Southern California's commercial fishing industry would lose up to 15 percent of annual profits, and Oceanside would be hit harder than any other port, under a network of proposed ocean protected areas from Santa Barbara to the U.S.-Mexico border, a consultant said Monday.

Profits from commercially caught fish brought in through Oceanside Harbor would decline up to 27 percent under three proposals on the table, according to a report delivered Monday by Sarah Kruse, an economist for the Portland, Ore., consulting firm of Ecotrust.

Speaking in Carlsbad to a diverse group of stakeholders that is drafting proposals for the state, Kruse said profits at Oceanside averaged $505,421 a year from 2000 through 2008 for 15 species that Ecotrust's report analyzed. The report sought to pinpoint potential impacts of the new network expected to be adopted by early next year.

Dave Rudie, owner of Catalina Offshore Products, a San Diego seafood company that harvests sea urchins, said during a break in the meeting that Oceanside, a hub for lobster and urchin fishing, would take a big hit because conservationists and scientists are pushing to close to fishing the robust kelp beds along the North County coast.

"There's a lot of pressure now to put a closure in Encinitas," Rudie said.

Rudie is a member of the diverse, 64-member group of fishers, divers, environmentalists, public officials and scientists that is drawing up boundaries. In a bid to protect the ocean environment and shore up declining fish populations, the group is considering designating reserves that bar fishing and conservation areas that limit, but do not eliminate, fishing.

The process, called the Marine Life Protection Initiative after a 1999 law that mandated an overhaul of California's hodgepodge system of reserves, has been under way for a year. It is being overseen by the state Department of Fish and Game.

The large stakeholder group gathered in Carlsbad to get its marching orders for a third and final round of negotiations that are intended to lead to the submission of three final proposals in October.

"I would say we are in the top of the sixth inning here," facilitator Scott McCreary of Berkeley told the group.

The group is scheduled to meet from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Hilton Garden Inn, 6450 Carlsbad Boulevard, Carlsbad, for a work session.

One marching order from Monday was to strengthen proposals so they protect more habitat. While the draft plans provide plenty of protection for estuary, beach and near-shoreline habitat, they don't do enough for kelp beds, scientists told the panel.

And since you have to go 75 miles south of the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County to find the next robust and persistent kelp bed, and since that kelp forest is the one off Encinitas, Rudie said it is almost a foregone conclusion that fishing will be restricted there.

Peter Raimondi, a UC Santa Cruz biology professor who sits on a science team that is advising the group, said after the meeting that "there's just nothing else (in between). In that sense, it is real important because it is the edge of the gap."

During the last 2 1/2 hours of the meeting, about 100 people sounded off on the reserve proposals during a public comment period.

Dozens were kayak fishermen fearful that La Jolla, with its direct beach access, will be closed to recreational activity.

Others were worried about North County's harbor.

"If you close Encinitas and Swami's, you're going to kill the port of Oceanside," said Rob Case of Vista, who grew up in North County and fishes for sea urchins out of Oceanside Harbor.

Joey Helgren, owner of Helgren's Sportfishing at Oceanside Harbor, also warned that the state's network would badly hurt business there.

Helgren suggested the state is looking in the wrong place to protect the environment because fishermen harvest fewer fish than they did in the past, and because water pollution is a pervasive problem.

"Every time someone flushes the toilet, it dumps right out into our ocean," Helgren said.

Besides a possible no-fishing area off Encinitas, there is talk of turning a 10-square-mile area of state waters off Del Mar into a reserve. That is something fishermen proposed giving up as a sort of sacrificial lamb, in a bid to divert conservationists away from La Jolla and Encinitas, which they want left open.

But Del Mar city officials aren't happy about their coastline appearing on some of the maps. They say they fear such a designation could shut down recreation along a waterfront that attracts 2 million visitors annually and is the primary engine of the little city's economy.

Call staff writer Dave Downey at 760-745-6611, ext. 2623.