Ocean Fathoms, an offshore ocean wine cellar company, is asking the California Coastal Commission for after-the-fact authorization for the placement and use of three wine storage cases installed on the seafloor nearly a mile offshore of Fernald Point in Montecito, while also proposing to install and operate a new, bigger seafloor wine facility in the same area.
In 2016, Ocean Fathoms began to deploy and maintain wine storage devices on the seafloor offshore of Santa Barbara County without required state or federal authorization, according to a staff report. Ocean Fathoms’ efforts continued and expanded over the years, and by March 2019, resulted in the placement of a 64-cubic-foot steel wine storage cage on the seafloor about two-thirds of a mile offshore of Montecito for one year, according to the report.
In July 2020, staff of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers became aware of Ocean Fathoms’ activity and brought the situation to California Coastal Commission staff in August, also alerting Ocean Fathoms that authorization from several state and federal agencies was likely needed, the report said.
Commission staff presented Ocean Fathoms with a notice of violation on Feb. 2 and informed the company that the action was unpermitted and should be removed from the seafloor no later than Feb. 14, according to the report.
The notice of violation informed Ocean Fathoms that the placement and maintenance of wine storage devices in coastal waters was likely not consistent with a section of the California Coastal Act that describes allowable diking, filling or dredging activities in open coastal waters, wetlands, estuaries and lakes, according to the report.
The letter also informed the company that in order to install and operate that type of structure, it would need to gain authorization from the California Coastal Commission, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the California State Lands Commission and the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
“While these three wine storage cages have since been removed and are no longer on the seafloor, placement and removal without CDP authorization is a violation of the Coastal Act,” the report states.
As commission staff was investigating and working to resolve the violation, Ocean Fathoms submitted a CDP application for after-the-fact authorization for its unpermitted development, and the application included a request for authorization of future installation and operation of an even larger structure, according to the report.
The larger structure would involve the placement of six storage cases on the seafloor at a depth of 70 feet, covering about 128 square feet on the seafloor, the report stated. The cages would have an approximate seafloor footprint of 16 square feet each and would extend approximately 4 feet high.
The cages would be installed in a two-by-three configuration, and each storage cage would be able to hold up to 800 wine bottles.
The cages would be installed by a hoist-equipped surface vessel moored in place with a three-point anchoring system and assisted by divers, according to the report. Every three months, the cages would be brought to the surface using the hoist-equipped vessel to rotate and replace the wine bottles, and every 12 months the entire cage would be removed and replaced with one of similar design and size, the report said.
No cleaning or removal of biofouling material is proposed to occur at sea, and no maintenance inspections or monitoring activities are proposed to occur outside of the annual recovery activities, the report added.
The wine storage would be carried out as a commercial operation, and Ocean Fathoms proposes to donate 1% of its profits to the Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute, according to the report.
Ocean Fathoms describes the installation as a pilot project and plans to pursue a full project of 30 wine storage cages in the future, the report said.
The staff report claims that the proposed establishment has the potential to result in adverse impacts to commercial and recreational fishing through damage and loss of bottom contact fishing gear that would come into contact with the wine cages.
“In addition, the facility would adversely affect marine biological resources by disturbing, crushing and smothering marine life with the facility’s installation footprint, altering the seafloor habitat within that area and by trapping and entangling fish and mobile marine invertebrates,” the report stated. “Further, the proposed facility would result in the filling of coastal waters for a use not allowed by the Coastal Act.”
There are three tests that would allow the project to comply with the Coastal Act, the first being whether the fill is for one of seven allowable uses under Section 30233 of the act. Commission staff noted that none of the allowable uses appears to apply to the proposed project, and conveyed that concern to both Ocean Fathoms and its environmental consultant several times before and during the CDP application review process, the report stated.
In a statement to address the concerns, Ocean Fathoms said that while the project is a “unique enterprise that may not initially seem to fit into the specified categories,” it believes that the project is an extension of many similar projects that have been allowed under the California Coastal Act with respect to commercial agricultural use.
“The project includes a design that has been minimized to include a very small area of the seafloor with no significant environmental impacts to the biological resources of the region or impacts on other users of marine environment,” the statement said. “This enhanced wine aging process (is) a natural extension of existing wine industry in Santa Barbara County, which provides valuable jobs to the local agricultural and tourism industries.”
Commission staff wrote in the report that the project is not an extension of other previously approved and permitted projects as it is a “unique, stand-alone project.”
The second test that would permit the project is that if “there is no feasible less environmentally damaging alternative,” the report states, adding that Ocean Fathoms has provided no information in its application regarding alternative designs, configurations and locations it considered for the proposed wine storage cages.
Commission staff, however, identified several alternatives that have the potential to be less environmentally damaging, such as redesigning and reconfiguring the structure so that it has a reduced seafloor footprint and would not pose a risk of trapping, injuring and killing marine life, the report said.
The proposed project fails the second test because there are other feasible less damaging alternatives, according to the report.
The last test for the project is that it presents feasible mitigation measures to minimize adverse environmental effects,” according to the report. The proposed project did include several mitigation measures, including the placement of spill cleanup and response equipment on the project support vessel, among others, but because there are other areas of nonconformity with the California Coastal Act, “there is no need to identify special conditions” that would result in the proposed project being only partially consistent with the act, the report stated.
While the proposed project was on the California Coastal Commission agenda for July 8, the item was continued to a later date not yet announced. However, in the staff report, commission staff recommended that the commission deny Ocean Fathoms’ application for after-the-fact authorization and proposal of the new project.
“The commission finds that the project would not be an allowable use of fill in open coastal waters and that less environmentally damaging feasible alternatives to the proposed project exists,” the report states. “Therefore, the proposed project does not meet two of the three tests of Section 30233 of the Coastal Act.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
