in the 19 Monterey County Noise Control Ordinance as a significant 20 level of noise for construction activities, and so because 21 exceeding that threshold is possible, we called that impact 22 significant. The mitigation is to muffle or shield the 23 construction area. There's several techniques available. 24 Any one or a combination of those could achieve noise 25 reduction outside the construction area. So those are the McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 4 potentially significant impacts. 2 The other thing I wanted to mention briefly would 3 be the alternatives we considered. The lead agencies and 4 the applicant considered various alternatives, and there 5 were actually 6 including the no project alternative where 6 they would not move forward with the project at all. Those 7 are the preliminary set of alternatives that we started 8 from to examine them. Then we narrowed them down to 3 9 alternatives that seemed worthy to carry forth to full 10 analysis, meaning that these are the alternatives that are 11 feasible and capable of achieving the objectives of the 12 project and also potentially avoid impacts that the 13 proposed project might have. So those turned out to be the 14 no action alternative and 2 alternative landing locations, 15 so instead of landing in the method that's proposed right 16 now, which is horizontal directional drilling through a 17 conduit that extends offshore, to instead land the cable in 18 a couple different ways I'll show you in a moment, and 19 the -- it turns out that after we did the analysis, the 20 impacts are fairly similar. They're slightly different, 21 but not substantially different than the proposed project. 22 And these are the 2 landing alternatives. The northerly 23 one which is kind of the purple line is a variation on a 24 landing concept that MBARI considered earlier which is to 25 land the pipe -- or land the conduit -- excuse me, land the McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 cable through an existing pipe which is owned by Duke 2 Energy. It's a pipe that's not used anymore but it's in 3 good condition and extends out from the shore so that what 4 they would do is to bring the cable to the end of that 5 pipe, then pull the cable through the pipe and bring it to 6 shore that way. This would still involve some horizontal 7 directional drilling across -- beneath really the entrance 8 to Moss Landing Harbor to get to the same location that the 9 applicant proposes to land in the proposed project on the 10 shore facility. The other alternatives are further to the 11 south of the ridge line on the map, which is to basically 12 cross the mouth of Monterey Canyon at the head of the 13 canyon and parallel to shore to a location where Moss 14 Landing Marine Laboratories is planning to construct a new 15 pier. The cable would be brought to that pier, brought to 16 shore along the pier to the MBARI facilities. 17 So that's -- that's the summary of the EIR/EIS. 18 There's a lot more detail in the document but that's the 19 highlights that we're focusing on, the significant impact 20 effects. 21 MS. HILL: Okay. That brings us to the part of 22 the agenda where we open it up for public comments, and I'm 23 wondering if there's anyone here tonight who would like to 24 make comments. Sure. 25 MR. HART: If I could, on the time line for McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 installation, October to November in 2005, commercial crab 2 season opens on November 15th and it would be my guess 3 between the jetty and where it exits off Smooth Ridge, you 4 could probably encounter anywhere from 700 to 1200 crab 5 traps, you know, unless you -- well, we set 18 hours before 6 the opener, so you know, it would be my recommendation that 7 you got it laid before then. Then you wouldn't have to 8 deal with the crab traps. 9 MS. HILL: And how long is the crab season? 10 MR. HART: It stays open until June, but most of 11 the activity there, we catch about 60 to 80 percent of our 12 crabs in the first month generally, but there will be 13 traffic, and where it goes inside of Pajaro Hole and all 14 the way across the flat to Soquel Hole is -- I named it the 15 Honey Hole years ago because I made a fortune there a 16 couple times, but there is a lot of crab where that's going 17 to cross, and you know, I would recommend that you got it 18 done before that date. Then you wouldn't have to deal with 19 it. 20 MR. DAVIDSON: Can I just ask, for sure the crab 21 season starts November 15? Doesn't it kind of vary a 22 little bit? 23 MR. HART: Unless they go on strike. No, that's 24 set in stone. It isn't like salmon season. It opens 25 November 15th here and then from Sonoma County line north McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 it opens on December 1st. So we have an early opener down 2 here for the crab, an early start. I generally fish tuna 3 off the Oregon/Washington coast and I've been up there when 4 they are laying cable like in some of the other pictures 5 that we saw, and I know that they hired commercial boats to 6 be sort of like a liaison to other boats in the area to 7 monitor traffic and to communicate with them, and I think 8 that would be a good idea to do here since it's been done 9 in other areas. 10 MS. HILL: Could you do me a favor and state your 11 name clearly for the court reporter here? 12 MR. HART: My name is Tom Hart and I'm president 13 of the Moss Landing Fishermen's Association. 14 MS. HILL: Great. Thank you. 15 MR. HART: We will write a written comment also. 16 I had a question on the hydrophone and you were 17 talking about whales and being able to pick up their 18 sounds. My -- I was just curious if you can -- if they can 19 identify individual whales and has that ever been used as a 20 way to count to see how many whales there are? 21 MS. McNUTT: Absolutely. They have distinct 22 sonograms. 23 MR. HART: And then like I said earlier, I think 24 the landing -- the alternative 2, I know that the bottom 25 sand moves there a lot and that cable would be exposed from McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 time to time. I don't think that would be a good area. 2 That's all I picked out, but the most important 3 thing that I can see is that the work got done before 4 November 15th and it would save a lot of grief. I don't 5 like fishing around the cable but I wouldn't want to have 6 my gear there because the fact is while the Point Sur was 7 doing a lot of mapping this couple months ago up off of the 8 Pigeon and stuff, they were dragging my crab gear all 9 around the ocean. I had to go find it 2 or 3 miles from 10 where I put it. They were very good about avoiding them in 11 the daytime, but they were in there at nighttime too and 12 they were in the gear all the time. 13 MS. BROWN: Keith, would you like to elaborate on 14 the hydrophone? 15 MR. RAYBOULD: I know that I've done a workshop 16 where they talked about bringing the cable observatory up 17 in the Arctic, and the -- that some of the scientists there 18 who were monitoring whales were really enthusiastic about 19 having the cable observatory there because they would be 20 able to monitor the whales passing through various breaking 21 ice across in the Arctic and they were very excited about 22 that, and they thought that that was one of the best ways 23 that they could actually monitor migrating whales and what 24 was happening to them and their migrating patterns, so I 25 think it could be pretty valuable. McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 MR. HART: Another thing is like when we go 2 fishing, we, you know, put a certain amount of curve in our 3 lines to attract fish, and I think it would be a good test 4 to -- after the cable's laid, to monitor its path for a 5 leaking current and stuff because, you know, it could -- it 6 could be something that attracts fish, and doesn't matter 7 if it's insulated or not. If it's there, you know, 8 Murphy's law happens. 9 MR. RAYBOULD: Yes, good idea. 10 MS. HILL: Okay. Thanks. 11 Any other public comments, please come forward. 12 And just as a reminder, if you don't make comments tonight, 13 you still have until April 26 to submit written comments to 14 either the State Lands Commission or to the Sanctuary. 15 MS. BROWN: Either fax, email or mail them in. 16 MS. HILL: Anything else? Why don't you do the 17 honors? 18 MS. BROWN: The meeting is now closed. 19 (The meeting concluded at 7:10 p.m.) 20 21 22 23 24 25 McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767 MARS Project Draft EIR/EIS Public Meeting, Session 2, 4/7/05 1 STATE OF CALIFORNIA ) ) ss. 2 COUNTY OF SANTA CRUZ ) 3 4 5 6 I, MELINDA NUNLEY, a Certified Shorthand 7 Reporter, License Number 9332, and a Notary Public in and 8 for the State of California, do hereby certify: 9 That the said Transcript of Proceedings was 10 reported by me in machine shorthand at the time and place 11 therein named and was thereafter transcribed by means of 12 computer-aided transcription, and the same is a true, 13 correct and complete transcript of said proceedings, to the 14 best of my ability. 15 I further certify that I am not of counsel nor 16 related to any of the parties hereto, nor in any way 17 interested in the outcome of these proceedings. 18 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto subscribed my 19 name and affixed my official seal this 14th day of April 20 2005. 21 22 23 24 ________________________________ Certified Shorthand Reporter 25 and Notary Public McBRIDE & ASSOCIATES - (831) 426-5767