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There is an old Quaker teaching that says “Speak Truth to Power.” It urges followers to stand up and speak to governments, rulers and the powerful about wrongs, abuses, injustice and unpleasant truths.
At PCFFA we’ve never backed down from speaking out and criticizing, when warranted, governments, politicians or the powerful no matter what political stripe. Our obligation, after all, is to protect the interests of the fishing men and women we represent, from working to assure there are abundant stocks to harvest to assuring there are good markets for the fish we catch. It serves neither fish, nor fisherman if we are silent or sycophants.
We’ve been highly critical of presidential administrations from Gerald Ford to the current one -- Republican and Democrat alike -- when we’ve found them proposing or engaging in actions harmful to fishermen, the fish or our markets for those fish (e.g., trade agreements). We have sought to be constructive, when possible, with our criticism and seek to praise those doing good by our fisheries. But uncomfortable as it may be at times, we will continue when necessary to speak the unpopular, the unpleasant truths. Indeed, “Speak Truth to Power” became the motto for our newsletter over twenty years ago after some government officials sought to censor us.
Critical and outspoken as we have been in the past, there has never before been the need, nor the reason, to take a whole federal Administration to task for pursuing policy pathways leading to the destruction of our industry. Unfortunately, that is where we find ourselves today.
Every prior federal Administration has had its share of wrongheaded fishery policies, to be sure, and both negligence and fisheries mismanagement have been rampant under many Administrations, and within many agencies. Nevertheless, the last four years under the current Administration have been the worst in our memory, based on a thorough and objective review of the record. It may, in fact, have the worst fishery record of any U.S. Administration in history.
Many fishermen are or will suffer serious economic losses because of the failed and anti-fishing policies of this Administration, which translate into strangled port economies, lost jobs, closed fisheries and stressed coastal communities. The Administration needs to be held strictly accountable for these losses and for its increasingly anti-commercial fishing policies, which include the following:
Salmon fisheries are the “work horse” of west coast commercial fisheries, traditionally employing thousands of vessels and employing many thousands more onshore. The principal limiting factor to salmon production, however, is the loss of in-river spawning and nursery habitat, including the loss of streamflow to irrigation and diversions. As we all know, without adequate water in rivers, salmon runs cannot survive and fishermen cannot harvest them. Nor can salmon runs survive without watersheds to spawn in, and unblocked rivers to migrate from. This is not rocket science.
Anti-Fishing Water Decisions: Despite clear biological evidence, well known to scientists and school children alike, of the need of salmon for adequate streamflow, short-sighted, biased and politically-driven water policies have abounded in this Administration. In 2002, for example, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, under direct pressure from the White House in order to help boost the re-election chances of Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, diverted precious water from the Klamath River during a severe drought to the federally subsidized Klamath Irrigation Project to appease the project’s irrigator contractors. The State of California, lower river Tribes and many scientists warned the Administration, the Secretary of Interior and the Bureau such low flows would endanger lower river fisheries, but those warnings were ignored.
That spring of 2002, Secretary of Interior Gail Norton personally opened the headgates to the irrigation ditches in the Klamath Basin, significantly reducing the river’s already diminished flow. The result? The better part of that spring’s out migrating juvenile kings were killed due to the low water and resulting high water temperatures. Those fish are this year’s Klamath three-year olds and next year’s fours. The irresponsible act of opening those head gates eliminated a large part of the projected 2005 Klamath adult returns.
Then, late that summer of 2002, with the Administration refusing to release any more water from storage to the river, more than 34,000 returning fall chinook adults died in the Klamath on the way to their spawning beds. The lower Klamath was littered with rotting, stinking corpses, and all river and tribal fisheries were closed down, at a cost of $20 million or more in economic damages from losses to business which has never been compensated.
As a result of this politically motivated water shift, the Pacific Fishery Management Council warns the 2005 and 2006 ocean salmon fisheries from Monterey Bay to the Columbia River (600 miles of coastline) will have to be closed or severely restricted under weak stock management principles to make up for these massive Klamath stock losses. Some of those restrictions went into place this year.
In other words, the low flow-triggered Klamath collapse, caused by misplaced Administration water policies that favor irrigation over fisheries, will cause tens of millions of dollars in additional damages in lost harvest opportunities during a year that other runs from other rivers (not to mention hatchery-based runs from the California Central Valley system) are expected to be abundant. Instead of enjoying good seasons the next two years, commercial salmon fishermen are likely to be tied up on the docks. Rather than expanding our markets we will be forced to seek some form of disaster relief from the Congress at a time of massive federal deficits. (For more about the Klamath see FN for August 2001, “Why the Klamath Matters to Fishermen,” at: www.pcffa.org/fn-aug01.htm; see also the Klamath information on PCFFA’s website at: www.pcffa.org).
On the Columbia River, the Administration has consistently refused to defend river restoration flows for salmon. Instead it is backing a plan to eliminate summer “spill” of water through the spillways of Columbia River dams to “save money.” The abandonment of the spill strategy, which is a requirement of the current Salmon Plan, and which most salmon biologists contend is a necessary tool for guiding fish around power turbines, will kill an estimated 15,000 additional adult fish (some of them endangered or threatened stocks) to save about 10 cents per month per Northwest household in electricity costs. In making its economic calculations on restoration costs, the Administration continues its practice of charging the fish (and only the fish) for water deemed “lost” by leaving it in the river. No other river water user gets charged for “lost power production” just because some water has to be left in the river to satisfy those requirements, only the fish. The Administration’s policy there is all about greed, not biology, leaving the fishing industry to pay the bill with diminished catches and reduced seasons.
In the Central Valley of California, the Bush Administration is ready to sign off on the “Napa Agreement,” a secret, back-room deal worked out among state and federal water agencies amounting to the largest attempted water grab in California since the proposed Peripheral Canal. The San Francisco Bay and Delta, which is the gateway between the Pacific and Sierra streams of Sacramento fall-run kings – a stock that supports the ocean salmon fishery from Santa Barbara to the Washington coast, already has as much as 50 percent of its freshwater inflow diverted. Additional diversions, such as those proposed in the Napa Agreement, could be fatal to the Pacific Coast’s most important estuary. San Francisco Bay, by the way, also supports the largest herring fishery south of British Columbia -- the nation’s only remaining “urban commercial fishery” -- and it is an important nursery for Dungeness crab. The Administration’s Central Valley water policies, if allowed to go forward, would destroy these fisheries.
If this sweetheart deal goes forward, large volumes of Northern California water, necessary to protect economically important salmon runs, will be shipped south to irrigate subsidized crops grown by large agribusiness firms on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and to feed the insatiable appetites of land developers in the deserts of Southern California. This deal is impossible without federal acquiescence. Efforts are being made to stop it in the California Legislature, not in the White House.
Stripping Salmon of Watershed Protections: In another politically motivated payoff to the timber industry (one of Bush’s largest campaign contributors), the Administration recently gutted the Aquatic Conservation Strategy (ACS) of the Northwest Forest Plan, which protects salmon-bearing streams on some 57 million acres of federal lands in Oregon, Washington and Northern California from overlogging, overgrazing and other forms of land abuse.
The timber industry has complained for years about restrictions under the ACS requiring them to protect salmon streams. Thanks to a recent “clarification” of the ACS rules, engineered by former timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey (now the Administration’s top political appointee overseeing the U.S. Forest Service), federal agencies will no longer have to protect these specific salmon nursery streams in any way. In fact, they will no longer even have to measure or monitor the impacts of federal logging on salmon streams under this “clarification,” officially institutionalizing willful ignorance of salmon impacts from logging as a federal forestry policy.
This Administration is adept, too, at inviting suits from the timber industry, developers and others, then cutting sweetheart settlement deals (behind closed doors without public input) that then require them [the Administration] under cover of court order to undermine or ignore key watershed protection policies essential for salmon protection. The Administration did this, for instance, as a way to undercut the roadless area protection policies it inherited from the Clinton Administration; policies which blocked timber companies from going after the last five percent left of old growth timber which protect many important salmon-bearing watersheds.
In addition to the infamous Mark Rey, the Administration also appointed a former Northwest timber industry lawyer, Mark C. Rutzick, who has spent much of his professional career as lead lawyer for the American Forest Resource Council litigating against Endangered Species Act protection for west coast watersheds, and who has been a vocal advocate for opening up more federal lands for logging. He is now Senior Legal Advisor to the General Counsel of NOAA/NMFS, which puts him in charge of Endangered Species Act protections and policies for the 27 listed west coast salmon and steelhead runs. For more about Rutzick see the April 7, 2003 McClatchy News Service article on his background by reporter Les Blumenthal at: http://www.tribnet.com/news/government/story/2904079p-2939528c.html.
Pro Dam, Anti-Fish: The President seems to have a love affair with dams, many of them major fish killers. He has stated flatly his Administration will not consider removal of the four lower Snake River dams, regardless of the science. This policy comes despite the fact these dams have marginal economic value and their removal may be essential to recovering important salmon runs in the Columbia Basin now listed as threatened or endangered.
The fate of the Snake River dams is not of merely academic interest to the west coast salmon fishery. Constraints on the west coast salmon fishing because of the endangered Snake River fall chinook have caused our industry millions of dollars in lost fishing opportunities from Central California well into Southeast Alaska, including triggering some major closures. The Columbia was once the largest salmon producer in the world. Today, wild stocks in the Columbia are at less than 3 percent their historic abundance. As those Columbia River stocks continue toward extinction, so does a large portion of the commercial fishing industry, particularly in Oregon and Washington.. (See FN August 1999, “Why Some Dams Must Go,” www.pcffa.org/fn-aug99.htm).
The Administration’s alternative to removing the four dams, is a “Salmon Recovery Plan” for the Columbia River that it refuses to adequately fund. Moreover, the President’s plan relied so heavily on speculative future actions of parties completely outside federal control that it failed the straight face test in court and was found to be “arbitrary and capricious” by a federal judge. That plan must now be rewritten, under court supervision to see that it actually happens in a timely fashion. These four lower Snake River dams make little economic sense, but kill a major fishery. The Administration’s “Salmon Recovery Plan” alternative for the Columbia River would in fact cost several times the value of those dams. Decommissioning those four specific dams thus makes both biological and economic sense.
Additionally, the Administration has also been silent on efforts to fund the approved removal of the Elwha Dams in Washington, the removal of the Savage Rapids Dam on Oregon’s Rogue River (settlement agreement requires removal if funded), and removing the infamous, half finished and now abandoned Elk Creek Dam, also blocking the Rogue River.
Far worse, the Administration has been pushing a sweetheart provision in the Congressional Energy Bill (S. 2095), written by hydropower lobbyists, aimed at letting hydropower companies escape altogether from under legal obligations to provide fish passage in relicensed hydro dams. This is the President’s Energy Bill, sheparded by Senator Pete Dominici (Chair of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee). If the President wanted that provision out he could have it out with a phone call to Senator Dominici. Instead the White House is pandering to the hydropower industry and pushing to gut the fish passage requirements of current law.
Abandoning Habitat and Wild Fish: The Administration’s new hatchery listing policy, a brainchild of former timber lawyer Mark Rutzick (see above), is a killer for the west coast salmon fishery. In a nutshell, the Administration has redefined artificially produced hatchery fish as biologically equivalent to wild fish for purposes of counting them toward recovery of ESA listed salmon populations. This turns conservation biology on its head, saying in effect that restoring wild fish and fish habitat no longer matters. Rutzick championed this idea, when he was a timber industry lawyer, as a way to get the timber industry and other land users out from under having to protect salmon streams, restore damaged watersheds or put water back in dried up rivers. Just put up some hatcheries, goes the theory, and they no longer need to protect rivers or watersheds.
Hatcheries were originally developed to mitigate the loss of natural spawning populations-- and subsequent economic damage to the fishing industry -- resulting from dams and other habitat destruction. They were never intended to become an excuse for not restoring habitat nor a substitute for eventual recovery in the wild. The ESA was intended to protect and restore species in the wild, not in concrete tanks. The Administration’s hatchery counting policy pushes us toward a future in which salmon spawning only occurs in hatcheries, not in the wild. This would make the west coast fishing industry 100 percent dependent on human-run programs.
Some in the fishing industry thought, at first blush, the Administration policy would be helpful to fishermen, making for less constrained fishing. In fact, hatchery counting for ESA purposes will result in more constraints on fisheries -- albeit much less for dam operators, diverters, developers, loggers and others. Here’s why:
Hatcheries Are An Unreliable Source. True, hatcheries from the Central Valley to the Columbia system produce a lot of the fish coming across the back deck, and there is no doubt they are essential to maintaining current fishing levels given the magnitude of in-river habitat loss that has occurred over the past century. But hatcheries are not always reliable. Mechanical breakdowns, human error or disease can wipe out an entire year class in a hatchery. They are expensive and their federal, state, or the occasional private, funding sources are not always secure, for example some of the hatchery closings now taking place along the coast due to governmental budget constraints.
Counting Hatchery Fish Could Put Them Off-Limits To Fishing. Under the Administration’s hatchery counting proposal, some salmon stocks would be removed from federal ESA protection (that would not mean they could be fished, however, as noted below). But, in some instances, counting the hatchery fish with their listed wild counterparts could simply result in the hatchery fish being listed too. That means, for example, directed fishing for some coho hatchery fish that is now taking place in the Pacific Northwest would be prohibited if those hatchery stocks are counted under the ESA with threatened or endangered wild coho populations. ESA-driven fishing restrictions you see now would be nothing compared to those you would see if every hatchery fish was also protected under the ESA.
Fishery Would Still Be Managed To Protect Weak Stocks. The salmon fishery along the west coast is managed on the basis of certain key “weak” natural stocks, which may or may not be listed. This management scenario has been in place long before the first salmon run was given federal protection under the ESA. Keep in mind, the Klamath fall-run chinook are not listed, but yet could be the basis for massive closures in the west coast ocean salmon fishery in 2005 and 2006. A loss of ESA protection for wild stocks, through the counting of hatchery fish, will result in more ratcheting down of the salmon fishery, not less.
Hatcheries Dependent On Wild Fish For Brood Stock. Finally, remember, wild salmon are the genetic fountain from which all hatcheries must periodically be replenished. Lose those hardy wild strains, adapted over millions of years, and eventually their domesticated hatchery cousins are also lost.
In spite of the happy face the Administration has recently tried to paste on this major policy shift, pumping out more hatchery fish and calling that any kind of step toward “recovery” flies in the face of 100 years of conservation biology as well as common sense. It shifts the future conservation burden from industries and dams which have systematically destroyed salmon habitat for profit, to the people who have historically been the victims of this habitat loss – fishing businesses and fishing-dependent communities.
The Bush Administration’s consistent policy toward federal dredging of small coastal, fishing dependent ports is “Who cares?” The deliberate policy of this Administration is to target “limited federal dredging money” to the largest west coast “commercial” ports important for international container cargo, while abandoning small coastal fishing ports completely. The same policy also applies to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in divvying out money for seawalls, port infrastructure repairs and other vital port services – small coastal ports are either in last place or not even in the room. Yet it is the small ports, in rural areas, that are the lifeblood of the seafood industry, and from which most of its products flow.
Meanwhile, these small coastal ports are facing increasing problems from siltation, crumbling sea walls, and decaying docks, with far fewer resources to pay these dredging and repair costs than the big ports – especially with the economic brunt of fishery closures of salmon, groundfish and other once productive fisheries (closures all driven by other Administration anti-fishing policies) in a downward spiral. Its no wonder small ports are in serious economic trouble. Under this Administration’s priorities, those small coastal ports have been virtually abandoned.
Many fishing jobs, ultimately, depend on wetlands. An estimated 71 percent of this nation's entire commercial fish and shellfish resource are wetlands dependent. In fact this nation’s aquatic resources generate approximately $152 billion/year to our nation's economy in both commercial and recreational fishing activities nationwide. Without protection of this nation’s wetlands, however, much of this economic resource would simply disappear. Wetlands loss, then, is an economic loss for our fishing industry as well.
According to official federal statistics, Washington State has lost an estimated 31 percent of its historic wetlands, Oregon another 38 percent and California a whopping 91 percent of all its historic wetlands base. Counting coastal wetlands only, these loss figures would be much greater. Given the gravity of wetland losses, the first Bush Administration adopted a “no net loss” policy for wetlands.
Wetlands mean money in the bank for our people. Salmon, pollock, Dungeness crab, shrimp, halibut, menhaden, bluefish, lobsters and many other species, accounting for three-quarters of all seafood landings nationwide, are all wetlands dependent species.
Yet the current Administration has fought hard, at the request of real estate developers, to eliminate wetlands protections since its very beginnings. It now has a “Directive” in place, as of November 2001, allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which issues wetlands development permits) to allow development in roughly one-third of the nation’s remaining wetlands. The “no net loss” policy of the Clean Water Act and the first Bush Administration is no longer a reality. This can only mean further deterioration of already stressed coastal wetlands, and the further erosion of the nation’s aquatic resources and industries. We have this Administration to blame for those losses.
The current Bush Administration is wholeheartedly supporting efforts to privatize the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and divvy it up for industrial aquaculture, at the expense of, and apparently to replace, traditional fisheries (see FN January 2004, “Fish Farmers and Fishermen,” www.pcffa.org/fn-jan04.htm; FN March 2004, “Is Our Government Outsourcing Fishermen’s Jobs to Offshore Rigs and Deepsea Cages,” www.pcffa.org/fn-mar04.htm).
Even Attorney General John Ashcroft recently called expansion of offshore aquaculture “an issue of national security,” strong words indeed from a major Administration official. In other words, replacing commercial fisheries with aquaculture and putting fishermen out of work is now an official Administration priority. NMFS (NOAA Fisheries as this Administration calls them) is going merrily on its way to making that fantasy a reality – or a nightmare.
A major expansion of offshore aquaculture would be a disaster for the nation’s fisheries, for many reasons, including likely pollution problems, escapes, transmission of disease to wild stocks, genetic pollution and the fact that such operations suck up more fish protein than they actually generate. The Administration’s thoughtless and dogmatic support of commercial aquaculture ignores the many serious environmental and social problems coastal net pen operations have created in Scotland, Norway, Maine, British Columbia, Chile and elsewhere, where native fisheries have been seriously depleted or damaged by these farm fish operations and their negative environmental impacts. The Bush Administration helped write and is backing an aquaculture development bill about to be introduced in Congress that seriously threatens our traditional fisheries and fishing communities.
At the same time, the Bush Administration has also pushed hard for open border trade agreements that allow other countries (particularly Chile) to dump massive amounts of farmed salmon on U.S. markets, already depressing our wild fish markets by more than 70 percent. The Administration likewise fought against Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) requirements to enable U.S. consumers to tell the difference between farmed fish and wild fish. Those labeling requirements are going in place this year for seafood, thanks to Senator Ted Stevens, but against opposition by an Administration of his own party.
Finally, to add insult to injury, the Administration is now defining certain farm fish operations as “organic,” while denying similar status to wild catch, ocean harvested seafood that is of much higher quality. Why a farm fish artificially raised in a tank in Chile should be deemed “organic” while top quality west coast ocean harvested fresh fish have a lesser marketing status is something the Administration should fix, not encourage. The allowing of the “organic” label to be used on farmed fish products on U.S. markets, no matter how they were produced, is also part of an overall plan by the Administration, and its Department of Agriculture, at the behest of large food processing corporations, to substantially weaken American organic food standards.
Rather than seriously consider conservation or alternatives, the President’s Energy Policy consists mostly of squeezing as much oil as possible out of public lands, particularly eyeing the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
The Administration has tried hard in Congress and in the courts to eliminate the “consistency” requirements of the Ocean Coastal Zone Management Act, which require a state to sign off on offshore federal activities that will use coastal waters as “consistent” with state environmental laws before those activities can proceed. Washington, Oregon and California have blocked offshore oil development in important fishing grounds using this tool. There are plenty of good places to develop the nation’s remaining oil resources, but in the middle of the nation’s most productive fishing grounds is not one of them.
The current (but year-by-year) moratorium on offshore oil development on the west coast was fought for hard by PCFFA and commercial fishing interests for many years, and for very good reasons. It would take only one spill to destroy our most important west coast fisheries and fish nurseries for decades. And a major spill is just one of the problems inherent with offshore oil development. We know from experience in the Santa Barbara Channel and the Gulf of Mexico the chronic small unreported spills, the dumping of drill muds (often containing mercury), the loss of fishing grounds and displacement in the ports, are all problematic with offshore drilling. No amount of industry assurances or precautions that can reduce the risks to zero.
The Administration, however, is still actively working to undo that offshore oil moratorium. It has also supported various bills in Congress to convert abandoned oil rigs to various other uses, a process that would allow petroleum companies to neatly escape their current obligations to clean up their messes by restoring the ocean floor and cleaning up seabed pollutants.
Even the President’s appointments to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy reflect a pro-drilling, oil industry bias. Of the various appointments made to that Commission, several were oil industry executives or connected in one way or the other to the oil industry. Not one U.S. Oceans Commission appointment had any experience or connection with commercial fisheries or fisheries management. Oilmen, but not fishermen, were appointed. The Pew Oceans Commission, at least, had two commercial fishermen members.
The Administration has had nearly four years to develop clear national standards under the Magnuson-Stevens Sustainable Fisheries Act to meet the concerns of commercial fishermen about the wholesale adoption of various individual fishing quota schemes. Originally, PCFFA and other fisheries groups went to Congress to ask for a moratorium on such privatization schemes in order that standards could be developed and in place to prevent irreversible privatization of these public resources. Once any public resource is privatized, it’s hard as hell to undo the process and usually results in claims of “takings.” Our national fisheries are too important to leave to willy-nilly or ad hoc policy decisions that have not been thoroughly thought through.
So what has this Administration come up with? Nothing, not even a preliminary proposal. In the meantime, the Administration took no action to extend the moratorium, and it’s now open season on adopting such privatization quota schemes.
The first thing we saw under the new post-moratorium regime was processor quotas in the Alaska crab fishery – our worst fear, and a major step toward turning commercial fishermen into sharecroppers. To its credit, the Administration opposed the creation of processor quota in statements by the Attorney General’s Anti-Trust Division, but the Administration neither vetoed the bill over the issue, nor has it taken steps to terminate that program, nor has it taken the preventive steps necessary to prevent such debacles in the future by pushing for actual standards.
The most fundamental obligation of any federal Administration is to govern. That means it needs the best available information it can get, concerning all policy options available to it, including the best available and most objective scientific information.
Unfortunately, this Administration has developed a knee-jerk habitat of ignoring science that contradicts its preconceived policy notions, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. This problem has prompted such groups as the Union for Concerned Scientists to issue a report documenting such instances (www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/index.cfm). On February 14, 2004, more than 60 prominent scientists, including several Nobel Laureates, also issued a statement condemning an Administration pattern of suppression of science, biased scientific advisory committee appointments (e.g., replacing scientists with industry lobbyists) and other distortions of scientific information whenever that information contradicts Administration policies. “Across the broad range of policy areas, the Administration has undermined the quality and independence of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the government’s outstanding scientific personnel,” said the scientists in their statement. Many specific instances have been documented.
We have seen several first-hand instances of suppression of science that directly affect fisheries management and cost fishermen’s jobs. Warnings from NMFS’s scientists that Klamath water river flows proposed by the Bureau of Reclamation were too low for fish were ignored by political higher-ups, leading to the 2002 fish kill disaster. Studies needed to assure adequate flows for Klamath river salmon have been delayed and key information suppressed or ignored. Economic studies by government economists showing the enormous value of lower Klamath River fisheries were systematically suppressed because they were “too politically sensitive.” The NMFS internal Salmon Recovery Scientific Review Panel recommendations were ignored by politically appointed Administration officials because it strongly recommended against including hatchery fish under ESA protection. Information on the dangers of reducing spill flows in the Columbia was routinely ignored or minimized by agency spokespeople. The end result has been one fishery disaster after another that directly affects our pocketbooks and communities.
Last month, one of the leading NMFS scientists working on the Klamath water flow issues, Michael Kelly, resigned, charging that the Administration had violated the ESA by pressuring for altered scientific findings by the flows review team Kelly led for the fishery agency. Kelly is not some rogue scientist. His recommendations were nearly identical to those made by the California Department of Fish & Game and Tribal scientists, but the recommendations for additional lower river flows that his review team recommended were ignored, and he had to seek “whistleblower” protection to keep his job prior to his resignation.
“My particular case is just symptomatic of this agency's failure to correctly apply science and caution to its decisions and public pronouncements. I speak for many of my fellow biologists who are embarrassed and disgusted by the agency's apparent misuse of science,” wrote Kelly in his resignation statement.
Finally, the Administration’s record has been abysmal, at least at the Pacific Fishery Management Council level, when it comes to appointments. The Magnuson-Stevens Act is clear that individuals appointed to the regional fishery councils must be knowledgeable, and there is to be a balance of interests on these management bodies. The Administration flaunted the Magnuson-Stevens Act, naming members to the Pacific Council, in the last appointments round when both commercial fishing and conservation seats were lost, that created a highly unbalanced council.
We don’t need “Kumbaya” sessions like last November’s gathering in DC where a besieged agency and its believers gathered to convince one another what a good job is being done managing fisheries. Perhaps we could be convinced too, if the agency would just follow the law a little more often. Perhaps we could believe the Administration even if it only upheld laws like the Clean Water Act, instead of ignoring them, undermining or weakening them. Perhaps we could believe the Administration cared about small businesses and working folk if only they consulted us on their trade initiatives and other proposals affecting fishermen’s livelihoods.
What we need is good management of our fisheries, from having balanced councils with knowledgeable and visionary members, to strong enforcement of all the other laws assuring there will be abundant fish stocks that we have will have access to and good markets for the fish once they’re caught. Most fishermen we know want fisheries to be sustainable. The Administration should too.
The Bush Administration can do far better than it has been doing to protect our nation’s fisheries and fishing-dependent businesses. This is not a partisan issue, however. Some past Democratic Administrations have been terrible stewards of fisheries, some past Republican Administrations have been very good. Unfortunately, this Administration has shown itself to be one of the worst.
PCFFA has always stood up for commercial fishermen, regardless of what political party may be in charge of the White House or Congress, and our members, like ourselves, come from all over the political spectrum. Objectively, however, and based on its own record as indicated above, this current Administration is among the very worst on fisheries and coastal protection issues we have ever seen. PCFFA and other fishermen’s organizations, and coastal communities generally, should continue to hold this Administration accountable for its negligence, short-sightedness and lack of action on those issues affecting our industry and our communities.
We’re not going to tell you who to vote for, that’s up to you. If you’re inclined to go with the incumbent President, however, then for God’s sake contact the Administration and let them know their policies concerning fish protection and fisheries are going to destroy your livelihood and they’ve got to be changed. They should pay attention. If you’re inclined to vote for Senator Kerry or one of the other candidates, contact them and tell them you expect, indeed demand, a lot better treatment of fisheries than what we’ve seen thus far from the current Administration.
This is still a free country. Speak out. Speaking truth is powerful.
The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) is the west coast’s largest organization of commercial fishing families. Zeke Grader is the PCFFA Executive Director. He is a registered Democrat and was a member of the Secretary of Commerce’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee (MAFAC) during the Reagan and first Bush Administrations. Glen Spain is PCFFA’s Northwest Regional Director and a registered Republican. PCFFA can be reached at its Southwest Office at PO Box 29370, San Francisco, CA USA 94129-0370, or by phone to (415)561-5080; its Northwest Office at PO Box 11170, Eugene, OR 97440-3370, or by phone to (541)689-2000. Check out PCFFA’s web site at: www.pcffa.org, and PCFFA’s email address is: fish1ifr@aol.com.