Not so fast
Thursday,29 July,2010 15:18:08
The story the last couple of days is that the damage wrought by the oil that for 86 days boiled out of the seafloor into the Gulf of Mexico may have been over-hyped by the media.
Setting aside the issue of how you over-hype 92 million gallons, it's a little early for high fives.
I'm willing to be optimistic. I believe in the resiliency of Mother Earth, and I'd like to think that oil is dissolving at the same time it is being consumed by bacteria in the warm waters of the gulf, both entirely plausible scenarios.
But there is a lot at stake here, and until there is no sign of oil in the gulf or along the shore, we must remain entirely focused and 100 percent committed to cleaning it up.
Fact is, if all the oil disappeared tomorrow, fishermen would nonetheless face low prices and a skeptical public as a result of the spill and concerns about pollution. Moreover, we don't know yet the extent of damage to marine and wetland wildlife or what kind of petro-time bombs are ticking within the 2010 year-class of gulf species.
The last thing we need is President Obama and the head of BP patting each other on the back for a job well done and riding off into the sunset.
For that matter, it will be some time before we can say the leak is plugged forever. Until then, as the page one editor liked to warn us on the Boston Globe's night desk, "Don't get comfortable."
Thank you for your time.
Jerry Fraser
Editor & Publisher, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com
Handy cap
Monday,19 July,2010 09:06:16
It's been almost a day since BP secured a new cap in place on its blown well in the Gulf of Mexico.
It's hard to say whether we have seen the last of this undersea gusher, and it's hard to be optimistic, but mechanically the cap is a fairly simple rig, as I understand it, bolted to a flange at the top of the well and plumbed to ships at the surface. Within it are three hydraulic valves that were shut off once the cap was secured to the well.
Even if the cap works perfectly, BP is expected at some point to let the flow of oil to surface ships resume, weather permitting.
That is probably not a bad idea, as this would reduce pressure within the well.
As things stand, pressure is continuing to build, which is a good thing — it means oil is not leaking out of the well.
If the well casing were to blow out below the sea floor, my understanding is that we would then have an uncontained spill that someone compared with a volcano.
I, like the rest of you, have my fingers crossed, as I look at the PBS Newshour leak counter on the National Fisherman Web site, which stopped ticking off the gallons around 3:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday July 15th.
I do feel pleased that BP has had this apparent success, but I certainly don't feel grateful to BP.
The number on the counter is 92,340,117.
Thank you for your time.
Jerry Fraser
Editor & Publisher, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com
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Resurgence in Morro Bay
Thursday,8 July,2010 15:48:36
If we can turn our attention away from trying to figure out what NBA city LeBron James will deign to call his basketball home for a moment, there's some good news coming out of the storied fishing community of Morro Bay, Calif.
Good news has been in short supply there in recent years. A decline in Morro Bay's fishing industry began in the mid-1990s. And then in 2005 came the biggest blow: a federal restriction on trawling in some 3.8 million acres of water off California's Central Coast. Officials asserted trawling caused unacceptable levels of environmental damage.
But the Morro Bay fishermen didn't fold up their tents and go home. Instead, they switched to fish traps and hook and line gear to catch fish. Catch limits and other restrictions were also subsequently loosened.
The upshot is the Morro Bay fleet's landings have been steadily improving the last three years. The catch has risen from 910,000 pounds in 2007 to 3.5 million pounds in 2009, according to California Department of Fish and Game statistics. Blackcod harvests are driving the resurgence.
Mind you, that 3.5 million pounds is a far cry from the 15 million pounds Morro Bay notched in 1985. But it's not the '80s anymore; the fishing landscape has changed. And the Morro Bay fishermen — like fishermen elsewhere around the country — have recognized that they will benefit by changing with the times.
Thank you for your time.
Linc Bedrosian
Senior Editor, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com
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True blue
Tuesday,6 July,2010 10:42:21
I was disappointed by the Sunday New York Times Magazine piece on bluefin tuna. Not because the author, Paul Greenberg, said stocks have been catastrophically overexploited — they have been overexploited, and their management has been a catastrophe.
And not because he waxes on about what a magnificent animal the bluefin is; I happen to agree.
What irks me is his disingenuous invocation of sustainability as the issue.
When he writes that "no single nation is ready to commit to a sustainable future for the fish," you'd almost think he has a case, albeit somewhat overstated. The United States has been and remains unambiguously determined to protect bluefin and has fought for lower quotas and stricter enforcement as a member of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.
But the truth is, that's beside the point; Greenberg doesn't want a sustainable fishery, he wants no fishery at all. Read on.
"...We have come to see the whale not as something we fish for, not as something we farm, but as something we appreciate and maybe empathize with. Instead of expanding our stomachs or our wallets, whales have expanded our consciousness, our very humanity.
"So we have to ask ourselves, is there any rational argument for humans to eat bluefin tuna, wild, ranched or farmed? Is the fish really so special that no substitute will do?"
He's entitled to this point of view, of course, but I don't see the connection with sustainability.
Greenberg apparently did not speak with any tuna fishermen for this story. He did, however, go out on a Greenpeace shipand spent time at a fish farm, giving each venue a full measure of credibility in his article.
(Not that I did: the fish farmer's account that he turned to aquaculture after encountering a Polynesian elder weeping because the fishing season had closed "while there are still some left!" smelled fresh out of the barn to me.)
Thank you for your time.
Jerry Fraser
Editor & Publisher, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com