4.8 Socioeconomics
Loss of Nursery Habitat
The nearshore trap fisheries most likely to be affected include lobster, crab, and fish (mainly sheephead).
While direct impacts of the proposed project can be evaluated relative to the commercial resources,
indirect effects cannot easily be predicted. There is essentially no available information upon which to
objectively evaluate the effects ofturbidityand sand transport upon the recruitment, growth, and maturation
of juvenile lobster on the North County coast. NEPA Regulations promulgated by the Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) address the required approach where incomplete or unavailable information
is an issue (40 C.F.R. 1502.22). Generally, the fact that information is unavailable must be indicated and
existing, credible scientific evidence which is relevant must be summarized so that methods generally
accepted by the scientific community can be utilized. Section 3.8 summarizes the limited studies in New
Zealand on sediment/ turbidity and juvenile lobsters. This impact analysis uses that data as well as a focus
on the effects of the project on habitats which support lobster populations, specifically surfgrass for nursery
and hard bottom for shelter/foraging. Fish block data for Port of Oceanside landings indicate that 62
percent of the catch came from the Encinitas/Solana Beach fish block area, 29 percent for Oceanside, and
9 percent from Del Mar/Torrey Pines. These landings data tend to correlate with the amount of hard
bottom and surfgrass resources reported from within each of these areas. This general correlation tends
to support this approach of evaluating effects to lobster with effects to surfgrass or substrate.
Lobsters are creatures of the nearshore zone and are adapted to wave surge, turbidity, siltation and sand
burial of habitat. Juvenile lobsters spend one to two years in the nearshore area and are dependent upon
surfgrass and hard bottom reef habitats as a nursery area and a refuge from predators. The effects of the
beach replenishment and subsequent redistribution of the sands upon these habitats has the potential to
cause loss of commercial resources. The project has been designed to avoid indirect impacts to intertidal
surfgrass which would minimize potential impacts to lobster nursery areas (Section 4.4). However, some
nearshore low-lying reefs, including one with nearshore surfgrass, would be temporarily covered by sand
redistribution and this could cause a short-term loss of habitat for juvenile lobsters. The significance of this
effect upon juvenile lobsters is difficult to determine, but it is judged to be less than significant based upon
the small area of predicted reef burial compared to the total available reef habitat. As noted in Section 4.4,
three small reefs south of the North Carlsbad receiver site, with a total area of 0.24 acre has surfgrass
which may experience partial sedimentation. However, in relation to the approximately 40 acres of
observed intertidal zone surfgrass reefs from Oceanside to Torrey Pines, and the assumed presence of a
similar sized area in the nearshore area along this same stretch of coast, the area of surfgrass experiencing
partial sedimentation is insignificant. Under the worst-case assumption, partial sedimentation is predicted
Page 4.8-6
Regional Beach Sand Project EIR/EA
99-69\SANDAG EIREA 4.1 to 4.13.wpd 7/17/00
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