Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The expansion plan would turn into reality decades of work aimed at preventing oil drilling offshore of the Sonoma Coast and would help protect critical feeding grounds created by the existence of an ocean upwelling offshore from the southern Mendocino Coast that pumps nutrient-rich water upward and southward toward existing marine sanctuaries. Sanctuary designation does not limit fishing.
The proposed expansion of adjoining national marine sanctuaries that would extend environmental and wildlife protections to the Sonoma and southern Mendocino coasts is on track for agency approval this winter, with suggested revisions that reflect public input, a sanctuary official said Wednesday.
Maria Brown, superintendent of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, said she hopes by spring to celebrate completion of a process that would more than double the combined area of the Farallones and neighboring Cordell Bank marine sanctuaries, prohibiting energy exploration and development in an additional 2,769 square miles of ocean and granting federal stewardship to environmentally rich waters that are brimming with sea life.
Read more via Sonoma, Mendocino coast sanctuaries expansion on track | The Press Democrat.