Fort Bragg commercial fishermen hit hard by federal plan to spare sportfishing season

Drastic cuts to California and Oregon commercial salmon fishing are expected to have impacts on the Mendocino Coast, from the price of salmon on summer dinner plates to the economic base of the community.

Commercial fishermen will be allowed only 15 days of fishing this year off Fort Bragg, Sept. 1-15, or until a quota of 4,000 fish is reached.

That move was part of a cutback of Chinook salmon fishing seasons as recommended last Thursday by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC). The recommendation must be approved by the Secretary of Commerce, but that action is usually routine, said Darrell Ticehurst, PFMC member.

Commercial salmon fishing season once ran from May through September off Fort Bragg, so the cutback is drastic enough to threaten the loss of local fishing boats, according to published reports. Local commercial fishermen are most frustrated because salmon are plentiful in the ocean. The move comes because the Klamath River, where the salmon spawn, has been consistently damaged by low water levels due to farm diversions, dams and resulting warm temperatures and parasites there.

Commercial fishing suffered big cutbacks all over California. Under current cutbacks, it would be completely banned in southern Oregon and extreme Northern California. The council also imposed a 75-fish limit per week per commercial boat.

This week, state and federal lawmakers are considering economic aid packages for commercial boats. Sport fishing was spared the brunt of the cuts, losing fishing in federal waters in April from a typical year. Commercial fishing was hit much harder than recreational because of data that showed how much more contacts commercial fishing boats have with Klamath salmon, said Ben Sleeter of the Coastside Fishing Club political team.

“Even if the entire recreational fishery would have been closed, it would have done next to nothing for the commercials. We just don”t catch enough of these [Klamath] fish to make a difference, and this is why we are going to fish this year,” Sleeter said.

Sleeter said recreational fishermen need to step forward to help pay for the salmon restoration programs funded by commercial fishermen.

The Salmon Restoration Association (SRA) will once again be purchasing wild-caught salmon from outside California for the July 1st World”s Largest Salmon Barbecue in Noyo Harbor, said Joe Janisch, president of SRA.

“While sport fishermen will be able to harvest some salmon, commercial fishermen out of Fort Bragg will not be able to supply the barbecue. This will be the second time in over 30 years, last year and this year, that local commercial fishermen will not be able to provide local salmon. Once again, our economy and people will live with poor resource management decisions made in another watershed by people who can”t properly manage their own water,” said Janicsh.

SRA will maintain the same $20 ticket price as last year. All donations above the cost of putting on the event will be used to raise salmon at the Hollow Tree Fish Hatchery, which feeds salmon into the Eel River, Janisch said.

“We currently have over 80,000 fingerlings at the hatchery from this year”s egg taking. These salmon should be ready for release to the wild by June,” he said.

Following the PFMC decision, local elected representatives, especially Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who represents the Mendocino Coast and cooks each year at the World”s Largest Salmon Barbecue, have been on the attack about issues related to the Klamath River.

A press release from a congressional delegation including Thompson vilified a Bush Administration action set for Monday, April 10, “when the Justice Department plans on asking U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong to reconsider her ruling which stated that the Bureau of Reclamation must limit the amount of water that is diverted from the Klamath and its struggling salmon.”

According to the Washington Post, Armstrong”s ruling said that diversions for farms must be cut back during dry years to protect the salmon.

“There are scientifically-set minimum flows needed to protect migrating salmon, the judge ordered, and the federal government cannot fiddle with them,” the Washington Post stated.

Opposition to Armstrong”s ruling is what Thompson and other pro-salmon Congressmembers are using to attack the administration.

“This … is nothing short of a slap in the face to fishing families and coastal communities in California and Oregon,” Thompson said in a press release. “We are reeling from yesterday”s decision to severely limit the season, and today the Bush administration has shown complete disregard for the health of the Klamath and the livelihoods of thousands of people who live along our coast.”

Ticehurst said that economic impacts of the decision could include commercial fishermen losing boats, fuel docks closing and a loss in funds used to restore salmon fisheries and habitat.

During a severe drought in 2002, the Bush administration — with Karl Rove, the president”s senior adviser, personally championing the cause of farmers — gave the Klamath federal irrigation project its normal allotment of water, the Washington Post reported. Salmon were left to bear the brunt of the drought. That fall, in a fish kill that made national headlines, more than 30,000 adult salmon died. The State of California blamed it on low river flows, warm water, crowding of fish and an outbreak of bacterial disease, the Washington Post reported.

Critics have said Rove”s project was part of a successful effort to get a Republican senator elected in Oregon.

Republicans from California, such as Congressman Richard Pombo, have worked with Thompson and groups like the Recreational Fishing Alliance to fight to save fishing season, reported Jim Martin of the RFA.

The Washington Post also reported last week that the Bush Administration is considering reversing its firm opposition to all dam removal in the case of the Klamath. The PFMC, in making the cuts to fishing season, also called for removal of dams on the Klamath River, a position once the domain of environmentalists. The four dams are currently up for relicensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The Bush Administration”s own fisheries experts are now demanding that the privately owned dams either be removed or rebuilt in a hugely expensive way that allows fish passage, the Washington Post reported.

Under the expected season, recreational fishing will begin May 1 in federal waters from Point Arena to Pigeon Point. It will run through Nov. 12, except for two closed days in June and two in July. From Pigeon Point to Point Sur, recreational fishing will run from May 1 through Sept. 24.

Ticehurst said that action by groups like the Coastside Fishing Club (of which he is also a member) had made all the difference in saving the fishing season from elimination, including organizing big rallies in Sacramento and Santa Rosa. Commercial fishing groups also had protests led by Zeke Grader and others but Ticehurst said the amount of Klamath fish commercial fishermen catch made a decision to save their season out of the questions. Ticehurst told of one Department of Fish and Game fellow council member whose mind was changed by the protests and testimony at the meeting to allow for the sport fishing season to be saved. He said anglers must stay involved in the issue.

Martin and the RFA were also instrumental in the victory. In Fort Bragg, 1,000 signatures were gathered in support of keeping the recreational season open. “RFA worked with commercial fishing organizations, sportfishing clubs and the local chambers of commerce to get them to provide economic data to the council about how the decision would affect coastal communities,” Martin said.

As far as how the Klamath disaster originated, Thompson announced that he has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with NOAA Fisheries, asking for all documents pertaining to federal salmon policy dating back to 2001.

“It”s time to shine a bright light into the shady backrooms where the Bush Administration has been making politically motivated decisions about the management of the Klamath,” Thompson said. “These politically motivated decisions are directly responsible for the poor condition of the Klamath and the near loss of this year”s salmon season.”

Thompson added, “I find it mystifying that the president can declassify top-secret intelligence information that is harmful to our national security, but his own administration won”t provide unclassified information on a topic important to the livelihoods of thousands of Americans up and down the California and Oregon coast.”

Our fishing communities are not to be blamed for our declining salmon population, so they should not be bearing the brunt of this decision. The problem today is the Bush Administration”s water and energy policies, which do not respect the needs of our fishing communities.”

U.S Sen. Barbara Boxer supports financial programs to help commercial fishermen hurt by the decision. “Our fishing communities are not to be blamed for our declining salmon population, so they should not be bearing the brunt of this decision. The problem today is the Bush Administration”s water and energy policies, which do not respect the needs of our fishing communities,” Boxer said in a press release.

Although some have forecast higher prices for salmon this summer, PFMC”s Ticehurst felt the price and availability impact wouldn”t be great because of the global nature of the market and the continued availability of Alaskan commercially caught wild salmon.

He said that next year the problem is likely to be worse, with a tougher time ahead negotiating compromises year after year. He said the Klamath fishery must be declared “overfished” when numbers fall below the target three years in a row, which will happen next year. Fishery management plans never anticipated the degradation of a river in the way that has happened several years in a row on the Klamath, he noted.