COOS BAY — Draft legislation that would, in part, limit marine reserves to nine has drawn criticism from the governor’s office.

 Members of the House Emergency Preparedness and Ocean Policy committee acknowledged Friday that Legislative Concept 89 had some flaws, but said the draft was designed simply as a placeholder for future work. The committee held a hearing on the draft on Monday.

 It will be a delicate dance, committee Chairwoman Deborah Boone, D-Cannon Beach, said Tuesday, noting that she is hoping to get the governor’s office, the public and the Coastal Caucus to support the legislation.

 “The bottom line, too, is: We want to help get this process back on track where there is more public trust in the process,” Boone said.

 The issue of marine reserves has kindled strong reactions, both for and against. Many sport and commercial fishermen see a system of reserves as threatening their ocean activities, since the reserves would be off-limits set-asides. On the other side of the issue are conservation and environmental interests, who view reserves as common-sense plans that could help guard against a changing environment and ocean management uncertainty.

 And at the center of the controversy is Gov. Ted Kulongoski. The Ocean Policy Advisory Council has been working on his plans for reserves for years, and on Gov. John Kitzhaber’s plan before that. Public attendance at OPAC meetings has risen as Kulongoski’s plan moves forward.

 Fishermen have raised such a ruckus about reserves that the Coastal Caucus urged Kulongoski to meet with them in November.

 “I am encouraging OPAC to limit its recommendations for reserves to less than 10 reserve sites that are large enough to provide for scientifically testing the ecological benefits they might produce, but small enough to avoid economic or social impacts, such as loss of significant fishing opportunities,” Kulongoski said in a printed statement after he met with fishermen at a Nov. 1 meeting in Salem.

Now that statement — what fishermen took as a promise from the governor of  fewer than 10 reserves — may be in question.

Boone drew on Kulongoski’s statement and OPAC wording when creating the draft. It also acknowledged the recently developed OPAC committee looking at modifying Oregon’s Territorial Sea Plan to incorporate ways to deal with the related issues of marine reserves and wave energy.

It read: “A marine reserve or marine protected area may be established only by amendments to the Oregon Ocean Resources Management Plan. The plan may not provide for more than nine marine reserves and protected areas.”

As written, the governor could not support it, said  Kulongoski’s Natural Resources Policy Director Mike Carrier, in a Friday e-mail to Boone.

Carrier had a few recommendations for changes, but one focused on the number of off-limit ocean areas.

“Further, the Governor’s request for less than ten reserves is focused on the limited system that he asked OPAC to recommend for testing reserves effectiveness. It was not his intent to forever limit reserves to less than ten areas, which is what the bill would do. Thus, the limit of nine reserves is not something that he can support as a statutory limit,” the e-mail said.

 Setting a number of reserves as a statutory limit does raise concern but, as Boone and other committee members said, the bill will change. She also wanted to give the governor’s chief of staff, Chip Terhune, something to talk about during his three-day trip to the coast (see sidebar).

 “I wanted his trip to be fruitful,” she said.

 At the same time, though, Boone recognized coastal communities’ concern. Several ports and coastal municipalities have passed resolutions against marine reserves or the process by which they are being put forward.

Of Kulongoski’s call for no more than 10 reserves, she said, “That’s what people are hanging their hat on.”

 Carrier said Tuesday that the concept of 10 reserves came out of a 2002 recommendation to OPAC to create a limited system to test the effectiveness of reserves.

 “I don’t think with the governor establishing the criterion of no more than 10 … he intended that to be a statutory limit,” Carrier said. “It doesn’t close the door to more than 10 reserves.”

 Setting a statutory limit could be detrimental in the long run, Carrier said, until the state and scientists have a chance to evaluate the ocean areas. Establishing a set number, not knowing whether the reserves will be permanent and not knowing their size, spacing, benefits or location, would be bad public policy, he said.

 Coos County Commissioner John Griffith, who recently was re-appointed to OPAC and attended the committee hearing, said, too, that setting a specific number of reserves is arbitrary.

 However, “getting one or two will be a fight if it’s done without the agreement of the coastal communities,” Griffith said.

 Boone said Tuesday that she and the committee are working to get all the comments — from the hearing, from the governor’s office, from OPAC — into a second draft of the bill prior to its filing on Jan. 24 in preparation for the Feb. 4 session.  

“Then we’ll work it during the session,” she said.

 The committee approved the bill on Monday, 4-1, with Rep. Donna Nelson, R-McMinnville, casting the nay vote.