Kelp Plan at a Crossroads

They thrive unseen and silent off the California coast, these amber-toned kelp forests that teem with a rich bounty of marine life.

Among some ocean enthusiasts, giant kelp communities are viewed with the same reverence as ancient redwood forests.

So when a kelp bed off San Onofre seemed to be failing mysteriously, alarmed scientists sprang into action.

Their conclusion: Kelp was being killed by murky water from a nearby nuclear power plant. The solution: An unprecedented plan to build a 300-acre artificial kelp reef off Orange County’s shores.

Now it appears that the reef may never materialize, as the state Coastal Commission is poised to vote Tuesday on a request from plant operator Southern California Edison to curtail one of the most comprehensive marine mitigation packages ever proposed in California--one that encompasses reef-building, wetlands restoration and monitoring.

The prospect of a rollback of the previously agreed-upon mitigation has triggered vociferous debate as Edison and environmentalists clash over complex issues ranging from fish counts to electricity rates.

The seaweed issue has even spawned a hearing today in Santa Monica by state Sen. Tom Hayden’s Natural Resources Committee on what a news release labels as “Edison’s broken environmental promises.”

The kelp question is proving especially divisive--in part because of the difficulty of probing the health of these submarine forests, and of pinpointing changes that may be caused by natural phenomena or by the discharge from the twin 1,100-megawatt reactors known as the San Onofre nuclear plant.

Edison says its scientists have conducted sonar tests aboard boats above the San Onofre kelp bed, sending sound waves down through the water. The tests, Edison says, prove that the kelp bed has shrunk much less than earlier believed. So Edison is asking for cancellation of the project to create what experts say would have been the largest artificial kelp reef of its kind in the nation. In its place, Edison is proposing a far smaller 16.8-acre experimental reef off the coast of San Clemente.

“We stand behind our commitment to completely mitigate all known impacts, and we think the package we’ve proposed goes well beyond what reasonable people would find proportional to the impact,” said Frank Melone, Edison’s mitigation project manager.

But the Coastal Commission’s staff calls Edison’s proposal woefully inadequate.

“The mitigation they’re proposing doesn’t come anywhere near matching the impacts,” said commission staff official Susan Hansch.

Environmental groups, distrustful of Edison’s findings, accuse the plant operator of going back on its word. They contend that the power company is trying to maximize profits while sacrificing environmental values.

So deep do suspicions run that one Edison critic, marine biologist Rimmon Fay, planned to dive off his boat into the San Onofre kelp bed Friday to see how the kelp bed is faring.

“Edison agreed to the mitigation, and now they’re trying to back away from it, and that’s a pretty bitter disappointment,” said Fay, one of three scientists who conducted a landmark study of how San Onofre may be altering the marine environment.

The study made headlines statewide in 1989 when it concluded that the plant’s cooling system was killing millions of fish, eggs and larvae--prompting the mitigation plan approved by the commission in 1991 with Edison’s consent.

The scientists determined that turbidity stirred up by the cooling system had reduced underwater light and caused a 60% shrinkage in the San Onofre kelp bed. To offset that loss, plant owners were ordered to construct a 300-acre reef.

To date, however, nothing has been built.

In fact, Edison maintains that the San Onofre kelp bed is now as large or larger than it was before the plant began operating--and that a 16.8-acre experimental reef would more than make up for any damage.

In hopes of resolving the deadlock, the Coastal Commission staff and Edison agreed to have three scientists review the Edison data. Although they concluded that the kelp damage was less than once believed, they did not come forward with a hard and fast number of how many acres of kelp have been damaged.

Scientists working with the commission have calculated that a 122-acre reef is necessary. In addition to the 16.8-acre reef, they are proposing a 105-acre reef, to be constructed with the proceeds of a $19.7-million trust fund that would be established by Edison.

All these years of scientific review have been consumed assessing the condition of a forest that the vast majority of Southern Californians will never see.

But people who work with kelp report that these fast-growing submarine plants are laden with both ecological and economic value. As many as 800 species of fish and other living things dwell in the so-called amber forest.

“Kelp beds are probably the single most important ecological habitat off the Southern California coastline,” said Dennis Bedford, marine biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game. More kelp off the Orange County coast, he said, translates into more fish.

And kelp itself is more valuable than it might appear when it washes ashore as a wrinkled, brown mass attracting flies.

The nation’s largest kelp harvester, Nutrasweet Kelco Co., trims the tops of kelp plants from San Diego to Monterey to extract algin, a thickening agent used in food products, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

But rarely has kelp generated as much tumult as it promises to do Tuesday, when dozens of people are expected to debate the fine points of kelp biology at the commission meeting in Los Angeles. Even sportfishers plan to attend, some to lobby for the construction of several smaller reefs to promote the growth of marine life.

Both Edison and the Coastal Commission staff say they’re simply seeking fairness.

“Given the uncertainties surrounding kelp impacts, and their relative insignificance, this level of expenditure cannot be justified,” Edison wrote in a response Friday to the staff proposal.

But coastal planners and environmentalists disagree.

“There’s kelp out there now, so it’s hard for people to understand why everyone’s worried,” Hansch said.

“But it’s not what you see, but what you don’t see. The fact is, there would be more kelp there if not for the plant.”