Seal concerns lead to conflict
PACIFIC GROVE >> After the release of a critical environmental study and recommended changes logged by one Pacific Grove commission, a massive hotel project is moving forward, right across the street from colonies of federally protected harbor seals.
The project is on the site of the American Tin Cannery on Ocean View Boulevard in Pacific Grove, just a stone’s throw away from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If built out, it will be the largest structure in the city and that has many people worried.
The developer, El Segundo-based Comstock Properties, is proposing a 225-room, two-wing hotel on the 5.59 acres that will include 20,000 square feet of retail, a restaurant, lounge and meeting spaces. At a total of 377,461 square feet, it would be equivalent to roughly 80 NBA basketball courts.
A massive 1,750 environmental impact report required to log detrimental effects of a construction project is being headed up by the city’s hired consultant, Rob Mullane with HR & Associates. The report states that the hotel and added re
tail at the project site would bring additional business for local restaurants and stores and generate a substantial increase in city revenues. But it also brings a host of worries.
Expected impacts and areas of concern include traffic congestion, visual concerns, water sources, loss of oak and cypress trees, indigenous and Chinese artifacts, historical designations, stormwater controls, grading and excavation, and the impacts on wildlife from construction noise, particularly harbor seals and a shorebird called the black oystercatcher.
Oystercatchers are not endangered but their populations in some areas are declining. Their range runs from Northern California to Alaska, according to the American Audubon Society. The presence of oystercatchers is a sign of a flourishing, healthy mollusk environment.
The seals are not endangered either, but they are protected under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act that was established in 1972, the same year the California Coastal Commission came into being. The federal law primarily deals with what it calls “taking” of marine mammals, which means to capture or kill them.
If the federal government gets involved with the project, it would likely be the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s certain the Coastal Commission will become part of the approval process.
The effects of construction noise on seal colonies around the shore of Hopkins Marine Labs across Ocean View from the proposed project is generating significant organized opposition. There is a petition launched on Change. org that as of Thursday had more than 3,100 signatures in opposition to the project.
And Pacific Grove resident Michaela McCloud has organized ongoing protests every other Saturday at Central and Eardley avenues. The next one will be at noon on Jan. 9, McCloud said.
“I began organizing because I felt the project has been hush-hush and the general public doesn’t know what’s going on,” she said. “It’s not fitting in with the atmosphere of the town.”
The beach visible from the Recreation Trail, called Hopkins West Beach, is home to mother seals and their pups during certain times of the year. Another beach called Fisher Beach is located to the east of the marine labs and also pro
vides shelter during pupping season. The beaches also provide places for the seals to rest. Harbor seals feed at night and come ashore during the day to sleep.
Pacific Grove’s shoreline is also a place where thousands of tourists flock to in order to observe wildlife, including the popular seals around Hopkins Marine Station. Thom Akeman, a docent with Bay Net, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s volunteer naturalist program, said he’s seen more than 1,000 newborn pups over the past 17 years he’s been a docent.
He’s talked about seals with more than 50,000 visitors and has trained other docents to help tourists and visitors understand the seal colonies. His wife, Kim Akeman, maintains a Facebook page called “Harbor Seals of Pacific Grove” that has in excess of 12,000 followers.
“We have seen how little it takes sometimes to disturb the harbor seals and drive them off the beaches,” Thom Akeman said about the estimated two years worth of construction that includes removing an estimated 70,000 tons of granite bedrock — enough to fill 6,000 dump trucks.
The environmental re
port states that no blasting will occur at the site, but it also notes in a geotechnical report that removing that much granite “will probably not be possible with conventional construction equipment.” It does not reference what alternative means of excavation would be used.
The key purpose of environmental impact reports is to identify harmful impacts and then describe what actions would be needed to prevent or lessen the impacts — mitigations. In the case of the noise created by granite excavation and other construction activities, the applicants — Comstock Homes — have identified several ways it says would mitigate the harm.
Officials with Comstock were not immediately available Thursday but in the environmental report it said it would mitigate noise impacts by ensuring that demolition, grading and excavation would take place only between July 1 and February 1, which is outside the typical harbor seal pupping and weaning season that runs from February through May. Akeman said, however, that the timeline is an estimate only and that he has seen mother seals and pups in
January.
Comstock’s mitigation would be to have the city hire a qualified biologist to monitor the rookery prior to the start of construction to identify any late-season pupping or weaning activity. Construction could be temporarily delayed until the biologist confirms that active pupping is complete.
Another mitigation strategy would be to construct a physical sound barrier between the construction site and the seals 400 feet away. But Akeman said harbor seals can spook easily and have taken to the ocean with far less construction noise.
“W hen nursing seal moms are frightened off the beaches by noise or anything else, they may stay away, abandoning their helpless pups to either die from starvation or drown while searching for mom,” he said.
Pacific Grove’s Architectural Review Board is recommending a number of changes to the project that will be heard by the Planning Commission at its next meeting tentatively scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021.
T hose rec ommendations include reducing the height and scale of one of the wings, re-utilizing one of the buildings instead of demolition, not excavating on the lower part of the project on Ocean View Boulevard, and keeping many of the mature oak and cypress trees that are in fair condition.
Because of the scope and any potential appeal of commission decisions, the project has a strong chance of landing on the City Council’s dais at its meeting on Feb. 17, 2021. But with a project of this scope, the permitting process could require a number of meetings.