Environment

Artificial Reef Leaves Fish Hungry

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published April 9, 2012 at 1:01 PM PDT

This story was published more than 12 years ago.

Artificial Reef Leaves Fish Hungry

UC Santa Barbara researchers say the largest artificial reef off the West Coast is not producing well-fed fish as hoped. Southern California Edison’s permit to operate the San Onofre nuclear power plant depends on the ultimate success of the reef project.

UC Santa Barbara researchers say the largest artificial reef off the West Coast is not producing well-fed fish as hoped. Southern California Edison’s permit to operate the San Onofre nuclear power plant depends on the ultimate success of the reef project.

The 150 acre artificial reef is an experiment to replace 200 acres of kelp beds, lost because of heat discharged into the ocean by San Onofre’s cooling system. Thousands of fish feed in the kelp forest.

UC Santa Barbara researcher Steve Schroeter says, in this third year of the study, the kelp is doing great but it’s having unintended consequences.

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“When there’s very high density of kelp, it shades out the the understory algae,“ he said. “The fish depend on the little moving invertebrates and critters that live in the algae, so with much less algae, you end up with less fish food."

Schroeter says the number of fish meets their goals, and so does the number of different species. But the fish near the new reef are underweight. Their total weigh is an estimated 16 tons, nowhere near the goal of replacing 28 tons of fish affected by the power plant.

Schroeder says Edison’s permit to operate San Onofre depends on successfully mitigating the marine damage, and the experiment has seven years to figure out whether that's happening. The project is independently managed by UC Santa Barbara

The results of this year's study will be presented at a workshop tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Samueli Conference Center at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point.

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Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.