Thursday, January 17, 2008 

Fueling vessel runs aground near Wrangell

WRANGELL --A beached fuel vessel leaked an unknown amount of diesel fuel into the Clarence Strait about 30 miles from Wrangell, Alaska, Wednesday.

U.S. Coast Guard officials said the Dolphin, 174-foot-long coastal tender, was transporting 34,000 gallons of fuel when it ran aground. It was put back afloat and secured, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

A Coast Guard helicopter and cutter reportedly were sent during the day to check the waters for a diesel spill.

The Southeast Alaska Petroleum Resource Organization has agreed to initiate action for controlling the spill and has sent divers to inspect possible damage to the Dolphin, the Coast Guard said.

Coast Guard officials had not reported the cause of the event. – UPI

Deal reached among some Klamath water users

SACRAMENTO -- After more than three years of negotiations, a collection of long-quarreling Klamath Basin farmers, fishermen and tribes announced a breakthrough agreement that they said could lead to the nation's most extensive dam-removal project.

The $1-billion plan proposes to end one of the West's fiercest water wars by reviving the Klamath River's flagging salmon population while ensuring irrigation water and cheap power for farmers in the basin, which straddles the Oregon-California state line.

The company that owns the four dams in the basin -- billionaire Warren Buffett's PacifiCorp -- was excluded from negotiations and did not sign on. But participants heralded the hard-fought agreement as a sprawling, basin-wide solution that united factions long at odds over the fate of the troubled river.

"Never has the basin been so unified around the necessity for removal of those dams," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Assns.

Two environmental groups and a Northern California tribe balked at the blueprint, calling it a Bush administration sellout to agribusiness allies. Clifford Lyle Marshall, chairman of the holdout Hoopa Valley Tribe, said the proposal favors farmers over the river's fish and labeled it "an Old West irrigation deal: guarantees for irrigators, empty promises for the Indians."

"The ironic thing is there's not even dam removal in this dam-removal deal," said Bob Hunter of WaterWatch of Oregon, one of the two dissenting environmental groups, both of which were excluded from the negotiations last year. "It seems they released it now because time is running out for the Bush administration to deliver to its political allies in the Klamath farm community."

PacifiCorp officials also took exception to the proposal.

Paul Vogel, a PacifiCorp spokesman, said the company initiated the talks as part of its bid for a new federal operating license for the dams. But he said PacifiCorp was "shut out of the room" for most of the last year as the final plan was cobbled together by more than two dozen state, federal and local government agencies, tribes and other groups.

"You really have to question if there's enough substance there to be worth the paper it's printed on," he said.

The federal government's chief negotiator at the talks, Steve Thompson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he participated free of political influence from the White House and continues to hold out hope that PacifiCorp will sign on to the proposal in coming weeks.

But critics, including Hunter, suggested that the deal could prompt PacifiCorp to lay its money on winning renewal from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The commission is expected to follow the lead of U.S. wildlife agencies, which have required the company to build fish ladders over the dams. Those ladders could cost up to $300 million and might not work. Several studies suggest it would be cheaper for the company to demolish the dams and find alternative power.

The Klamath River Basin has been an epicenter of the fight over dwindling water in the West for a decade.

In the drought year of 2001, worries about endangered fish prompted the federal government to cut back water to farmers, igniting a heated summerlong protest.

The next year farmers won more water, but environmentalists blamed a cutback in river flows for the death of 70,000 salmon.

By 2006, the river's Chinook salmon population had declined so much that federal officials sharply cut back the commercial fishing season, spreading dismay to coastal communities.

At the same time, those representing the Klamath region's competing interests began trying to settle their differences behind closed doors. Meeting roughly once a month, they quarreled in secret but slowly reached the consensus that yielded the final draft released Tuesday.

Farmers won the three prime concessions they had sought. The agreement establishes water deliveries they can live with: more in wet years, less in dry. It provides $40 million toward subsidized power to run irrigation pumps and develop renewable energy to replace the electricity they now get from PacifiCorp's hydropower dams. And it assuages their concerns that the reappearance of endangered salmon won't end up shutting down farms in the upper basin "if and when the fish get up here," said Greg Addington of the Klamath Water Users Assn.

Steve Rothert of American Rivers, one of several environmental groups that endorsed the deal, said he was confident that even with guaranteed water for farming, the agreement guarantees adequate flows in the river to help salmon rebound.

"We are on the cusp of ending decades-long disputes and charting a better future for farmers, tribes, fishermen and all the communities that depend on a healthy Klamath River," he said.

The dissenting environmental groups disagree, saying the agreement cements promises to farmers that in dry years could rob the river of water needed to sustain the salmon and other fish.

"What began as an effort to help salmon and remove dams has turned into a plan to farm American taxpayers," said Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild, the other dissenting group.

He said the plan also institutionalizes "large-scale commercial agriculture" on 22,000 acres in Klamath wildlife refuges, which his group has fought to see reserved just for birds.

The plan goes far beyond fixing the river. It calls, for instance, for the purchase of a 90,000-acre tract for the Klamath Tribes of Oregon for use as a reservation. – Los Angeles Times

Trawl ban and setnet proposal on Board of Fisheries agenda

A controversial ban on trawlers and a proposal to allow fishermen to use two setnet permits were expected to cause the most heat this week as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Board of Fisheries meets in Kodiak

 The board opened the meetings with member introductions and by the afternoon, moved into public testimony. More than 100 Kodiak fishermen and residents signed up to testify with the majority addressing proposals covering the possible closure of Alitak Bay (Proposals 38 to 40) and allowing anyone who owns two set net permits to operate both.

 Kodiak Fish and Game Advisory Committee secretary Don Fox opened up the public testimony section with an overview of the advisory committee’s decision on each case, then made personal comments concerning Proposal 58.

 “Fishing two permits will affect my neighbor,” Fox said in opposition to the proposal.

Peter Hannah was more blunt in his opposition to Proposal 58, saying the adoption would create “absentee fishermen.”

 “This proposal does nothing to promote quality,” he said. “It does nothing to reduce gear on the ground. All it does is reduce permit owners.”

 Presently, a fisherman may own two permits, but can only fish one.

 Richard Blanc said his proposal allowing fishermen to fish two permits “would be especially advantageous to a family-owned set net camp with multiple permits held by the family. Blanc said allowing dual permit fishing was imperative to long-term market survival.

 Hannah disagreed. “This proposal has the potential to eliminate 50 percent of set net owners in Kodiak,” he said. “Is that want we want to do — eliminate fishermen? I hope not.”

 Leigh Thomet was also against the proposal.

 “First of all, I am sick to death of consolidation,” she said. “I am resentful having to waste my time again to battle against it. Without any doubt, Proposal 58 will create allocation problems.”

 Also at issue and just as emotional was the proposal to close Alitak Bay to pelagic trawlers and a proposal that would require 100 percent observer coverage on vessels trawling in the bay.

 Fisherman Kurt Waters, who has been battling the proposal since he found out about it, was at the meeting to address board members.

 “We are just as concerned as everyone else about the resources that support this community,” he said. “Many points will be made for and against trawling in Deadman Bay and I urge you to make your decision based on proven facts.”

 Fishermen Jay Stinson and John McCarty were also there to oppose the proposals.

Public comments were scheduled to continue today. – Kodiak Daily Mirror

More battles: Halibut talk in Portland and in the courts

The International Pacific Halibut Commission is meeting all week in Portland, and it could be a feisty meeting. The commissioners are considering a 9 percent cut in the catch limit, with scientists urging a painful 27 percent hit in Area 2C (Southeast Alaska).

 But Portland isn’t the only place the commission is facing fire.

 The IPHC is being sued in state Superior Court in Anchorage.

 The plaintiff, Christopher Lee Price, contends he was working as a port sampler for the IPHC when, in August 2006, he fell on an icy floor in the UniSea Inc. fish plant at Dutch Harbor and suffered back and hip injuries.

 Port samplers collect scientific data on the halibut catch.

 Price argues the IPHC and UniSea, which also was sued, were negligent for failing to provide a safe workplace. His attorney also argues the IPHC broke Alaska law by not providing workers’ compensation insurance coverage for its employees.

 Now here’s where it gets interesting.

 The IPHC contends it “enjoys absolute immunity from suit” as an international organization, and had no obligation to provide workers’ compensation insurance.

 Nonsense, argues Price’s attorney, Marc June of Anchorage.

 “The IPHC hiring of employees without disclosing its belief that it is absolutely immune from suit is an inherently fraudulent course of conduct,” June writes in court papers.

 Such a disclosure might make it tough for the IPHC to hire people, June says.

“Workout port samplers, the IPHC would lack the basic data necessary to regulate the fishery,” he says.

 Hmm. Sounds like halibut hullabaloo in Portland and Anchorage too. – Pacific Fishing columnist Wesley Loy writing as The Highliner for the Anchorage Daily News

Warming seas bad for fish food, study finds

Certain fish could disappear from restaurant menus and our plates at home by 2100, as global warming changes ocean food webs, a new study suggests.

 Climate change has the potential to threaten ecosystems all over the world, and those in the ocean are no exception.

 Two marine ecologists led a study of the effects of climate change on the food web of the Bering Sea, which currently provides about half of the fish caught in U.S. waters each year and nearly a third caught worldwide.

 "All the fish that ends up in McDonald's, fish sandwiches — that's all Bering Sea fish," said Dave Hutchins of the University of Southern California, whose former student at the University of Delaware, Clinton Hare, led the study.

 The Bering Sea has already shown signs of warming, Hutchins says, which could affect the productivity of its ecosystem.

 "Its warmer, marine mammals and birds are having massive die-offs, there are invasive species — in general, it’s changing to a more temperate ecosystem that’s not going to be as productive," he said.

 Hare and Hutchins studied how climate change affected communities of phytoplankton, which are food for smaller fishes. The Bering Sea is so highly productive because of a large type of phytoplankton found in its waters, known as diatoms.

 The researchers collected phytoplankton samples from the sea and incubated them, simulating sea surface temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations predicted for 2100. Their work is detailed in a recent issue of the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

 They found that these conditions favored smaller types of phytoplankton at the expense of the diatoms.

 As diatoms become more scarce, animals that eat them, including the fish caught in the Bering Sea, will also die off the researchers say.

 "The experiments we did up there definitely suggest that the changing ecosystem may support less of what we’re harvesting, things like pollock and hake," Hutchins said.

 A decrease in the number of diatoms could also intensify global warming. Because they are bigger than other phytoplankton, diatoms store more carbon when they die and fall to the sea floor. If they disappear, their smaller brethren will leave more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  – LiveScience

Zebra mussel found in California

The zebra mussel that has wreaked havoc in waterways around the nation has been found in California, dismaying state and federal water officials who hoped to prevent the fast-spreading mollusk from reaching the West Coast.

State officials do not know how the mussel traveled west of the Rockies, although they suspect it may have hitched a ride on a recreational boat transported by trailer.

Dozens of zebra mussels – a notorious alien invader, each smaller than a dime – turned up in the last 10 days in a Hollister-area reservoir that serves growers and residents in San Benito County, known for its walnut and apricot orchards. County officials there worry that the mussel will clog irrigation lines and pumps in a region that has already been hit hard by state water shortages.

The zebra mussel, like its close relative the quagga mussel, is a European native that infested the Great Lakes and other waterways in the last two decades, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Both types of mussels can alter the food chain dramatically and cause steep declines in fish populations, according to government and academic scientists who have studied their spread.

The quagga mussel, which made its first western appearance in Lake Mead last January, has already spread through the Colorado River Aqueduct to reach several Southern California reservoirs.

"It's not good news. If they're as invasive as they say, it could be a nightmare for our infrastructure," said Arman Nazemi, assistant San Benito County public works director, who heard last week that a fisherman found a zebra mussel in San Justo Reservoir.

There is no definitive way to eradicate the zebra or quagga mussel, state officials said.

"Once they're in a waterway, there's not much we can do," said Alexia Retallack, spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game, which announced the zebra mussel's discovery Tuesday. "They're prolific breeders. A female can produce 40,000 eggs in a single spawning, and over a season about a million. That's a lot."

Myriad questions surround the zebra mussel's discovery in San Justo Reservoir, which is normally open to recreational boaters but has been closed to them since the mussel was found.

"We want to know how widespread are they. Is this an isolated occurrence, or is the reservoir full of them?" Retallack said.

State, federal and county officials are investigating the finding because the reservoir is the terminus of a gravity-flow pipeline from San Luis Reservoir, used jointly by the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project, state officials said. Water flows into the terminal reservoir, making it unlikely that the mussels could gravitate upstream into the projects, said Pete Weisser, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources.

Neither type of mussel has been found in the California Aqueduct or other State Water Project facilities that deliver water throughout California. But the discovery of the zebra mussel comes at a difficult time for San Benito County farmers, who have seen water deliveries cut 10% to 15% since late December because of a judicial ruling limiting pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The zebra mussel is a Russian native that is believed to have traveled to the United States in 1988 in the ballast water of a ship, landing first in Lake St. Clair and spreading throughout the Great Lakes in the next 10 years. The mussels have invaded large areas of the Northeast, Midwest and South, competing with fish for food and causing sweeping changes in the ecosystems. – Los Angeles Times