State Building Reef for Fish Off Carlsbad

About 10,000 tons of rock is being dumped off Carlsbad’s coast to form an artificial reef that state officials hope will increase the declining fish population and improve kelp forests for at least 100 years.

When the California Department of Fish and Game project is finished next week, the state will have 32 such reefs--eight of them in San Diego County--to give fish a shelter for feeding and breeding.

“It’s part of our plan for the next 20 years to enhance sport fishery and provide habitat,” Ken Wilson, a marine biologist for the department, said Thursday while a bulldozer pushed rock from a floating barge offshore from Batiquitos Lagoon.

“We’re trying to re-create a natural reef structure, kind of an island of rock in a rather barren desert of sand and gravel,” Wilson said.

There’s an applied science to crafting a man-made reef; biologists seek to form a habitat that will both attract marine life and provide a laboratory for research.

The quarry rock from Catalina Island will be arranged in four rows parallel to the shore, the closest 2,100 feet from land, the farthest 3,000 feet out. Rock groupings will graduate from 37 feet to 57 feet high.

“Ultimately, what we hope to do is go out there and evaluate the reefs scientifically,” Wilson said.

“We can evaluate what kind of fish prefer the small rock and the large rock,” he said, and thus determine where various species are more apt to reproduce.

State officials and local fishermen, noting that artificial reefs have worked elsewhere, are counting on the Carlsbad reef to restore sportfish.

Richard Helgren, who has fished in these waters for 30 years, said he’s seen several species steadily decline over the years, a problem he blames on overfishing and pollution.

“Commercial fishing has taken its toll over the years, too,” said Helgren, who owns Helgren’s Sportfishing Trips in Oceanside. He said the populations of rock fish, halibut and white sea bass have dwindled.

Helgren believes the new reef will help restore the fishery and noted that, at other reefs, “it’s produced a good reproduction spot for the fish. . . . It’s really enhanced the ecology.”

Although some types of fish have declined, other populations have remained stable. The fishery off Carlsbad includes kelp bass, barred sand bass, surf perches, sculpin and sheepshead, among others.

Wilson said the reef, which faces Batiquitos Lagoon, will not interfere with the movement of sand to local beaches or affect the lagoon, which is the subject of recent controversy.

The state Coastal Commission’s plan to dredge the lagoon, allowing ocean water and fish into what has been a shallow wetlands habitat, has brought a lawsuit by the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society.

According to Wilson, fish that will use the lagoon can also benefit from the nearby reef. “We want to make sure there’s plenty of habitat,” he said.

Funding for the $320,000 reef comes from taxes collected on yachts and sportfishing gear and from a state ballot measure that raised the tax on tobacco products.

The Department of Fish and Game built its first artificial reef in 1958 and is now midway through a 20-year reef-building program. Other reefs in the county are off Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, Torrey Pines, Mission Bay and Pacific Beach.