MONTEREY, Calif. -- Groups that fight for healthier oceans are vowing to fight on after President Donald Trump vetoed a bill to ban an outdated type of fishing net that targets swordfish but ends up killing many other species.

The bipartisan Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act would have ended the use of mile-long large-mesh drift gillnets within five years. Ben Enticknap, Pacific campaign manager and senior scientist at Oceana, said the enormous nets are nearly invisible and produce a huge unintended bycatch.

"The coast of California is a migratory hotspot for whales, turtles and dolphins. They can't see these walls of death and ultimately suffocate and drown," Enticknap said.

The bill would have helped fund the transition to a safer, more sustainable type of gear called deep-set buoy gear, which is used during the day and monitored, instead of being left unattended at night like the gillnets.

In a signing statement, Trump said the ban would hurt the two dozen or so fishing crews that catch swordfish off the California coast.

Gillnets already are illegal off the East Coast and the state of Washington. Enticknap said a federal ban is needed because some fishing captains still don't want to switch to the new gear, even though the state of California is offering to pay them to do so.

"California has a voluntary transition program where fishermen can turn in their nets and permits in exchange for money to help them buy new deep-set buoy gear and keep fishing," he said.

Enticknap added sustainably caught fish can garner higher market prices. The California swordfish catch is relatively small, bringing in about $1 million per year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a co-sponsor of the bill, said she plans to reintroduce the legislation in the next session.


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SAN DIEGUITO LAGOO, Calif. - Coastal protection groups are pressing California to prioritize so-called "blue carbon" ecosystems in the fight against climate change.

Dozens of groups have sent a letter to the head of the California Natural Resources Agency - asking for action to protect existing wetlands and near-shore areas, and restore those that have been degraded.

Gilly Lyons, an officer with the Conserving Marine Life in the United States program of The Pew Charitable Trusts, is among those who signed the letter.

"The request from the signers is to protect biodiversity, to store and sequester carbon, and to mitigate the effects of climate change that we're already living with," said Lyons, "things like ocean acidification, storm surges, coastal flooding, etc."

The letter comes during the public comment period for a draft of the CNRA's new "Natural and Working Lands Climate Smart Strategy," to be finalized early next year.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order requiring state agencies to act to accelerate the natural removal of carbon and build climate resilience, especially in lower-income communities.

Angela Kemsley is conservation and communication manager at the group WILDCOAST, which is currently restoring two lagoons in San Diego County. She said natural features like eelgrass beds are important tools in climate mitigation.

"They're actually much more efficient at storing this carbon than land-based plants," said Kemsley. "And so, they're able to take a bunch of carbon out of the atmosphere, store it in the soil - and that helps to fight climate change."

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 90% of California's historic wetlands have been drained for agriculture and development over the past century.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A groundbreaking measure to reduce plastic waste has just qualified for the 2022 ballot.

The proposal would give companies a big incentive to reduce plastic packaging by taxing each item by one penny. It would also make producers meet certain goals for recycling and reuse.

Jennifer Fearing, legislative advocate in Sacramento for the nonprofit Oceana, said the program would raise about a billion dollars a year.

"That would go to funding local governments, so they can upgrade waste and recycling systems, to support state and local governments in broader waste recycling and composting, and then the final 30% would go to environmental mitigation," Fearing outlined.

The American Chemistry Council opposes the measure, proposing instead a more lenient national plan to require all plastic packaging to be made of 30% recycled material by 2030.

The proposal would ban styrofoam food packaging, and would apply to all plastic packaging and foodware, including items sold in stores, restaurants or online.

A huge percentage of the items consumers try to recycle actually end up in landfills, and now many foreign countries are refusing to take our trash.

Fearing pointed out throwaway plastics are causing widespread environmental degradation.

"Plastics are just choking storm water drains, and water treatment and sewer systems," Fearing observed. "They're showing up as microplastics in the oceans and in fresh water."

A 2020 study in the journal Science predicted with current consumption patterns, the amount of plastic waste in our rivers, lakes and the ocean will more than triple by 2050.

MISSION BAY, Calif. -- An important part of California's coastal ecosystem, eelgrass, is disappearing, with 90% gone since the 1950s.

A report commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts found 50% to 65% of the eelgrass restoration efforts are successful. The study showed the choice of where to replant is the most important factor.

Melissa Ward, post-doctoral researcher at San Diego State University and co-author of the report, said eelgrass has many benefits.

"It can improve water quality. It stabilizes the sediment. It also acts as a nursery habitat for a lot of baby animals, like Dungeness crab, California spiny lobster, halibut and Pacific herring," Ward outlined.

The research pulled together dozens of studies to establish best practices for eelgrass restoration.

Eelgrass is abundant in Humboldt Bay up north. It is being restored in Mission Bay in San Diego, and a community program to restore it in Newport Bay has been very successful. But Morro Bay, for example, lost 97% of its eelgrass from 2007 to 2017 due to variations in water circulation and sediment, from natural causes and man-made changes to the harbor.

Lexie Bell, executive director of the Morro Bay National Estuary Program, who also serves on the steering committee for the Pacific Marine Estuarine Fish Habitat Partnership, which released the study, noted the role eelgrass restoration can play in the fight against climate change.

"Eelgrass can help reduce erosion, and that can be a factor with coastal flooding," Bell explained. "And it absorbs carbon, so the more eelgrass you have, the more carbon it can absorb."

Ward emphasized she'd like to see California develop and fund a standard monitoring program for eelgrass.

"We know it's super important, but we have no funding to even monitor on a statewide level where seagrass is and how quickly it is being lost," Ward pointed out.

She added people can help by making sure not to drop anchor in an eelgrass bed while boating, and by supporting efforts to reduce polluted runoff into the sea.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.