House Panel Drafting Magnuson Reforms

By Richard Gaines | Staff Writer

The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee is drafting "a comprehensive" change to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, a fisheries management law, in an attempt to ensure that NOAA makes "informed decisions based on sufficient scientific information," Chairman Doc Hastings has told the Times.Incorporating elements from a suite of eight bills vetted by the committee last December, the federal legislation has been in construction by committee staff for some time — before a national fishermen's rally at the Capitol last month and an April 3 letter to the committee from 21 House members. Those signers included John Tierney, who represents Cape Ann, and Barney Frank, whose district includes New Bedford.A mix of about two dozen federal lawmakers of both parties and houses of Congress including Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown, spoke to the rally of the need for writing flexibility into the Magnuson-Stevens Act.Along with rewriting parts of and writing inserts to Magnuson, the committee is reported to be struggling with the problem of trying to fix misinterpretations of the overriding fisheries management law by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Crystal Feldman, the committee press secretary, said some problems with fisheries management have been created by NOAA's interpretation of the law and not necessarily by the law itself, and that is harder to fix legislatively.Similar complaints are at the core of a lawsuit initiated by the fishing ports of New Bedford and Gloucester and industry interests from Maine to North Carolina. That appeal is now before the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

 

Read the rest of the article on Gloucester Times.

 

PG&E tests bad for sea life and also for fishing industry

 Written By Brian StacyFOR much of the 20th Century Southern California was a world leader in seafood production. The once-thriving tuna fishing fleet, based at the Port of Los Angeles and in San Diego, plied distant waters for months at a time returning to local canneries that employed thousands of people.Today, the U.S. tuna industry is a distant memory, the victim of subsidized foreign competition, unfair trade practices, government over-regulation, and in some cases under-regulation.Historically, California's commercial fishing industry once employed tens of thousands of people in fishing, fish processing, boat building and boat repair and allied industries. Recreational fishing has been a staple of the coastal tourism. Both have been a vibrant part of the California coastal economy, from Eureka to the Mexican border.I fish the waters of the central California coast. Those of us who remain, men and women who work at sea and harvest many of the types of fish we find in the supermarkets and in restaurants, have to be creative, nimble, and able to adapt to a sometimes harsh natural and political environment.It is infuriating when yet another hurdle is erected making it nearly impossible for us to practice our trade. But this time it isn't Mother Nature, imported farm-raised fish, or some government edict. This time it is a public utility - Pacific Gas & Electric, the energy behemoth whose aged gas lines exploded and ravaged the San Bruno community in 2010.PG&E also owns the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, on the San Luis Obispo County coast. Diablo Canyon now threatens the central coast fishing industry, the local marine environment, and the livelihood of both commercial and recreational fishers.Read the rest of the article on Los Angeles Daily News.  

Let 'forage fish' populations double, scientists urge

We appreciate that reporter Tony Barboza differentiated California forage fisheries from the rest of the world.  California's coastal pelagic forage, or "wetfish" fisheries are recognized by internationally respected scientists as having low impacts on the environment.  

 

Indeed, California's wetfish fisheries have one of the lowest harvest rates in the world.  Our visionary ecosystem-based sardine management also was acknowledged by the Lenfest Report.

 

In addition to low harvest rates, California also has a network of marine reserves, many near key bird rookeries and haul out sites, where fishing is off-limits.  More than 30 percent of traditional squid spawning / fishing grounds are closed in reserve, in addition to weekend closures.  

 

Ecosystem-based fishery management is the goal of California and federal laws governing our forage stocks.  It's also important to achieve a balance:  healthy ecosystems and sustainable fishing communities.

 

Let 'forage fish' populations double, scientists urge

Sardines, anchovies and other small, schooling fish are caught in huge numbers, but they're vulnerable to overfishing, and creatures such as salmon and tuna need them for food, the panel says.

By Tony Barboza, Los Angeles Times...Still, the U.S. West Coast is ahead of other parts of the world in how it manages some forage fish, scientists on the panel said. The sardine catch, for instance, is subject to stricter monitoring and more conservative limits that could serve as a buffer against future crashes.California's most valuable catch, squid, is also considered a forage fish but was not included in the analysis.The complete article can be viewed on Los Angeles Times. 

For California Fishermen, Squid Means Big Money

                   

 

 Written by Tony Barboza, Los Angeles TimesLong before calamari reaches the table, crews set out from San Pedro and elsewhere to round up California's most valuable catch. But environmentalists question whether the haul is too large. 

As the sun sets over the ocean, the six crewmen on the Cape Blanco are starting a long night's work off the far side of Santa Catalina Island, putting on orange slickers and hard hats to fish for the milky white mollusks that have become California's most valuable catch.Below the gentle waves off the side of the boat swims an immense school of market squid.Capt. Nick Jurlin, pacing impatiently with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, is eager to pull in as much of it as possible.Five nights a week, the third-generation fisherman from San Pedro steps into a pair of rubber boots and hunts for squid along the Southern California coast. The 50-year-old with spiky blond hair and wraparound sunglasses looks the part of a man who's wrestled with nets in the salty air since he was a teenager — his arms are taut, his neck creased and weathered, his voice gravelly from going without sleep.On a night like this, the 90-foot steel vessel can bring in as much as $50,000 worth of the seafood so popular worldwide that all but a fraction is shipped overseas to be served as calamari.But for the Cape Blanco and dozens of squid fishing boats working out of ports like San Pedro and Monterey, the boom is an uncertain one. Doubts are emerging about how long one of California's last remaining money fish will stay bountiful.Though Jurlin and his crew are four hours from shore tonight, they are not alone.Rocking in the waves around them are a dozen other purse seiners beginning the same ritual: encircling the darting mass of tentacled, hot dog-sized sea creatures with huge nets that will be cinched up like the drawstring of a purse.A flotilla of smaller boats assists by following the swarms and coaxing them to the surface with 30,000-watt lanterns that light up the ocean with an otherworldly green and white glow.On Jurlin's signal, a deckhand swings a hefty metal bar above his head and slams it into a pelican hook, freeing a clunky metal skiff that plunges into the water and rumbles away, its motor filling the night air with exhaust.Each man takes his position on the Cape Blanco's deck, working among strained cables and ropes as thick as fire hoses. A hydraulic winch whirs, engines roar and propellers gurgle as a tangle of black netting, yellow floats and steel rings tumble into the water off the back of the boat. The skiff tows it all in a wide circle around the squid, trapping the school.Most of the world's market squid is harvested from California's shallow waters, where they gather in enormous schools each year to mate, deposit their eggs on the seafloor and die.Cold ocean conditions have drawn them in such numbers lately that fishermen have handily caught their 118,000-ton limit — enough to fill 60 Olympic-size swimming pools — and the state has shut them down early two years running. Surging demand in China, Japan, Mexico and Europe has boosted prices and launched a fishing frenzy worth more than $70 million a year.The good times have drawn the attention of conservationists, who fear such abundant catches are threatening the foundation of a delicate marine food web. Groups like Oceana and Audubon California are pushing for new protections for squid, sardines, anchovies, herring and other small, schooling prey known as "forage fish."A bill moving its way through the California Legislature would require the state to leave more small fish in the water for seabirds, whales, dolphins and other natural predators to feed on.Those like Jurlin, whose families have fished these waters for generations, say a smaller catch could be crippling.::During the squid season, Jurlin pushes off each afternoon from Terminal Island, where a few other purse seiners dock along a waterfront of weedy and abandoned lots where street names — Sardine, Cannery and Wharf — reflect a fish-packing industry that is largely gone.He follows the squid from the Channel Islands to San Diego, setting out net after net and returning before dawn the next morning.Tonight he motors along the backside of Catalina as his crewmen eat spaghetti and watch baseball in the galley. Many, like Jurlin, are the sons or grandsons of fishermen.It isn't long before they bring in their first net.Frigid water falls in sheets from the net as it is pulled through a giant hydraulic pulley towering above the deck. The men pile it into a slippery mound, slowly corralling the squid closer to the boat.Whether stacking rings or piloting the skiff, each crewman is dedicated to a single task. There is no conversation. It is dangerous, straining work, and they focus with intense precision.By the time Jurlin and several deckhands reach over the side of the boat to gather the last bunches of loose net, their bright slickers are drizzled with black ink from the squid.Fishing for squid can be good money, but it is unpredictable.The boat's owner, Tri Marine Fish Co., takes half the earnings, and the crew divides the rest. For a good night's work, deckhands can earn well over $1,000 and the captain and engineer even more. On a bad night, they might catch enough to cover fuel.In the off-season, the fishermen sew up nets, make repairs and paint the boats — without pay. A few months of the year, they make a little money fishing for sardines. But without squid, there are no big paychecks.As luck would have it, the night's first net bursts with an exceptional haul: 40 tons of squid."Everybody's going to do real well tonight," Jurlin tells the crew.They lower a heavy metal pump into the thick stew, and the catch goes sloshing into the ship's refrigerated wells below deck.Once their catch is stowed, the crewmen hose off and light up cigarettes as the fog moves in.::A half century ago, the sardine was king of the sea.In the 1930s and '40s, the largest fishing industry in the Western Hemisphere centered on California's harvest of the oily, silvery fish. Monterey was its capital, its crowded waterfront the backdrop for John Steinbeck novels such as "Cannery Row."But the boom went bust by mid-century as overfishing brought a devastating collapse.Squid fishing exploded in the 1990s when worldwide demand jumped. Over the last decade, the California Department of Fish and Game has kept the fishery in check with catch limits, a ban on weekend fishing and a cap on the number of squid boats.Squid come and go in cycles, streaming to shore when waters are cold and vanishing during warm El Niño periods. And they live just a year, making it difficult for scientists to assess the health of their population. Conservation groups, in saying current limits are too permissive, point to research saying those huge fluctuations make small species like squid particularly vulnerable to collapse.The industry says California's regulations already guard against overfishing and don't need to be changed.::Standing at the helm in the dark, Jurlin studies a glowing grid of navigation screens and electronic fish finders.He sips coffee and watches for diving birds and sea lions — nature's squid detectors. He talks to himself to stay awake and keeps a running dialogue on the radio with friendly boats to gather intelligence on fishing spots.Like many fishermen here, Jurlin is a descendant of immigrants, born into the profession.His grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Croatia who jumped ship in Canada and made his way to San Pedro to fish almost a century ago. Jurlin's father fished, and his grandmothers and mother packed tuna back when the San Pedro waterfront was alive with canneries.Jurlin started working on Alaskan salmon vessels as a teenager and bought his first boat when he was 21.Over the past 30 years, he and his wife have raised two daughters, bought a condo in downtown Long Beach and a second home in Arizona. Squid has paid for it all.He has staked his future on being able to continue. When the first squid upswing hit 16 years ago, he bought his own seiner. During this boom he put his two sons-in-law aboard to learn the profession."We've been hitting it pretty good, but it's sustainable," he says. "We get a bad rap from the environmentalists. They'll tell us there's no fish, and we'll come out here and see incredible amounts. They say we want to rape and pillage the ocean. But this is our livelihood."As is so often the case lately, Jurlin and his crew are catching so much squid so quickly that it strains buyers in San Pedro, who can only fit so much in their freezers.So tonight, each vessel can load up with just 70 tons before returning to the docks, where workers will pump the squid ashore and slop it into plastic-lined boxes. Forklifts will wheel it into warehouse-sized blast freezers, where it will be prepared for shipment to Asia. From there, it will be processed and shipped around the world, some back to restaurants in California.It's just before midnight when the captain of a fellow squid boat, the Ferrigno Boy, radios to report he has caught too much. Could the Cape Blanco suck up the surplus?"Okey-dokey," Jurlin responds, setting down the radio. "That's it. Another day in paradise."

 

Read the article on Los Angeles Times.

 

 

House Subcommittee Holds Hearing on the National Ocean Policy's Effect on Fishing

California Capitol Hill Bulletin - March 22, 2012The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs met on Thursday, March 21, 2012 for an oversight hearing titled Empty Hooks: The National Ocean Policy is the Latest Threat to Access for Recreational and Commercial Fishermen. The Committee previously held a hearing on the National Ocean Policy on October 4, 2011.Witnesses included: Captain Robert F. Zales, II, President, National Association of Charterboat Operators; Gary Zurn, Senior Vice President Marketing, Big Rock Sports, LLC; Terry Gibson, Principle, North Swell Media, LLC; George J. Mannina, Jr., Partner, Nossaman, LLC; and Justin LeBlanc, Federal Representative, United Charter Boats.The President signed an executive order on July 19th, 2010 to adopt the final recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, effectively instituting the new National Ocean Policy (the Policy). Over 140 federal laws and numerous agencies have jurisdiction over ocean resources. The aim of the Policy is to manage commerce and conservation of ocean resources through a “comprehensive and collaborative framework for the stewardship of the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes that facilitates cohesive actions across the Federal Government, as well as participation of State, tribal, and local authorities, regional governance structures, nongovernmental organizations, the public, and the private sector.” The National Ocean Council, tasked with implementing the Policy, extended the public comment period on the draft National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan by one month through March 28, 2012. House Resources Committee Chair Doc Hastings (WA) had requested that the deadline be extended by 90 days, arguing “[t]he likelihood of deterring new investment and job creation is too great to rush the implementation of this questionable new federal bureaucracy.”This week’s hearing focused on the effects of the Policy on commercial and recreational fishing. Issues discussed included: 

• Recreational and commercial fishing statistics, including that recreational fishing in 2009 produced sales impacts totaling $50 billion and value added impacts of $23 billion while providing over 327,000 jobs. Commercial Fishing provided over 1 million jobs, $116 billion in sales and $32 billion in income impacts.

• The possible negative effect of the Policy on jobs directly and indirectly related to fishing.

• The level of involvement of stakeholders in the advancement of the Policy, with concerns raised regarding the lack of fishery representatives on the Policy's Regional Planning Bodies.

• The current regulatory burdens on fishing (including no-fishing mandates), and whether the industry can absorb more regulation without serious consequence to its economic value.

• The Policy's lack of regulatory authority, but the concern that it may still add new and expanded regulations on already regulated industries and activities.

• The impact of California's expected finalization of a statewide effort that will place 15-20 percent of the state's coastal waters off limits to fishing through a process called the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPA).

• The benefits that can be realized because of the Policy's new management framework, which will create a coordinated, regional system that breaks down barriers between different agencies and reduces the complicated regulatory bureaucracy currently governing the oceans.

Read the article on California Capital Hill Bulletin, or for more information visit NaturalResources.house.gov.

 

Estimated 1,000 Fishermen Rally for Reform in Protest Staged in Nation's Capital

Recreational and commercial fishermen gather on Capitol Hill  on Wednesday to call for reform of the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act. AP Photo 

Written By By Don CuddyAround 1,000 commercial and recreational fishermen from around the country gathered near the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to call attention to the regulatory difficulties facing the fishing industry on the East and West coasts.The rally, billed as Keep Fishermen Fishing, was organized to seek reforms to the Magnuson Stevens Act, the law that governs fishing in federal waters.Fishermen and industry groups have long complained that inflexible and onerous regulations are hampering their ability to fish and forcing some independent fishermen to abandon their traditional way of life.New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell was among those who spoke at the rally. "There was a great show of support from the fishing community and a big turnout from Congress," he said. Several senators and around a dozen House members spoke at the gathering, according to the mayor, including a large New England delegation that included Massachusetts Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown and Reps. Barney Frank, John Tierney and Bill Keating.Bristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter, running against Keating for Congress in the 9th District, also spoke.Mitchell, who estimated the crowd at 1,000, focused his remarks on the need to keep fishermen in New England on the water by adopting greater flexibility in the rigid timelines established for rebuilding fish stocks."We need regulations geared to the reality at sea and we need more money for research and better stock assessments," he said.Read the rest of the article on SouthCoastToday. 

Fishermen, Politicians Rally Against Federal Regulations

Written By Morgan True and Aarthi GunasekaranWASHINGTON -  Fishermen from across the United States descended upon Capitol Hill Wednesday to voice their displeasure with a federal bureaucracy they believe is regulating them out of business.Politicians from both sides of the political aisle and both houses of Congress joined a crowd of several hundred current and former fishermen, along with industry advocates, in lambasting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its director, Jane Lubchenco.One small boy wore a sign around his neck reading, “NOAA, Jesus was a fisherman. Why can’t I be?” Others waved signs declaring, “Show Me The Science” and “Let Fishermen Fish.”A bevy of public officials spoke, including Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Scott Brown, R-Mass.“What does it take to get fired at NOAA?” asked an incredulous Brown. He was joined on stage by a staffer holding a blown-up photograph of a $300,000 luxury craft whose purchase has been sharply criticized by NOAA’s inspector general — and which Brown has sought to make a symbol of the agency’s bureaucratic excess.“The nation’s primary fishing regulator, NOAA, is being run by Washington insiders with a radical agenda to change the way that you do business and it’s wrong,” he charged.In his remarks, Kerry focused on the theme of improving the science that guides regulation, declaring, “If [regulators] make judgments that are based on unsound science, no science at all or science you can’t believe in, then we are going to have a problem.”Read the rest of the article on Seacoastonline.com 

Abundant Sacramento and Klamath Salmon Drive Season Options

Photo of the Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting to develop season options courtesy of the PFMC.

Written By Dan Bacher In the Klamath River, biologists are forecasting four times more salmon than last year – and an astounding 15 times more than in 2006, according to the PFMC. The ocean salmon population is estimated to be 1.6 million adult Klamath River fall Chinook, compared to last year’s forecast of 371,100.The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) at its meeting in Sacramento on March 7, encouraged by predictions of plentiful salmon returns along the West Coast, released three alternatives for ocean salmon fisheries including those based on Sacramento River and Klamath River stocks.In all three alternatives, the recreational ocean salmon season is slated to open on April 7 in the Fort Bragg, San Francisco and Monterey areas, from Horse Mountain to the U.S./Mexico Border. There are three opening date alternatives – May 1, May 12 and May 26 – for the Oregon and California Klamath Management Zones.After hearing public comment on the alternatives, the Council will make a final recommendation at their next meeting in Seattle on April 1-6. 

Read the full article on AlterNet.