Student Divers Seek to Bring Kelp Back

Scott Raiche’s marine diving students enviously ask him what it was like to dive in the kelp forests that flourished off Orange County’s coastline until about 10 years ago.

With the near disappearance of the amber forests because of warmer water and overfishing, Raiche’s diving students in the North Orange County Regional Occupation Program see the hundreds of fish and other creatures that live in kelp reefs only when the students travel to Santa Catalina Island.

So Raiche and his staff decided to bring some underwater beauty back to Orange County’s coastline and give their students some hands-on training in the process.

With the eventual aim of restoring a Corona del Mar kelp bed, Raiche started one of only a few Orange County kelp conservation efforts.

Two years ago, he enlisted his students’ skills to transplant giant bladder kelp. After two transplantings and more than 15 maintenance trips to the reef, Raiche said, progress has just started to show.

The project, which is funded by a grant from the nonprofit Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, gives students an opportunity to apply their diving skills and give something back to the ocean, Raiche said.

The students, who are enrolled in marine diving classes that meet at Sonora High School in Fullerton, have twice taken kelp plants from Salt Creek and transplanted them in the 50-meter reef off Corona del Mar’s coastline. After most of the first planting was swept away by large swells or devoured by fish and sea urchins, the students designed safeguards that seem to be working.

Students tie the kelp plants to a cement anchor with cotton line to keep them in place until the plants attach to the ocean bottom. One student also designed a net that wraps around the plant to prevent fish from eating the leaves.

Every few weeks, weather permitting, the class returns to the reef to monitor the kelp’s growth and tie down loose plants.

Of the 11 plants that were transplanted in late March, about seven are still doing well, Raiche said.

The process is slow, but those who have helped care for and monitor the growth of the fledgling reef said any progress makes them proud.

“The whole ecosystem of the kelp is just wonderful,” said student Craig Bird, 36, of Buena Park. “Even if we can’t get a kelp forest started there, we’re still learning something and perhaps in the future we can try again. One way or another, it’ll be worth it.”

Gordon Lehman, another dive instructor who initiated the project, agreed.

“One of my goals is to swim through a kelp forest and know that I helped create it,” Lehman said. “That’s what keeps me going.”