Creating an Ocean Rain Forest off the CA Coast

October 4, 2020

Undoing the harm through California kelp forest mitigation.

On this episode, Peter and Tyler welcome Jenny McGee to the show to learn about her work on the 374-acre Wheeler North Reef, an artificial reef project intended to mitigate environmental impacts from the thirty-year operation of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). Jenny is the Southern California Edison project manager for the project. She explains how the plant's operation impacted marine resources and the company's effort to undo that harm. We discuss the regulatory purpose of the reef, its design, funding sources, construction, and monitoring. It's a massive project that will hopefully provide substrate suitable for kelp to attach and grow and provide essential habitat for the region's marine life.

Show Transcription
This transcription was generated by a computer. Please excuse any errors.
Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham

Peter and Tyler joined forces in 2015 and from the first meeting began discussing a project that would become Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network. At the time, Peter and Tyler were coastal consultants for Pete’s firm, PAR Consulting, LLC. In that role, they worked with coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, engaged in grant writing, coastal project development, shoreline erosion and land use planning, permitting, and financial planning for communities undertaking big beach restoration projects. Between and among their consulting tasks, they kept talking and kept building the idea of CNT & ASPN. In almost every arena they worked, public engagement played a central role. They spent thousands of hours talking with coastal stakeholders, like business owners, hotel operators, condo managers, watermen, property owners, enviros, surfers, and fishermen. They dived deep into the value, meaning, and responsibility for the American shoreline, segment-by-segment. Common threads emerged, themes were revealed, differences uncovered. There was a big conversation going on along the American shoreline! But, no place to have it. That's where CNT and ASPN were born.