Troubled Waters for Abalone Farms Proposal

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — The days of the $3 abalone sandwich and the backyard abalone barbecue are mostly gone in California. It's been two years since the state banned commercial harvesting of the succulent shellfish in the wild. So scarce are abalone south of San Francisco that even sport diving for them is forbidden. But a group of entrepreneurs is hoping to resurrect the state's abalone tradition, with farm-raised mollusks that would be sold at home and abroad.

Four separate upstart operations are seeking permits to raise as many as 2.2 million red abalone in floating wood-and-plastic cages in picturesque Pillar Point Harbor--an unprecedented level of production that has raised objections from environmentalists and fishermen who have been the mainstays here for four decades.

Marine preservationists fear the abalone will gobble up too much kelp and harm native species. Fishermen say the cages will take anchoring space that they must have, particularly in storms.

Staff for the state Coastal Commission, which will consider the proposal today, says those problems can be mitigated and has recommended approval of the aquaculture program, which could more than triple the state's current commercial abalone production.

Doug Hayes, one of those who wants to raise abalone here, compared the hostility toward his proposal to the old range wars between sheep and cattle ranchers. "It's amazing how many people are against me," said Hayes, 42, now a mechanical engineer in the Silicon Valley. "With any kind of development along the coast, there are a lot of people with a lot of strong feelings."

The three other small companies that propose to raise the shellfish also have no substantial experience with aquaculture on this scale, prompting one of the more than 500 fishermen who ply the waters here to call the abalone farmers "experimenters . . . who don't know what they are doing."

The fishermen say the federal government expanded Pillar Point Harbor in the early 1960s specifically to offer a safe refuge for their vessels.

"We have the right to the harbor. It was built for us," said Bob Miller, president of a San Francisco-based fishermen's association. "They want to take it away from us and give it to four guys who want to grow abalone cheap."