Bryan Pease, attorney for the Animal Rescue and Protection League’s (APRL) SealWatch, has begun campaigning for new legislation in an effort to insert three words into a state land grant he says would protect La Jolla’s harbor seal colony and save the city of San Diego millions. Despite ongoing state and federal litigation involving La Jolla’s harbor seal colony, Pease said he may have solved one of the city’s financial problems. “The cleanest solution would be for state legislation to add ‘marine mammal habitat’ to the 1931 tidelands grant,” Pease said. According to Pease, if state officials would add marine mammals to the list of permissible Children’s Pool uses, the city would save millions from a 2005 ruling requiring ongoing dredging. Pease and seal advocates have asked Senator Christine Kehoe to back the legislation, but Kehoe said she wanted a local resolution. “My hope is that there is a local consensus first — otherwise we take the argument up to Sacramento,” Kehoe said. “I need the council and the mayor and the city council as a whole to give me some direction as to how they want this handled.” Pease has been meeting with San Diego City Council members, including newly elected Council District 1 Sherri Lightner. La Jolla’s Children’s Pool sits inside Lightner’s district. Lightner says she hasn’t made a decision. And before bringing a resolution before the city council, Lightner said Pease may need to go through La Jolla’s planning process to give the public a voice. Last year, Pease fought for the seal colony in federal court, but exhausted his appeals with the city of San Diego. Last month, he won a temporary restraining order in federal court allowing the city to carry out the council’s resolution to install a guideline rope throughout the seal’s pupping season. But a state judge ruled the city must recondition the surrounding area to its 1941 standards, and until the issue is resolved, the city must hire a “seal chaser,” Pease said. “…The heirs of Ellen Browning Scripps, who gave the money to build the seawall, would not take lightly to abolishing the purpose of the trust,” said Paul Kennerson, attorney for Valerie O’Sullivan, the swimmer whose case ended in a ruling forcing the city to dredge the Children’s Pool for swimming. The new legislation would solve the dredging issue and the city would not have to hire a “seal chaser,” according to Pease. Though Pease said he is confident that once the legislation begins at the city level, it would go through to the state, Kehoe said she still had reservations. “We need a local solution that will resolve the issue. To my knowledge, that hasn’t happened yet,” Kehoe said. “I do not have a bill on this topic at this point.” “One of the [council] members would have to sponsor a resolution,” Pease said, adding that harbor seal legislation usually passes through the Natural Resources and Cultures Committee chaired by District 6 Councilwoman Donna Frye. “If it’s not controversial, it could get passed — otherwise it could get public comment,” Pease said. “It would be a request to the state legislators to add ‘marine mammal habitat’ as a permissible use under the tidelands grant.” Casa Beach, or the Children’s Pool, was among several areas the state gave to the city for certain uses in a 1931 state grant, including “public park, bathing pool for children, parkway, highway, playground and recreational purposes, and to such other uses as may be incident to, or convenient for the full enjoyment of, such purposes,” the statutes stated, adding the right to fish off the waters. “There would be a new bill introduced before the legislature with a slight wording change to the 1931 tidelands grant, the law that conveyed Casa Beach from the state to the city,” Pease said. Kehoe said she needs some “indication from the city” that this is what the people want. But at this point, she said, “I can’t promise — we’re putting the cart before the horse.” For information about the Children’s Pool, visit www.friends ofthechildrenspool.com or www.childrenspool.org.