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A decade after its application to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sanctuary nomination process, the 4,543-square-mile Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary is official.

"The exciting part about this is the namesake for a lot of Chumash community members," Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians Chair Kenneth Kahn told New Times. "It's certainly quite the legacy for all Chumash people that have inhabited the area for many, many years."

On Nov. 30, the designation became official. It will stretch 116 miles along the coast from the Diablo Canyon Power Plant to Gaviota and extends off the coast about 60 miles with a maximum depth of 11,580 feet, according to NOAA. It's the first designated marine sanctuary that's connected to a tribe.

The sanctuary's goal is to protect the biodiversity and natural resources of sea life, save it for educational opportunities, and also preserve its historic monuments, Kahn said.

"We have had a lot of village sites on that coastline for many years, and since the Ice Age we've had 26 or so feet of sea level rise, so many of our historic village sites are underwater on the coastline," he said. "Protecting these areas is extremely important."

However, the marine sanctuary's boundary lines contain a much smaller area than what was originally proposed by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council.

According to previous New Times reporting, the application submitted in 2015 proposed that the sanctuary stretch 140 miles from Cambria to Santa Barbara, filling the gap between the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

Through years of planning and months of feedback through 110,000 public comments, NOAA decided a reduced size would be better -- one that was 2,000 square miles smaller and left a gap between the Monterey Bay sanctuary and the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

This was done for a couple reasons, according to the draft environmental impact statement. That draft specified that waters off Cambria and Morro Bay were left out because of the possible installation and management of roughly 30 subsea electrical transmission cables for offshore wind energy development. Currently, three companies have leases with the U.S. Department of Interior for wind energy development areas off both Morro Bay and Humboldt.

NOAA also said it preferred to leave out those same waters due to a naming dispute. The Salinan tribes identified parts of that area as their ancestral homeland and objected to the proposed sanctuary being named "Chumash."

Some community members still worry that the gap between sanctuaries would harm the 20 species of birds, white sharks, bluefin tuna, sea lions, leatherback turtles, whales, sea otters, elephant seals, and other wildlife that rely on migration for survival.

U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) told New Times that there is still the possibility to expand the Chumash marine sanctuary to the Monterey Bay sanctuary as originally planned.

"There's a phase 2 that we hope to get to after the offshore wind energy stakeholders build some of the facilities that they are going to be building," he said. "The reason we have the boundary from Gaviota to the southern part of Diablo Canyon is because the wind energy companies that bought the leases off that northern part of the coast there wanted to make sure that they have the ability to build those facilities and put in the cabling that needs to come in on shore so that we can have successful wind projects."

Carbajal said it makes the wind development process more streamlined and less complicated.

After the wind farms are built, he said, phase 2 will be to connecting the sanctuaries. It'll take around a decade, he said.

As of now, Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians Chair Kahn said the focus is revolving around sanctuary leadership.

Currently, the sanctuary is run by an Intergovernmental Policy Council that includes representatives from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians (the only federally recognized Chumash tribe), NOAA, and the state of California, Kahn said.

Now that the sanctuary been designated, the policy council will work on forming an advisory council within the first couple months of 2025 to help diversify the representation of the partners protecting the sanctuary, he said.

"We're ready to participate at many levels, but we also understand there's going to be a big learning curve for many, and it's going to be a hub for sharing indigenous knowledge," Kahn said. "So we're certainly excited for that."

NOAA will begin accepting applications for sanctuary advisory council seats in early January 2025 and will keep the application window open for 60 days.

The aim is to bring local community members together to develop advice and recommendations for the management and protection of sanctuary resources, NOAA said.

The council will include 15 voting seat members and 15 alternates reflecting a variety of local community interests and experiences to the sanctuary, such as tribal and indigenous knowledge, scientific and education expertise, and federal, state, or local agency representatives with expertise relevant to the management of marine resources and activities within the area.

Following the advisory council's formation, the sanctuary will develop implementation plans for an Indigenous Collaborative Co-Stewardship that will provide meaningful involvement of representatives and partners from multiple local tribes and Indigenous communities.

"There's a council coordinator that will work with the sanctuary superintendent to put together and coordinate meetings, etc.," Kahn said. "We're certainly going to be a big part of that process to make sure that indigenous populations have their input." Δ