Man-Made Reef Plays Critical Role in Restoring Kelp and Protecting Beaches

GOLETA, CA (KEYT) - If there was ever a time to give Mother Nature a helping hand, it's now. 

Santa Barbara-based Fish Reef Project is doing just that, giving nature an offshore, underwater boost in seven countries and, here at home.

The nonprofit team is now in a race against time ahead of California's next super El Niño.

"We are what you'd call 'true believers.' Nothing stops us," said Chris Goldblatt, Founder and CEO of Fish Reef Project.

We met up with Goldblatt at the Goleta Pier. He pointed to the site of an offshore reef system in nearly 40 feet of water off Goleta Beach and UCSB. Video shared with your News Channel showed structures teeming with sea life: schools of fish, lobsters, crabs, sea urchins -- a thriving eco-system, man-made, mimicking mother nature. 

The underwater structures are the Fish Reef Project's patented Sea Cave invention, a design Goldblatt called "deceptively simple." 

"These little pock marks are half the size of a tennis ball. That allows the small plankton or kelp seeds a place to grab," Goldblatt explained.

"When you put this on the sea floor, after about a year to 18 months, when you go down there, and there's all this marine life growing on it, it looks like nature put it there."

The individual caves are much larger than the prototype; 6 feet by 4 feet by 3 feet, each weighing one metric ton. 

Goldblatt described the material as pH-neutralized concrete, strong enough to endure sub-sea conditions — even in hurricanes — for more than 100-years, long enough to help restore damaged eco-systems. 

One of the Sea Caves' greatest benefits is replenishing coastal kelp forests.

"If you're over 50 you probably remember, the kelp was so thick that we had to have kelp cutters cut the kelp to get the boats out of the harbor."

Not anymore. The super El Niño in 1983 wiped them out. Goldblatt said those kelp forests are an integral part of protecting local shores.

"We are losing the beach," said Goldblatt. "Behind that is a restaurant, behind that is the airport and the sanitary district so we have to protect it."

As another super El Niño builds, it's bound to happen again.

"The kelp's gonna get thrashed this year," he said.

So, to him, the team's quest to expand its 5-year pilot project to 100 acres off Goleta Beach makes sense. If not granted, the Fish Reef Project faces a bureaucratic wave of destruction, ripping out the sea caves.

"You would essentially kill thousands or millions of marine organisms needlessly. The flip side of that is you can expand it and get your kelp forest back."

Goldblatt said the 2-year permitting process is costly and lengthy and the clock is ticking, the window is halfway closed. 

"Why not Santa Barbara? Why not California? This is where we're from. Why does it take so long to happen here? It's the ultimate legacy for anybody who helps, for hundreds of years, of giving life back to the ocean."

Click here to learn more about the Fish Reef Project and its Sea Caves.

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