MORRO BAY, Calif. — An underwater controversy is bubbling to the surface in San Luis Obispo County, where commercial fishermen fear that proposals for new transpacific fiber optic cables will tie up prime fishing grounds for Dover sole, shrimp and prawns.
Billion-dollar business consortiums hope to build landing points along California's Central Coast and lay at least 11, and as many as 32, cables on the ocean floor for communications and Internet links to Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
Telecommunication experts say this area is ideal for landing cables because it is equidistant between cyber-busy San Francisco and Los Angeles, and it has a relatively short stretch of shallow water where the cable must be buried. They say construction would help the local economy while meeting the growing demand for fast worldwide e-mail and telephone service.
Fishermen, however, have another view of the cables.
"If they put in as many as they say they are going to, and they tell us to stay away, it will take all of our fishing grounds," said Roland Eugene Thompson, 66, a prawn fisherman who owns the Slick Chick trawler out of Morro Bay.
Fishing boats are not banned by law from dragging their heavy netting equipment along the bottom near communication cables. But fishermen worry that they could face all sorts of problems, including fines or lawsuits, if they snap the flexible steel and plastic casings that cover the strands of ultra-thin glass fiber optics. Fishing gear can also be caught and lost in the cables, which are usually less than 4 inches in diameter.
"To be honest, this huge number of cables just comes down to another piece of bad news," said Craig Barbre, president of the 55-member Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen's Assn. He trolls for salmon and tuna.
In waters deeper than 6,000 feet, past the trawlers' range, the cables usually rest on the ocean floor. In shallower spots, the companies bury lines 2 to 6 feet under the floor and leave them exposed on underwater rocks and cliffs. Even if the cables are buried, trawling fishermen say, their heavy equipment may disturb the bottom and accidentally break cables that are carrying millions of phone calls.
Much of the debate focuses on the widths of the swaths of sea--from 2,000 feet to as much as two miles wide--that cable builders say they need to put between their individual lines. Only with such big distances, they argue, can they use a high-tech grappling hook for maintenance without damaging other lines. Also, company representatives stress that the cables are more at risk from sabotage or accidents if they are bundled close together.
