The PFMC meeting in Foster City, CA began for the Groundfish Advisory SubPanel last Sunday at 1:00 PM.
It was a longer than usual week. We dealt with several issues. The agenda included California whiting seasons, trawl individual quota program, groundfish rebuilding plan revision rules, in-season adjustments, and (the big guerilla in the room) Essential Fish Habitat.
Nothing dramatic occurred with any of the issues with the exception of EFH.
EFH is an issue mandated by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The environmental group Oceana filed suit about three years ago claiming that the Council failed to follow proper procedure in addressing EFH issues. They prevailed in court.
Oceana had submitted their own plan for area closures. It was included as an option in the plan before us. The trawl industry submitted their own plan for areas to close about a week before this meeting. The trawl industry and Oceana negotiated for long hours including an all-nighter Tuesday-Wednesday. By Wednesday the two plans were very close.
Wednesdays Council floor debate was long, but very productive and civil. When the smoke cleared the Council had voted 14-0 to close bottom trawling in about 75% of the EEZ (0-200 miles) of the entire west coast. The trawl industry and Oceana gave up similar amounts to reach middle ground. Oceana got large areas to close and the trawl industry gave up little of their existing fishing grounds. Bottom trawl is now constrained to their present ‘footprint’. Expansion will not be possible as they are now ‘boxed in’. Both sides were pleased with the outcome.
Jim Martin (NorCal RFA) and myself supported the trawl industry proposal in the GAP. We didn’t really like much about several of the Oceana closures as they were rushed due to court mandates and contained little hard peer reviewed science for support. The trawls gave up much more than I would have so the least we could do was back them. This could happen to us (recreationals) in the future. This fact was foremost in our minds as we addressed this issue. It was necessary for the Council to do enough to avoid future litigation in this matter. It was possible for an environmental group to sue again claiming not enough was done. It would then be possible for a court to order a closure plan developed completely outside of stakeholder participation to be imposed. We don’t think this will happen as what was passed was close enough to Oceana’s proposal.
The best part is that an action was passed to review, through the council process, any future closure proposals including the present areas. This future review process was our (RFA/Oregon Anglers) number one priority. We voted for this and it was included in the GAP statement to the Council.
This action will be inserted into the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Groundfish Management Plan to become effective in May 2006.
There is much more to this action. This is just the biggest part of it. It is detail intensive. If you want to know more it will be available on the Council website (
http://www.pcouncil.org) in a few days.
Portland, Sept. 18-23 is the next PFMC meeting.
John Holloway
Oregon Anglers/Rec. Fishing Alliance
PFMC GAP(Oregon Sport)
PFMC Meeting, Foster City, CA. Report
Salty Walty
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