State Looking at Long Point as New Marine Reserve Site : Environment: The most controversial of the proposed locations had been Bluff Cove in Palos Verdes Estates, a heavily used recreation area.

Protests may derail a state effort to turn one part of the rugged Palos Verdes Peninsula coastline into an exclusive marine ecological reserve, but success could come at the expense of a popular nearby spot.

Under Proposition 132, the Marine Resources Protection Act of 1990, the state must pick four exclusive marine preserves from a list of possible sites. Two of the sanctuaries will probably be in Southern California, possibly somewhere on Santa Monica Bay, with the other two in the northern part of the state.

Once designated, the reserves will be two square miles each and must be used only for marine research. State Department of Fish and Game officials said they will be closed to the public.

The most controversial of the proposed sites has been Bluff Cove in Palos Verdes Estates, a heavily used recreation area. However, a storm of protests has forced the state to consider an alternative site on the other side of the peninsula, near Long Point in Rancho Palos Verdes.

“There’s been a great deal of public opposition . . . (so) it’s less likely that the Palos Verdes Estates site will stay on the list,” said Fish and Game spokesman Rob Collins. He said Long Point could replace Bluff Cove on the list, which will be forwarded to the Fish and Game Commission next week.

Rancho Palos Verdes officials likewise are not happy over the prospect that Long Point will be chosen and have filed a vigorous protest, saying the choice of any site on the heavily used peninsula coastline “doesn’t make sense.”

Critics of the proposal say the idea of having exclusive marine research areas is highly unusual. They note that most federal, state or local marine sanctuaries or preserves allow some degree of public access and recreational use.

City officials, the nonprofit Surf-rider Foundation and other critics accuse state officials of purposely picking high-use spots to generate controversy because they opposed the act from the beginning and want to scuttle it. State officials deny the charge.

The Marine Resources Protection Act was enacted by voter initiative primarily to stop gill-net fishing within three miles of the coast. The controversy focuses on a small section of the act that requires Fish and Game officials to create four marine research areas somewhere along the coast.

Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), author of Prop. 132, said the sanctuary provision was intended to promote research, not prevent public access to the reserves. She too has lashed out at state officials, saying the department is deliberately misinterpreting the measure’s intent.

Collins denied the charge, saying the state is bound by proposition language that limits the use of these areas to research.

A committee, appointed by the Fish and Game Commission to come up with a list of possible sites, will select five or six sites as finalists Oct. 15. Those sites will later be presented to the full commission.

Once the list is narrowed, Fish and Game experts will do an environmental impact study on the finalist sites and make recommendations to the commission. The commission will hold public hearings and make the final selection before the January, 1994, deadline, Collins said.

Locky Brown, a member of the site selection committee, said the list of potential sites in Santa Monica Bay includes the Malibu area, near Los Flores Canyon; Dockweiler Beach area, off Playa del Rey, and Palos Verdes Peninsula, either at Bluff Cove or Long Point. The fourth Southern California site under consideration is in San Diego County, south of San Onofre and just north of Camp Pendleton, Brown said.

Brown said he is a member of Surfrider Foundation, which supported Prop. 132, but he is critical of the marine reserve site selection process. He said the Surfrider Foundation is “adamantly opposed to locating any reserve close to an area that has heavy public use.”

Palos Verdes Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes officials were angered by the state’s site selection process, saying they were not notified that parts of the coast within their city limits were under consideration.

“No one told us or invited our participation in this nefarious process,” said James Hendrickson, Palos Verdes Estates city manager. “This isn’t the way we are supposed to do things in government.”