A screen of fog lifted to reveal a bright blue stretch of the Pacific Ocean on Monday — unveiling what will soon be the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

The Northern Chumash Tribal Council hosted a gathering on Indigenous People’s Day at Dinosaur Caves Park in Pismo Beach to celebrate the creation of the first tribal nominated national marine sanctuary.

“Indigenous People’s Day could not have more meaning to us than it does right now,” Northern Chumash Tribal Councilwoman Violet Sage Walker said. “Everything that we see behind us will be protected for all of our lives.”

On Friday, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration announced its decision to designate the sanctuary, which will protect more than 4,500 square miles of the Pacific Ocean off the coastlines of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

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 will be prohibited in the sanctuary.

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.

“Let’s say a little prayer for him when we look at the ocean and thank him for his tenacity and his bravery and his determination and his unwavering commitment to seeing this ocean protection happen,” Walker said. “We wouldn’t be here without him.”

NOAA is expected to publish the sanctuary’s final rule and management plan in the Federal Register on Wednesday. If Gov. Gavin Newsom does not object to the sanctuary boundaries or management plan, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will officially designate the sanctuary after a 45-day review period.

“With this designation, we are honoring the ancestors and descendants of the people who stewarded these lands and waters since time immemorial, and we are acknowledging and respecting their continued connection to this place,” the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory said.

Walker said she expects more tribes to now come forward and nominate sanctuaries. “As soon as people have seen what we have accomplished here, there’s going to be many more in the queue,” she said. “It’s like a passing of the torch. We did it. Others will do it too.”

How the Sanctuary Will Be Managed

While NOAA will be the lead agency managing the sanctuary, the Northern Chumash Tribal Council and other Native American tribes will be included as co-stewards on numerous governing boards.

The goal is to collaborate with Indigenous tribes to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge into resource management, research and data collection, budgeting and public education.

“It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do,” California’s Natural Resources Agency secretary Wade Crowfoot said. “Tribes have been caring for what we now know as California for thousands of years.”

The Sanctuary Advisory Council, a 15-member voting group, will advise NOAA on its management of the sanctuary. The council will have one seat for a federally recognized tribal government and two Indigenous culture seats.

An Indigenous Cultures Advisory Panel will operate as a working group of the Sanctuary Advisory Council, providing guidance on “Indigenous culture, environment, history and experience in the sanctuary area,” the final management plan said.

Meanwhile, an Intergovernmental Policy Council will offer policy recommendations to NOAA. The council will include members of federally recognized tribes, the state of California and NOAA, who will focus on “projects that tribes and Indigenous communities could engage in to support sanctuary goals, as well as sanctuary actions that could support Tribal community priorities,” the plan said.

The Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary was the first to have a council of this kind, the document said.

The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians is the only federally recognized tribe in the area, but the membership of the council could expand if other tribes gain federal recognition status, the plan said.

Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians government affairs and legal officer Sam Cohen said the tribe is glad to co-manage the sanctuary. The designation comes at a “critical time” during the climate crisis, he said.

“Chumash Villages along the coast are being flooded and disappearing every day, and Chumash species are changing because the waters are changing,” Cohen said. “We hope that through the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, the Chumash people, through their traditional ecological knowledge, will be able to participate in this process of sea level rise and climate resilience.”

Expanding Sanctuary Boundaries

The sanctuary will stretch across 116 miles of shoreline from just south of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County to Naples Reef on the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County — protecting 4,543 square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

This is smaller than the design the Northern Chumash Tribal Council suggested in 2015. Those boundaries would have extended north to meet the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, covering 7,600 square mile of the ocean.

NOAA 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 identified three areas that were excluded from the sanctuary: waters from Cambria to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, the Morro Bay Estuary and deeper waters west of the outer boundary. The management plan requires NOAA to start exploring options to expand protections of those areas by January 2032.

To grant sanctuary status to those waters, NOAA could expand the boundaries of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, expand the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary or designate a new national marine sanctuary, the final management plan said.

This plan, however, does not guarantee an expansion of the sanctuary. NOAA must conduct a separate public process to decide on the expansion in the future.

“It is our commitment to continue the expansion of this sanctuary,” Crowfoot said. “We know that there — just to be speaking candidly — is unfinished business, and there is a future phase to move northward to protect cultural assets. We are going to continue to protect the coast.”

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 told The Tribune in September.

The Northern Chumash Tribal Council will continue to protect the health of Morro Bay, she said at the celebration on Monday.

“Our people will always be here. We will always be watching Morro Bay and Morro Rock, and we will be waiting for the day that the sanctuary is whole again,” she said.

She called on NOAA to take good care of the sanctuary and extend the northern boundary to Monterey Bay. “I feel like this is something we gave birth to,” Walker said. “Today, I am gifting our baby to NOAA. Please take care of it. We would like it back in one piece. We would like it to be whole — all the way to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.”

She added: “Please cherish it like we do. Please use our stories and our art and our history to make this spectacular.”