See the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary from the air. ‘It’s pretty special’
Born in Santa Maria, Ernest Houston thought he would work in the oil fields like his father.
Instead, he's working with the Northern Chumash Tribal Council to establish the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary and protect the Central Coast from further oil drilling.
"We don't want any more oil drilling. Coming from an oil family, it's hard for me to say that," Houston said. "My father worked in the oil fields, and I thought I would too — but it's time to move on."
Houston led an aerial tour of the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary on Wednesday morning from a single-engine Cessna 210 plane. He pointed out the rivers that carry sand to the sea — forming the beaches and dunes that line the Central Coast.
"When you get up (in the sky), you can see larger relationships," he said. "You can see the course of a river going. You can see the lineament in a bridge. You can see the alignment of the Morros. You can see how the land surface changes."
If designated, the sanctuary would protect 4,543 square miles of the Pacific Ocean from the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County to just below Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County, according to the final environmental impact report released Sept. 6.
The purpose of the sanctuary is to protect marine ecosystems, shipwrecks and underwater Chumash cultural and historic sites off the Central Coast. Offshore oil drilling and certain sea floor disturbances would be prohibited in the sanctuary.
"We really feel it is our obligation and our duty to take care of the ocean," Northern Chumash Tribal Councilwoman Violet Sage Walker said. "The ocean is the giver of life on this Earth and probably the most important resource that we have."
This is the first tribal nominated national marine sanctuary in the United States.
The late Northern Chumash Tribal Council Chief Fred Collins originally nominated the sanctuary in 2015. The council and Walker, who is Collins' daughter, carried on his work.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released the final environmental impact report for the sanctuary this month, and the agency is expected to designate the sanctuary in December or January, NOAA's website said.
"He asked me to do this on his deathbed," Walker said of her father. "We finally can rest assured that we took care of his final wishes and we honored his legacy."
Aerial tour of Chumash sacred sites
The airplane took off from San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport on Wednesday afternoon and headed north toward Morro Bay. Suburbs below shrunk to the perspective of a diorama, minuscule compared to Hollister Peak.
The Colorado-based nonprofit EcoFlight provided the tour. Their flights are fully funded by grants and donations, chief pilot Bruce Gordon said.
The nonprofit's goal is to raise awareness about culturally and ecologically important landscapes.
"We want to bring people up in the air and get them to take a real look at it," Gordon said. "I don't want people to come down on one side or the other side. I want them to come down on looking at the land and really trying to understand it for themselves."
As the flight soared over Morro Bay, Houston pointed out the Morro Bay Estuary, known as Tsɨtqawɨ by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council. The estuary won't be included in the marine sanctuary boundaries, as it's already protected by the nonprofit Morro Bay National Estuary Program .
Nearby, Morro Rock is "a deeply spiritual place for the Chumash people," Houston said. The Northern Chumash Tribal Council believes the Rock is so sacred that people should not climb it.
"Living people just simply do not go there," Houston said. "It exists of its own accord. It does not need people to build something on it to be revered."
The flight then whizzed above Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant , which was once home to a large Chumash village, Houston said.
Records show that the Chumash have occupied the area for about 18,000 years, he said. On the coast, the Chumash fished for mussels, clams and limpets, harvested grass and seeds, and hunted on land.
The abundance of food empowered the Chumash people to thrive, building a vibrant culture with traditions of celestial observation, ocean-going navigation and basket weaving, Houston said.
"They were not strapped every day, all day long, in a basic, arduous search for survival," he said. "There was a great deal of cultural advancement because they did have that ability."
Tsipxatu, the traditional Chumash capital, was located in Avila Beach. People often expose burials and artifacts in their backyard while renovating their homes in Avila Beach, Houston said.
"That entire area was sequentially covered with villages almost for a continuous time period, and so that's why it is such a sensitive area," he said.
Those who find artifacts should notify the Northern Chumash Tribal Council at northernchumash.org , Houston said.
The flight then soared over the retired Unocal oil property, where tanks stamped the soil with massive circles. Further south, the Santa Maria River meandered through the valley, carrying sand to the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes.
The pilot then circled over northern Santa Barbara County where much of the coast was hidden by a screen of fog.
One of the most sacred sites protected by the marine sanctuary will be Point Conception, known as Humqaq. The Chumash believe this to be the Western Gate where souls pass into the afterlife.
Point Conception also marks California's Transition Zone, where cooler water from the north meets warmer water from the south — an environment that supports a diversity of wildlife.
NOAA proposed smaller boundaries for marine sanctuary
The proposed boundaries of the marine sanctuary are smaller than what the Northern Chumash Tribal Council first proposed.
In 2015, the Northern Chumash Tribal Council suggested a sanctuary design that started at the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and extended north to meet the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The sanctuary would have also stretched 80 miles offshore to include the seabed west of Santa Lucia Bank.
This design would have protected about 7,600 square miles of the Pacific Ocean and created a contiguous strip of national marine sanctuaries on the California coast.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, however, shortened the northern boundary to allow for the development of underwater cables that would carry electricity generated by offshore wind turbines in the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area to shore.
The final sanctuary management plan will also include a pathway for expanding the sanctuary boundary to meet the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary at Cambria.
That plan would require NOAA to start exploring lengthening the sanctuary boundaries by January 2032 if it wished to pursue a larger sanctuary.
Meanwhile, NOAA extended the southern boundary to the Gaviota Coast to protect beaches, kelp forests and reefs there, as well as land that was previously "home to numerous, large Chumash villages at the time of European first contact," the report said.
While the Northern Chumash Tribal Council originally preferred the larger boundaries, it agreed to the smaller sanctuary to ensure that it would be designated sooner rather than later, Walker said.
Still, the Northern Chumash Tribal Council will continue to advocate for the health of the environment in Morro Bay.
"Just because Morro Bay is not inside the boundaries, does not mean we have agreed to check out," Walker said. "We will be even more actively participating to make sure things go well with offshore wind."
The Northern Chumash Tribal Council won the Lenfest Ocean Grant and NOAA Sea Grant , which will fund their efforts to monitor water quality and ecosystem health on the coast, Walker said.
"We'll be on the front line, being able to see and to monitor and respond and react to changes whether they're positive or negative," she said. "The work of the sanctuary is just beginning."
The marine sanctuary would be largely beneficial to marine habitats that support a diversity of ecosystems within its boundaries, the environmental impact report said.
Sanctuary vessels, deploying buoys or monitoring equipment and uncrewed underwater systems could have temporary, negligible adverse impacts on the environment — but otherwise, the protections afforded by the sanctuary will have long-term positive impacts on the environment, the report said.
NOAA expects to publish the final rule and management plan for the sanctuary in October, paving the way for sanctuary designation in December or January, the agency's website said.
How will the sanctuary be managed?
NOAA will collaborate with the Northern Chumash Tribal Council to manage the sanctuary, according to the draft management plan .
"One of the principal objectives of designing this new sanctuary is to bring traditional knowledge together with Western approaches and science to guide sanctuary management," the report said.
Members of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council would serve on the sanctuary's Intergovernmental Policy Council, the Indigenous Cultures Advisory Panel and the Sanctuary Advisory Council, according to the report. The management structure will be more clearly defined in the sanctuary's final management plan, which NOAA is expected to release in October.
Walker said the Northern Chumash Tribal Council wishes to manage the land from the perspective of "thrivability."
"Thrivability is this idea of rolling back the clock to a time when the earth was cleaner, the water was cleaner, had more abundance, and we had thriving ecosystems," she said.
Walker was born in Avila Beach, delivered by her father in their home. When she was a child, the family could easily catch a steelhead salmon using a pitchfork in San Luis Obispo Creek. Now, there are few salmon left in the river.
"In one generation, they've gone from abundance to barely there," she said.
She hopes that proper management of the sanctuary will restore the health of coastal ecosystems.
"I was one of the last Chumash born on our village there in Avila," she said. "How many people can say they were able to protect the place they live, the place they were born, they place they're from? It's pretty special."
