Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office
External Affairs
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Contacts:
Al Donner, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
916-414-6566
al_donner@fws.gov
Carol Singleton, California Dept. of Fish and Game
916/327-9948; cell 916/539-6124
csingleton@dfg.ca.gov
Nearly 300 acres of valuable redwood habitat where the threatened marbled murrelet nests will be protected forever under a consent decree filed May 7, 2008, settling a 1997 oil spill in Humboldt Bay.
The important restoration work will compensate for injuries caused by the M/V Kure oil spill in Humboldt Bay. An estimated 4,000 birds died and 6,200 acres of shoreline habitat were oiled in the Nov. 5, 1997 incident at the Louisiana Pacific Export Dock in Samoa, California. A mooring structure punctured a tank on the Kure, releasing 4,500 gallons of fuel oil into the bay. Some of the oil flowed up the coast as far north as Trinidad Head.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), the federal lead agency for the restoration effort, and the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) are the natural resource trustees (Trustees) who developed a Restoration Plan to compensate for the injuries caused by the spill.
The largest project is the preservation of a valuable area of old-growth redwoods, which is essential nesting habitat for the marbled murrelet, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The spill killed an estimated 130 murrelets, a significant portion of the few thousand remaining in California. Murrelets spend most of their life at sea, flying into old growth forests to lay a single egg each year on high, moss-covered branches.
The Save-the-Redwoods League, a non-profit organization that acquires and protects redwoods, will hold the permanent conservation easement on the protected parcels, known as the Big Mynot/E.F. Hunter complex in Del Norte County. A key part of the settlement was the purchase of perpetual easements directly from Green Diamond Resource Company by the responsible parties, Kure Shipping S.A. and Patt Manfield Co. Ltd., both Hong Kong entities.
The complex includes 77 acres of old growth redwoods, one of the largest remaining old growth stands in private ownership. Green Diamond will refrain forever from timber harvesting and other disturbance activities, both in the old growth stands and in 222 acres of second growth that serve as buffer areas around the old growth. The area will be managed to enhance murrelet habitat and reproduction.
The Kure settlement also provides the Trustees with $2,462,067 to enlarge or extend several projects contained in the Restoration Plan for the 1999 Stuyvesant oil spill, which occurred in the same area.
The five projects will enhance wetlands, protect offshore seabird colonies, protect brown pelican roost sites, protect grebe colonies at inland lakes, and further protect marbled murrelets in the Redwood National and State Parks.
One project is a contribution to the 240-acre McDaniel Slough Wetland Enhancement Project near Arcata. It aims to restore tidal action to historic wetlands and provide new hiking trails for the public.
Another project funds management actions at Redding Rock to help restore a breeding colony of common murres. Over 2,700 murres once nested on Redding Rock, four miles off the northern Humboldt coast. But their numbers declined in recent years to fewer than 200. The project will combine education of the public with efforts to lure murres back to the rock
Two other projects will benefit other bird species. One will protect roost sites in the Humboldt Bay area that are used by brown pelicans and cormorants, while the other will protect vulnerable Western and Clark's grebe nesting colonies from disturbance by boaters at several northern California lakes.
Finally, a partnership with Redwood National and State Parks to control ravens, crows and jays will further benefit marbled murrelets and complement the habitat protection efforts. The corvid species cluster around human food waste in unnaturally high numbers, and then in turn destroy murrelet eggs and chicks. This project should reduce the predators through education and garbage management.
The agencies developed the restoration plan as designated natural resource trustees under the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and state law, for natural resources injured by the Kure oil spill.
The final Restoration Plan will be posted shortly. The draft Restoration Plan, which was released for public comment last fall, can be found at www.dfg.ca.gov/ospr/spill/nrda/KureDARP_Draft_PubComment_09_07.pdf
Details of the case may be viewed at www.dfg.ca.gov/ospr/spill/nrda/nrda_kure.html
Details of the Stuyvesant case are at www.dfg.ca.gov/ospr/spill/nrda/nrda_stuy.html
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Last updated: May 9, 2008
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