Expand the marine sanctuary

The Sierra Club is supporting a bill introduced by Rep. Lynn Woolsey and Sen. Barbara Boxer to extend the boundaries of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary northward to include the Sonoma coastline to protect it from offshore oil drilling.

This coastline contains one of the world's few "upwelling" areas. Upwelling creates intensely productive biological areas that cover only 1% of the ocean but produce over 20% of its fish. The Marin-Sonoma coast is home to 52 species of commercially important rockfish, along with one of the world's largest populations of white sharks. This coast also contains the largest breeding concentration of seabirds in the contiguous U.S. and is a significant rest and feeding area for birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway. Thirty-six marine-mammal species are found along this coast, which lies along the gray-whale migration route and is nursery for over 20% of California's harbor seals. Twenty-seven endangered or threatened species have been documented along this coastline, including the endangered blue and humpback whales and threatened Steller sea lions.

This coastline is an ecological and economic powerhouse, contributing millions of dollars to local economies from tourism and sustainable fishing. Yet much of this plethora is threatened by the new energy bill, which would allow exploration for oil and natural gas in more than a million acres of ocean, including a swath between Bodega Bay and Tomales Bay. Since the coastal currents sweep south along these coasts, oil spills and drilling toxics could devastate the entire upwelling ecosystem and devastate the fishing and tourism industries in Marin and Sonoma. Woolsey notes that the energy bill is "a horrible bill... It invests in oil and gas and exploration instead of alternative energies and conservation. It goes in exactly the wrong direction." The Sierra Club couldn't agree more.

Areas off the Sonoma Coast are currently protected from drilling by a moratorium that must be renewed each year, but Republican-led efforts have recently voted to lift a similar drilling moratorium in Alaska's salmon-rich Bristol Bay. Expanding the marine sanctuary will give more permanent protection. In a West Coast version of the filibuster, opponents of the energy bill's impact on our coastal resources spoke for 23 hours at a public hearing in Fort Bragg before federal officials closed the hearing with people still standing in line.

WhatYouCanDo

Add your voice by contacting your representative, and also Rep. Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee, at:

House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Tell them that you support expansion of the National Marine Sanctuary protections to the Sonoma coastline.