Kickoff Celebration: CMSF's NOAA Grant and Creating Coastal Resiliency
The Central Coast community is no stranger to the adverse effects of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten our picturesque coastal towns, and the increasing intensity and frequency of natural disasters put our most vulnerable community members at risk. To weather the immense changes in our unique ecosystem in the coming years, local businesses, nonprofits, and governmental bodies must band together and create a plan to mitigate climate-related calamity. Luckily, local partners in the Monterey Bay region have accomplished just that.
Photo By: Jonathan Ford (Unsplash)
As of July 2024, the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation (CMSF), a leader in promoting coastal resilience, had received more than $71 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The award is one of California’s largest grant allotments in history, administered through NOAA’s Climate Resilience Regional Challenge, in which CMSF was honored to compete. The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act funded the nationwide competition, ensuring that participating organizations had the financial backing to support the needs of regions impacted most by storm surges, sea level rise, and flooding.
The projects undertaken by CMSF include preventative and restorative efforts to prepare coastal communities for changing landscapes and extreme weather. Flood and fire risk reduction are the first two facets of this funding, with over fifteen projects addressing these issues financed through the NOAA grant. Likewise, this funding launched the Monterey Bay Climate Adaptation Action Network (MBCAAN), a coalition of researchers, government agencies, NGOs, and Indigenous communities that will further the funding’s objective by encouraging climate adaptation and action. The funding will also go towards workforce development at local universities like the University of California: Santa Cruz (UCSC), California State University: Monterey Bay (CSUMB), and Hartnell College. Finally, CMSF established the Revolving Fund to provide bridge funding in urgent situations and to support other projects aligned with their mission.
Photo By: Malachi Brooks (Unsplash)
Some familiar community partners already benefitting from this funding include UCSC, which secured over $2 million to support education and training programs for undergraduates, graduate students, and working professionals. The City of Santa Cruz was also awarded under this grant umbrella, receiving $8 million to support the planning, design, and construction of resiliency projects at three critical locations: the mouth of the San Lorenzo River on Main Beach, San Lorenzo Park, and Jessie Street Marsh.
Kickoff Celebration
In October 2024, CMSF celebrated this monumental step towards resilient community-building at a luncheon at Moss Landing Marine Labs. The event featured speakers such as CMSF Executive Director Robert Mazurek; U.S. Representative Jimmy Panetta; Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley; Tiffany Wise-West, the City of Santa Cruz’s Sustainability and Climate Action Manager and a familiar face from Blue Innovation Day; Becky Smyth, West Coast Regional Director of NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management; and CMSF Science Advisor John Hunt. Here, CSMF discussed their goals outlined above, determined to make these plans a reality within the next five years.
This marks the beginning of an ambitious push to foster climate resilience across coastal communities in California. While it may be a few years before we see the ripples of this change reverberate throughout our region, the NOAA funding and CMSF’s initiatives are setting the stage for meaningful, long-term action.