Bad spill growing worse
Thursday,29 April,2010 14:04:39
This ain’t good.
Winds that had been blowing more or less out of the north are expected to come southerly, pushing an oil spill said to be twice the size of Maryland toward Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and the Florida panhandle.
Even if you’re sitting back in your chair and looking up at the sky, the vastness of the damage this spill portends is hard to imagine.
South Louisiana, for example, consists of millions of wetland acres that are home — and nursery — to fish, shrimp, oysters, birds and other wildlife.
Proponents of offshore drilling can point to the significant economic benefits that accrue from drilling.
But they do not accrue in a vacuum. In 2008, the ex-vessel value of Louisiana’s seafood harvest was $275 million, NMFS statistics tell us. Take that out to retail sales and you’re well north of a $1 billion. To say nothing of the value of recreational fishing.
In any event, the value of marine ecosystems cannot be calculated in terms of dollars and cents, and wetlands mired in tar and oil cannot be replaced.
President Obama, who sought his office running against offshore drilling, recently changed his tune.
But if a hearing in New Jersey this week on seismic testing, which would precede offshore drilling there, is any indication, he could be changing his tune again. According to NewJerseyNewsroom.com “almost no one” spoke in support of the program.
A spill would be one thing if you could close the spigot and clean it up. Now we find out that it may be weeks, if not months, before they can shut off the flow of oil, and that there may be more leaks than originally thought.
Last year, the operators of an oil rig off Australia spent 10 weeks plugging a leak that occurred following an explosion.
I get it.
Thank you for your time.
Jerry Fraser
Editor & Publisher, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com
Catching a fair share
Thursday,22 April,2010 15:41:30
When it comes to individual fishing quotas, by whatever name they are known, I have yet to drink the Kool-Aid.
But rather than re-argue the issue, let's give credit to the creators of the halibut-blackcod IFQ in the North Pacific, who had the foresight to limit the accumulation of quota and to require quota owners to participate in the fishery.
By doing so, they recognized the importance of the culture of the fishery and the contribution of fishing communities. Turn the clock ahead 15 years to New England, where come May, groundfishermen will see the implementation of catch shares --- the nom du jour for IFQs.
Here, too, architects struggled with the knowledge that consolidation could be devastating within fishing communities. Their answer was the creation of 17 fishing “sectors.”
The effectiveness of sectors at preserving America's oldest fishing communities remains to be seen.
But without question this effectiveness is threatened by the prospect of outside investment in catch shares. Such investment has the ability to undo any of the protections proponents believed were implicit in sectors.
“The last thing I want is Goldman Sachs buying up all the shares of a fishery in three years, and [having] derivatives of fishery shares being sold on Wall Street,” U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said Wednesday.
Goldman Sachs may be a convenient villain, but DeFazio's point is valid. If we know nothing else about U.S. fishermen, it is that they are in this for the long haul.
How will fish stocks fare when they're saddled with the imperative of delivering profits on a quarterly basis to investors who, for all we know, can't stand the smell of fish?
Thank you for your time.
Jerry Fraser
Editor & Publisher, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com
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Keep fishermen fishing
Monday,5 April,2010 09:09:02
Thousands of people reportedly stood in line for hours in the rain to procure tickets to hear President Obama speak here in Portland, Maine, Thursday afternoon about the recently passed health care legislation. However, the region’s fishermen would likely be more interested to hear the president declare his commitment to improving the health of the groundfish industry.
The catch share management era begins for Northeast groundfishermen on May 1 — May Day (or is that mayday?).
Fishermen aren’t optimistic many harvesters will survive fishing in sectors (groups of harvesters fishing on their collective catch quotas), thanks to allocations that reportedly are a third to one-half lower than last year’s catch. And days-at-sea fishing restrictions are even harsher for those opting for the so-called common pool.
Concerns over the new management system and the inflexibility of Magnuson-Stevens Act stock rebuilding requirements are among the issues that drove commercial, recreational, charter and party boat fishermen to gather in unprecedented numbers for the United We Fish rally held in February in Washington, D.C.
They called for Congress to pass House and Senate bills designed to fix Magnuson. And they delivered a message — via the rally and a Web-based petition that garnered almost 5,000 signatures — to Congress’ current occupants: I fish and I vote.
Now rally organizers are moving forward. They announced last week that they’ve formed a national organization called Keep Fishermen Fishing and Working! Its main goals, they say, are to “keep fishing, keep working and keep fishing-dependent businesses thriving.”
One of the group’s first orders of business is to hold mini-rallies in Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, Georgia and Texas. The goal, the group says, is to demonstrate to elected officials how Magnuson has been transformed into a tool that is being used against fishermen in those states. You can learn more about the group at the Keep Fishermen Fishing and Working Web site.
Keep fishing — and keep the faith.
Thank you for your time.
Linc Bedrosian
Senior Editor, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com