County supervisor Dennis Rodoni has withdrawn his support for a controversial petition that would ban fishing at Duxbury Reef, the largest shale reef in North America, which lies along the western shore of Bolinas.
In a letter sent last Thursday to the California Fish and Game Commission, Mr. Rodoni urged commissioners to set aside the petition submitted by the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin.
“Today, the Bolinas community is largely united in its opposition to the petition and their concern about being left out of any public conversation prior to its submission,” he wrote. “I hear my constituents clearly.”
Rep. Jared Huffman, who had also sent a letter of support for the proposal, retreated from that position in an email to the Light this week.
“Amid the strife, I see community consensus to protect the magnificent Duxbury Reef,” he wrote. “It makes sense to take the time to ensure everyone is on the same page on the best way to do that.”
The reversals follow months of mounting opposition after Bolinas residents discovered that, two years earlier and largely unbeknownst to them, the E.A.C. had asked the state commission to reclassify Duxbury Reef from a state marine conservation area to a more restrictive state marine reserve. Though conservation areas allow hook-and-line and poke-pole fishing for finfish while prohibiting the take of other marine life, marine reserves ban all fish-ing outright.
A series of fiery meetings have taken place in Bolinas in recent weeks, including one that drew well over 100 residents and another that erupted in acrimony between locals and E.A.C. staff.
As part of the state’s 10-year review of marine protected areas, the E.A.C. has sought to outlaw fishing along roughly eight miles of coastline and extend protections 1,000 feet offshore, from Double Point in the north to a stretch of intertidal zone in the south. After residents outlined grave impacts on commercial fishermen, the E.A.C. sought to amend the petition to scale back the northern expansion. But despite calls for the group to withdraw the petition entirely, it has not backed down.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife will release a draft evaluation of the petition by the end of February, after which it goes to the Fish and Game Commission. Neither agency responded to requests for comment on whether the reversals of support would alter the process.
Duxbury Reef, which received protected status in 2012 after a lengthy public process, is home to more than 200 species that thrive in its tidepools. Agate Beach, its most accessible entry point, is reached by a short trail from a parking lot and is popular among tourists and school groups. A single sign near the trailhead outlines the rules, and enforcement is limited.
A central point of contention is whether sufficient scientific evidence exists to justify tighter restrictions. In its petition, the E.A.C. argues that its team of 14 volunteer docents have observed high levels of poaching at Agate Beach and that rules allowing fishing but banning other take are confusing. Of the 132 potential violations that volunteers recorded at the beach last year, none involved fishing. Sixty-five involved the handling of marine life, and most of the remaining incidents involved dogs off leash.
Critics say that banning fishing would hardly be a panacea. Confusion among visitors should be addressed through clearer signage, education and enforcement, they argue. “They have very little justification, and their justification is pretty questionable,” said Chris Martinelli, a sport angler and deputy chief of the Marin County Fire Department who lives in town.
Save Duxbury Access, a group formed in opposition to the proposal, points to a long-running study conducted by citizen scientists since 2002 that tracks changes in intertidal plots along the reef. The study documents the abundance of species such as mussels, ochre sea stars, snails and various algae. The data show no clear long-term declines other than for the ochre sea star, whose population was devastated by a wasting disease that caused regional mass die-offs.
At the College of Marin’s Bolinas Field Station, biologist Dr. Joe Mueller is leading a team repeating an invertebrate population survey first conducted in the late 1960s by Gordon Chan. The 1969 study documented the abundance and diversity of organisms on the reef and advocated for its protection, while also noting that fishing access should be preserved if a marine reserve were established. The study provides a baseline for comparing present-day conditions more than 50 years later, Dr. Mueller said. His team has been collecting data since 2019, but their findings are not yet public.
Mr. Rodoni said his letter of support, submitted in 2023, was based on the belief that the petition reflected broad community backing. In fact, townspeople say they felt excluded from a discussion about an area that makes up their backyard, and in recent months public sentiment has turned sharply against the E.A.C.
“You’ve got this community riled up,” John Norton said at a meeting last Wednesday. “We talk to your donors. We got billionaires in town, we got millionaires in town, we got working people in town, and we all talk to each other. Your reputation is through the drain.”
The fight has reopened old wounds from the establishment of marine protected areas under the 1999 California Marine Life Protection Act, which outlined a chain of underwater sanctuaries. What followed were years of contentious negotiations between conservation groups pushing for strict curbs on fishing and anglers wary of losing territory. Local fishermen lost long-used grounds off the Farallon Islands and Point Reyes.
“Commercial and recreational fishermen have sacrificed a lot already, and to sacrifice any more is pretty much unnegotiable,” said Jeremy Dierks, one of a few remaining commercial fishermen in Bolinas. “We’ve given up whole fisheries to this process. Other fisheries have been regulated so much that you can’t fish them out of Bolinas. We’re basically reduced to one fishery—halibut—and this proposed area is a major part of that.”
The day before Mr. Rodoni sent his withdrawal letter, representatives from the E.A.C., the Bolinas Rod and Boat Club and Save Duxbury Access met with Fish and Game Commissioner Samantha Murray to discuss the proposal. It was a bright clear day, and they were virtually alone out on the reef. Anglers brought maps showing the extent of existing protections, and later that evening, both sides spoke at a meeting at the firehouse.
“I think the intended purpose of the [Fish and Game] meeting was to get closer to some sort of agreement or compromise,” said Rudi Ferris, vice president of the Rod and Boat Club. “But we’re not going to accept the elimination of fishing. It’s just not something this town can endure, particularly when fishing has never been characterized as destructive. I’ve lived in this town for 62 years, and it’s the cultural traditions that are passed on from generation to generation that make it so special.”
Mr. Ferris emphasized that opposing the petition does not mean opposing protections for the reef. Bolinas, which passed a 2003 ballot measure declaring itself “a socially acknowledged nature-loving town,” has bristled at suggestions that it has failed to protect its shoreline.
“This isn’t to say we can’t help the E.A.C. We share their values,” Mr. Ferris said. “This town has loved the reef since…I don’t know when…forever.”
Wednesday’s meeting ended without any consensus. Repeated calls for the E.A.C. to withdraw its petition were answered with silence, and no clarity emerged on what a compromise might look like.
“We understand that you’ve been working on this for years, but as you’ve heard, we’re just catching on,” Jon Cozzi said. “So it’s not a compromise to pause or withdraw—it’s just decency.”
The E.A.C. demurred. “We don’t feel like withdrawing the petition is a compromise,” said Leslie Alder-Ivanbook, the group’s program director. “We feel strongly that something needs to happen there that’s not just signage, education and enforcement.”
But in acting on behalf of invertebrates—nudibranch, chitons, turban snails, hermit crabs—the group overlooked the immediate impact on people, said Ilka Hartmann, a photographer who has lived in Bolinas for more than 50 years.
“We will always stand up for our fishermen,” she said.