Out to Catch the Last Fish – Dick Grachek

Anne KathrynIt’s really getting old hearing this overfishing nonsense all the time.  To be a fisherman these days is to be able to understand the GEICO Caveman’s dilemma, that is, being bombarded, at every turn, with insults from NOAA’s incompetent stock assessments, mindless regulations and their irresponsible administering, but especially the anti-fishing Swift-Boating type media campaigns of lies proffered by the “Environmental” Non- Government Organizations.  Misinformation gems such as, “fishermen are out to catch the very last fish in the ocean”, and “…sophisticated electronic fish finding gear enables stock decimating catches”, or one of my favorites, “…dragging nets the size of a Boeing 747 that clear cut the ocean bottom”; these ridiculous perspectives then saturate the media, hoodwink the public, turn up in “scientific” papers, and too often, make it into fishery regulations. Everyday people (not working for the government or taking a check from the Environmental Non-Government Organizations) who believe this garbage are either not thinking, or must believe that we, like members of the energy industry and the financial industry, are interested in devouring our own future for short term profit bliss. >click to read<

16 Responses to Out to Catch the Last Fish – Dick Grachek

  1. borehead - Moderator says:

    Another excellent article, Mr. Grachek!

  2. Joel Hovanesian says:

    Dick you have said what we in the know have always felt. We have been turned into villans by the well oiled propaganda machines of the radical enviro shills.

    We need to start talking about the amount of fish we are forced waste because of idiotic regulations. We need to start talking about turning these sensless discards into food for the masses of hungry people who are going to bed at night with empty stomachs.
    I still go out of my mind when I go fishing these days when we are forced to kick 3lb. flounders, jumbo sea bass, fluke,grey sole,and everything else that swims under the waves back over board. What we are FORCED to do is imoral. It’s like deer hunting, killing a deer and just leaving it in the woods to rot. Totally immoral
    I know there’s not a fisherman out there who would be opposed to bringing in these regulatory discards to GIVE AWAY FOR FREE to the hungry if we were allowed. I would be able to once again look forward to heading to sea knowing I wouldn’t be forced to comprimise my own principles about what is right and wrong. We must start a campaign to end this sensless waste while children go to bed hungry in the wealthiest nation on earth. IT HAS TO STOP. I’m working on a couple things now in this regard. I’ll talk to you about it.

    Keep up the fight.

  3. freefish7 says:

    You are right Joel. I have offered the same idea of donating food to soup kitchens and food pantries. Read the public comments about my vision for our snapper/grouper fishery under the Urgent Action Alert section on the home page of my website. http://www.freefish7.com

    Here are public comments I submitted for the Dec. 2011 SAFMC meeting. They are relevant to this discussion.

    Public Comments Regarding the PROPER Management of America’s Fisheries

    My name is Chris McCaffity. I am a commercial snapper/grouper fisherman who has been offering simple solutions that would mitigate many of the SEVERE negative impacts associated with LAWS written by unelected bureaucrats that violate the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Fishermen have been forced to obey these laws through the barrel of a gun and threats of fines, seizure of our property, or even imprisonment. We pay the price for our obedience with our blood, treasure, and liberty. The gross incompetence of the bureaucrats who claim to have mismanaged almost every stock they control is rewarded with more money and power to rule us with an iron fist and the full weight of the federal government behind them.

    Roy Crabtree is the SE Regional Administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service and sits on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. He told me that if I did not like the way our fisheries are being managed, then I needed to take it up with Congress. I pray these Public Comments will find their way to every member of Congress. I pray these comments will soften the hearts of the fishery “managers” who seem to feel absolved of any personal responsibility for their actions that financially DEVESTATE our families, play key roles in the DEATHS of our fellow fishermen, and cause TONS of perfectly edible fish to be TORTURED to death and WASTED in the name of CONSERVATION! I PRAY the PUBLIC will STAND with me against the environmental “charities” and their bureaucrat puppets that threaten our God-given freedom.

    I will be BOYCOTTING the December SAFMC meeting that will be held three hours away from the closest saltwater. This appears to be an attempt to disenfranchise a small minority group of American citizens. Many of us cannot afford to travel and stay at an expensive hotel since our businesses have been destroyed. I believe this is a passive aggressive ploy to restrict our freedom of speech. Will Congress allow unelected bureaucrats to violate our First Amendment Right to peacefully defend our God-given Rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

    I previously mentioned how the laws written by unelected bureaucrats are enforced through the barrel of a gun and threats of heavy fines, seizure of property, or even imprisonment. The enforcement officers VIOLATE our Fourth Amendment Constitutional Rights as they ILLEGALLY search and seize our private property. A boat is considered a residence if it has a head and bunk. The CURTILAGE of that residence includes the ENTIRE vessel. Any WARRANTLESS search or seizure of such vessels associated with anything other than safety violations (as ruled by the Supreme Court) is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

    EVERY member of Congress and EVERY unelected bureaucrat SWEARS an oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. Will Congress hold the domestic enemies of our Constitution accountable for their actions? Will our Senators and Representatives HONOR their oath?

    The multiple layers of fishery bureaucracy are using tactics laid out in UN Agenda 21 which Congress recognized as a threat to our Nation’s sovereignty and to our Constitutional Rights. Congress refused to ratify that attack on our individual Liberty. Environmental “charities” have lobbied Congress and pressured bureaucrats to load environmental laws with Agenda 21 mandates like the Precautionary Principal. Every President that held office since Congress refused to ratify Agenda 21 has issued executive orders forcing these UN mandates on us. Will Congress do anything about these Presidential and bureaucratic actions that usurp their authority? Will the public realize what is happening before we lose 51% of our freedom?

    I ask Congress to take these actions to help America’s fishermen and the seafood we harvest.

    1. Give federal fishery permit holders the power to have final approval of any new regulation effecting their fishery with a 2/3 majority vote.

    2. Give federal fishery permit holders the power to access ALL documents available to fishery “managers” and allow the permit holders to offer alternate management measures that follow ALL of the guidelines in the Magnuson-Stevens Act and use existing Total Allowable Catch numbers.

    3. Set up an independent peer review panel to ensure that all past, present, and future management measures offered by fishery “managers” and permit holders abide by ALL of the Magnuson-Stevens Act mandates. Allow permit holders to offer alternatives to the past management measures that violate the MSA in any way or simply abolish them.

    4. Give federal fishery permit holders the power to FIRE any fishery “manager” involved in their fishery with a 2/3 majority vote of no confidence and offer a replacement to be approved by the peer review panel and a 2/3 majority vote of the permit holders.

    5. Create a federal data collection permit for every recreational and commercial fishery. Require all fishermen to purchase a twenty dollar permit for each federal fishery they participate in. Allocate those funds and 1% of the NMFS BILLION dollar annual budget to set up an independent data collection center. Require every permit holder to electronically report the fish they catch for each trip. The data collected should be used in independent stock assessments to support or refute the “Best Available Science” used by fishery “managers”. The data should also be used to PROPERLY manage the quotas with possession limits adjusted quarterly or after approximately 75% of a seasonal quota has been caught to levels that will fill the quotas without any long closures. The permit holders would have final approval of any adjustments with a 2/3 majority vote.

    6. Set up a secure way for federal permit holders to cast these 2/3 majority votes electronically. This secure site could also be used to debate how we want to manage our fisheries. Any permit holder could offer their own management measures. We could have an open and honest debate and come to a compromise that follows ALL MSA mandates and can pass a 2/3 majority vote of the permit holders in the effected fishery.

    7. Begin a full Congressional investigation into all levels of federal fishery bureaucracy. Their own stock assessments show they have grossly mismanaged almost every fishery they have controlled for decades. The evidence of corruption and abuse of power is mounting against the multiple layers of fishery bureaucracy every day. Congress set up the fishery bureaucracies to manage our fisheries for the benefit of all Americans and to insure that those public resources are healthy and sustainable for future generations. They have failed miserably. They have destroyed countless jobs. They have caused the deaths of many innocent fishermen. They have forced fishermen to discard millions of dead and dying fish to go to waste in the name of conservation. They have violated our Constitutional Rights as they force us to commit these atrocities. They have used UN mandates to strike down the freedom our Creator endowed us with and many brave American soldiers have defended with their lives. We could achieve the goals we should all have of healthy fisheries that can be responsibly harvested forever with very little waste without all of the Regulatory Discards, financial ruin, bloodshed, and loss of Liberty. We simply need to work together using SOUND SCIENCE, the slightest bit of COMMON SENSE, and remember the GOLDEN RULE.

    The actions listed above would give fishermen a little more say in how we do our jobs and how our fisheries are managed while following ALL of the requirements Congress included in the reauthorized MSA. Roy Crabtree has publicly stated that the management measures they pass do not have to follow all of the mandates in the MSA. Will Congress allow these unelected bureaucrats to get away with blatantly refusing to follow the MSA mandates to limit waste, make efficient use of our resources, and promote fishermen’s safety at sea?

    Please consider what Edmond Burke said. “Enforcing stupid laws is the essence or tyranny.” I argue that forcing fishermen to torture fish to death and waste them in the name of conservation is a perfect example of a STUPID law that promotes tyranny rather than liberty. Is the loss of liberty any less tragic if it is taken with “good” intentions by fellow Americans, rather than by foreign enemies? Will Congress allow unelected bureaucrats to continue enforcing STUPID laws on American citizens through the barrel of a gun and violations of our Constitutional Rights?

    I have laid out plans in previous public statements about how we could limit waste and enhance our resources with things like Artificial Reefs that are the perfect union of aquaculture and commercially or recreationally harvested wild seafood. An aggressive Artificial Reef program would benefit the resource and fishermen while providing millions of people with access to delicious and nutritious wild caught seafood. I have also mentioned how the Saltonstall-Kennedy tax on imported seafood should be used to enhance our fisheries and promote the domestic supply of seafood. How are the funds being used now?

    I would be happy to provide anyone reading this with copies of my previous public comments. I would also be extremely happy to testify before Congress during the investigation that I pray will begin before it is too late for the few remaining commercial fishermen who have suffered mightily as our fisheries have been grossly mismanaged.

    Thank you for taking the time to read these comments. Please feel free to ask me any questions or request any of my previous public comments. [email protected]

    The torturing of fish I refer to occurs when we are forced to discard bloated fish suffering from barotrauma that cannot go back down even after venting. Those poor fish bake in the sun for hours as seagulls peck out their bulging eyes before death mercifully ends their suffering. Fish do not feel pain the same way we do, but if we mortally wound them in the hunt for food, we should kill them quickly and use them wisely. I asked the SAFMC if I could cut an illegal fish’s backbone to kill it quickly and mercifully before discarding it if the fish was obviously going to die anyway. The answer was NO!

    • borehead - Moderator says:

      NowTHATS a comment!

      Please go to the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council webpage and support this comment if you agree by liking it and/or posting a reply.

      SAFMC,

      Please read this brief message regarding the social and economic impacts of Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS). The negative impacts on our profits and Constitutional Rights far out way any benefits to fishermen from keeping a few poachers out of MPAs.
      Read Morehttp://www.facebook.com/groups/230393837053124/permalink/389364847822688/#!/groups/334830543217855/

  4. M. Ben-Yami says:

    M. Ben-Yami Column WORLD FISHING, August 2012
    OVERFISHING? NOT QUITE
    I don’t like the term overfishing. Not that overfishing doesn’t occur, but because this term is only too often over-used and misused. If referred to in one of its proper contexts – it’s fine with me. But why to use it in cases of general impoverishment of a fish population where fishing might be hardly or only partly involved?
    Most fish populations usually expand, shrivel and even collapse, sporadically or in cyclic or semi-cyclic time-series also without the “help” of fishing. They can also be impoverished due to coastal and upstream pollution or destruction of inshore habitats essential for some fishes’ reproduction and growth. They can be collapsed by exotic pests, as it happened over a decade ago in the Black Sea, by the invading Atlantic comb-jelly indiscriminately feeding on all fish eggs and larvae. Collapses or impoverishments of fish stocks result also of a combination of fishing and non-fishing factors.
    Some uninformed people may misuse the term because of ignorance of such ecological processes and their effects on fish populations. But, if fishery scientists, managers and environmentalists misuse and overuse the term “overfishing” it must be due to that or other bias, one of which being a well-cushioned agenda of drawing away public attention from the harm that various polluting industries are causing to fish stocks.
    It’s obvious today that the impoverishment of the Grand Banks’, Newfoundland’s and Nova Scotia’s cod stocks couldn’t be attributed solely to overfishing. The same goes for the strongly fluctuating SW American anchoveta fishery, associated with ElNino-related changes in oceanographic conditions. Stocks assumed overfished may appear all of a sudden in force, as it happened some years ago on the Faroese Plateau, where fishermen gathered that the fish had been displaced by unfavourable environmental factors and migrated back when the conditions returned to normal. Another example is the recovery of the N. Atlantic cod stock approaching levels not seen for 30 or 40 years and recognized by the ICES and E.U. fisheries management, but ignored by popular press influenced by environmental extremists using catastrophic language to promote overfishing fallacy.
    The Icelandic herring fishery started dwindling after the 1950s, which was followed by the introduction of ITQ system. When it had recovered towards the end of the 20th century from a bust period into its boom semi-cycle with an almost ten-fold increase of catches, and its biomass greater than at any time since the 1950s, some economists piggy-back rode on this swing, claiming (how not): thanks to Iceland’s ITQ-quota system… This was a lame claim, for the herring’s recovery had been rather due to a favourable shift from the mid-century bust period to an upward trend of a cycle. This fitted the climate-fisheries fluctuation patterns outlined some years earlier in L.B. Klyashtorin’s FAO Fish.Tech.Pap . (410), followed by a 2005 book by L.B. Klyashtorin and A.A. Lyubushin, published by VNIRO, Moscow. Management or not, when time comes, the herring stock will slide again on the downward slope of its cycle.
    I recently received for reviewing a book entitled: “Overfishing: what everybody needs to know”, written by Ray with Ulrike Hilborn (Oxford University Press, 2012; 150 pp. – http://www.oup.com). Prof. Ray Hilborn who teaches fishery science at the Univ. of Washington in Seattle, has been a member of several U.S. national bodies, including the American Academy of Sciences. No doubt, he’s one of the top academic authorities on fisheries in the USA.

    The Hilborns wrote their book to react to the apocalyptic reports in the press, in popular literature, and in “Science” and “Nature” prophesying collapse of the world’s fisheries. Although almost all of the doomsday predictions had been initially rebuked by serious scientists, and later disavowed by the pretending prophets themselves, those disclaims hardly gained headlines comparable to the sensational ones that accompanied the vociferous reports dooming fishermen for destroying oceans’ resources. Both in this book as well as in his teaching programme, Prof. Hilborn is reasoning a need of changes in objectives of fisheries management, namely, more concern about ecosystems and profitable fishing industries. His emphasis is on the many successful sustainable fisheries in the world from which fisheries managers can learn. While there are many problems, most of these fisheries are producing at near maximum potential, while losses due to overfishing are small.
    “Overfishing” is written in a popular style, bringing to readers a much more balanced version of the problem than that fed to them by journalists brain-washed by extremist environmentalists and fallacious science. Although it devotes only 7 pages to the “Climate and Fisheries” chapter, the following quotes illustrate the spirit of Prof. Hilborns’ approach.
    “Traditionally, fisheries management agencies have ignored climate variations, considering year-to-year variability in productivity to be the major factor in abundance”. “Fisheries managers around the world scratch their heads over this question (whether a fishery is declining because of climate or fishing pressure?).
    “There’s general acceptance now that fish productivity is a result of both climate and overfishing”.
    “Considering (climatic) regime shifts, we can harvest a higher percentage of the stock during good regimes than during bad ones”. “…climate and fishing act together. What seems a safe level of fishing in good times can be disastrous when times are bad”.
    Unfortunately, there’s even less in the book about the consequences of pollution, habitat degradation, predation, and eutrophication on fish production and survival. This is a pity, because it should be obvious what many honest scientists, such as Dr. Tim Adams a scientist and fishery manager from the Pacific has been saying for a couple of decades now: “there are a lot more things affecting fish stocks than just fisheries” and that “the impact on coastal fisheries from contamination is massive – far greater than all the commercial and recreational catches combined.” There’re many examples, a recent one being what the pollution at the Gladstone harbour in Australia has done to marine life and humans alike. I’ll dedicate the next month column to the so often hushed problem of pollution and fisheries.

    • freefish7 says:

      The corporate drug dealers have paid off Congress and the eco-charities so they will not be held accountable for all the birth control and other chemicals polluting our waters that are reducing fish fecundity and overall survival rates.

    • Joel Hovanesian says:

      Mr Ben-Yami, Do you know of or have you ever heard of a species of fish that has been commercially exploited to extinction? It’s my assumption that it’s impossible. Perhaps I’m wrong.

  5. Dick Grachek says:

    Thankyou Menakhem and all the previous commenters.

    I will get the Hilborns’ book.

    Concerning the small boat, independently family- owned, “artisanal”, local fishing fleets of the world: the idea that a handful of inefficient and range restricted fishing boats can significantly affect the populations of a vast number of creatures inhabiting millions of square miles of ocean bottom is entirely ridiculous to begin with; but when those same bureaucratic “scientist regulators” claim to know exactly how to control the stock populations, and even more fantastic, claim to know the number of fish that should be in the oceans—the entire matter becomes truly delusional.

    Most assuredly the market capitalized China Fishery’s factory vacuum cleaner fleets, and others of their ilk, are “overfishing”; but, the built in limitations of the family savings account funded, and the skimpy profit margins of the range restricted, weather dependent, and generally “ inefficient” small boat fleet won’t allow them to overfish. Grouping small local fishing operations together with the industrial conglomerate mega-fishing corporations is an earmark of the anti-fishing oil money supported “conservationists”—a travesty both for the fishing operations and for the fish.

    A straight line cannot be drawn between fish stock population and small boat commercial fishing takes. This is a big mistake; it’s an incomplete and therefore bogus equation that forms the foundation for most management approaches. It’s got to change.

    • freefish7 says:

      The catch share schemes eco-charities are aggressively advancing are designed to give control of our fisheries to the very government backed “factory vacuum cleaner fleets” that are overfishing. The only two options for what these environmental organizations are doing is malicious intent or gross incompetence. Either way, they are destroying the small-scale independent artisanal fishermen who sustainably harvest the stocks we depend on for our jobs. Most of the eco-minions are blissfully ignorant of what they are doing while some know but feel absolved of any personal responsibility because they’re paid to do it.

      • Joel Hovanesian says:

        Many of these people who claim to be enviornmentalists are moraly bankrupt.

        A sad state of affairs and a condition that is becoming an epidemic in our nation.

  6. Dick Grachek says:

    Yes I agree. Catch shraes actually contribute to overfishing by allowing the giant corp’s money to buy up quota and devastate the stocks. This is exactly what the China Fishery is doing on a global scale; focusing at the moment on Africa (Namibia)

    I’m not so sure it’s a matter of innocent ignorance for the eco-minions though; don’t forget about the Pew legacy. Joeseph N. Pew is Mr. Sunoco and all the ecoFunds that spring from Pew are about tax sheltering some oil money while that money implements Big Oil’s business plan through the anti-fishing EDF/CLF/Lenfest etc. The plan is to contract the Outer Continental Shelf oil reserves in order to file proof of future production capabilities with the SEC in order to bolster their stock price and secure their future production and profit. Another part of their (Big oil’s via the ENGOs)agenda is…to get rid of us.

    They can’t have us drifting and towing around out there reporting the inevitable leaking oil wells on a daily basis.

    • freefish7 says:

      You make a good point about the oil companies wanting us out of the way.

      I have talked to some of the young eco-kids straight out of college that only know what they paid somebody to tell them to think. After a year or two, their blissful ignorance turns into something much more malicious. They are part of a collective that pays very well and they will sell us out and their honor for a fist full of dollars.

      Joseph Pew may have been an oil man, but he was infinitely better than the pew clan of today and the soulless corporations that are now big oil. Read this.

      “The mission of the J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust was to “acquaint the American people with the evils of bureaucracy and the values of a free market and to inform our people of the struggle, persecution, hardship, sacrifice and death by which freedom of the individual was won”. Joseph N. Pew, Jr. called Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal “a gigantic scheme to raze U.S. businesses to a dead level and debase the citizenry into a mass of ballot-casting serfs”.

      He is probably turning over in his grave seeing what pew has become. The pew of today unleashes the evils of bureaucracy, loathes the free market, and works tirelessly to restrict freedom of the individual.

  7. Dick Grachek says:

    The kids coming out of the eco-sciences-diploma factories were promised a successful career saving the planet, I’m sure. The harsh reality is that they wind up with no work and become desperate for a way to pay off their six figure college debt and get some health insurance. So I guess they do what they must and I certainly don’t judge them on that. I do judge the shysters who take advantage of them.

    It’s the free-market environmentalism that’s behind the catch shares approach and privatization of other resources and just about everything else they can profit from no matter who gets creamed in the process.

    Some of the origins of this catch shares consolidation scam:

    It’s the “free market environmentalism movement” or “Enviro Capitalists:Doing Good While Doing Well.” (Donald R. Leal, PERC see below)

    This free-market enviro-capitalist scam started years ago, it’s a front for usurping publicly held natural resources for private capital fun and profit.

    Information can be found at http://www.perc.org , Property and Environment Research Center, a “think tank” located in Bozeman, Montana, which proclaims itself as having …“championed the successful approach [ITQ’s] to eliminating overfishing” (see http://www.ifqsforfisheries.org).

    Looks like Joe Pew might have been one of the founding fathers of this kind of free-market enviro-scam.

    In the middle of the depression Roosevelt got all the industrialists together in a room and said we’re gonna’ put people back to work and you’re gonna’ pay for it, because you put them there. So Joe Pew and the other Oligarchs of the time didn’t like that; they were used to controlling everything including the government and taking what they wanted. The industrialists of the era had half the people pretty much working for next to nothing and the other half not working at all, starving. Sorta’ like now, and by the way —it worked.

    • freefish7 says:

      Mr. Grachek, You make some very good points that come to light through open discussion. I wish more fishermen and citizens would engage in critical thinking and honest debate.

      The free-market has been taken over to a large degree by greed and crony capitalism. A few wealthy families and multi-national corporations now control our public servants and the eco-charity tax shelters. I do not support socialist ideas when forced on people by government through the barrel of a gun, but I do believe some of the principals can have positive benefits for society when applied by free people on a local level. A perfect example is co-op fish houses. This model could be applied to the harvesting of other natural resources.

      Ocean industrialization is coming whether we like it or not. We need to offer solutions that will have as many positive benefits and as few negative impacts as possible. Please consider the solutions and alternatives to corporate owned windmill farms off our east cost in these public comments and let me know what you think. This is also viable alternative to offshore oil drilling.

      Public Comments Regarding Offshore Energy Production

      I am Chris McCaffity, a commercial fisherman from Morehead City, North Carolina. I have been working on solutions that incorporate offshore energy production, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and the need to monitor them with a responsible harvest of sustainable fisheries. Please consider these solutions with an open mind before rushing to do something that will have long-lasting impacts and will be hard to reverse in favor of better options in the future.

      One problem with offshore wind energy is delivering it efficiently while a primary obstacle to producing clean burning hydrogen gas is the amount of fossil fuel it takes to produce it.

      Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and is our sun’s fuel without which there would be no life. Hydrogen is produced from water and water vapor is the only emission when it is burned. Hydrogen can be stored indefinitely and easily delivered.

      Fishery managers are planning to create new MPAs and want to require more fishermen to install unconstitutional spy devices on our boats to make sure we don’t fish in them.

      This is my vision for solving these problems with a few simple solutions that benefit everyone.

      Create a one mile wide MPA along our east coast on the inshore side of the shipping lanes with thousands of energy production and data collection platforms marking the lanes and MPA. Video cameras could be placed on the platforms to monitor the closed areas and negate the need for Vessel Monitoring Systems. The platforms could be equipped with a wide variety of data collection instruments. They could collect solar, ocean current, wind, and wave energy to power those instruments and be used in the production of hydrogen gas. The platforms would act as artificial reef habitat that along with other manmade and natural reefs would in time create a thriving eco-system within this 2,000+ mile long continuous MPA rivaling Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This sanctuary would be the perfect union of aquaculture and wild-caught seafood that lives free and self-sufficient until some of it moves into open areas to be harvested. The spawn of species within this MPA would also spread out to other areas. The increased bio-mass of seafood would yield higher quotas for fishermen and feed more people.

      Each platform could employ multiple people while also providing jobs for local captains running crew boats and hydrogen transport vessels. Citizens and state legislatures could control the platforms off their coast. States could pay the federal government a leasing fee while deciding how to use the gas and revenue. The clean burning gas could be used in community energy production sites that utilize wastewater for steam to turn electricity producing turbines rather than dumping it into our waterways. This would give the public an alternative to the one big corporate energy monopoly that controls our access to electricity in each area. This would also make it easier for communities to get power back quickly after natural or manmade disasters. This model for clean energy and sustainable fisheries could quickly become a reality with a little critical thinking, human ingenuity, and a cooperative effort between private industry, government agencies, environmental organizations, and concerned citizens.

      These solutions could be applied globally and greatly improve the lives of millions. Renewable green energy and an abundant source of seafood could help to end world hunger and bring about the kind of peace, prosperity, and individual liberty the human spirit yearns for. Isn’t helping all mankind worth a little extra time, effort, and thought?

      Thank you for considering my comments. Please contact me if you are interested in discussing these solutions. [email protected]

  8. Dick Grachek says:

    Chris I certainly don’t agree with the inevitability of ocean industrialization. It only becomes inevitable when we stop fighting. That’s the same argument that was used to sell the catch shares by the few who had been awarded a fortune at the expense of the remaining not so lucky 80%.
    Meanwhile please take advantage of some of the research that’s been done on the corrupt wind oil gas
    companies and think about what our chances will be “sitting at the table” with shysters like these:

    “Recent reports on “sinking turbines” have brought to light that indeed more is happening in the grouted connections of offshore wind turbines than initially anticipated.

    This paper gives an overview of the design methodology and standards used for offshore wind turbine foundations, the assumption on which they are based and where it went wrong…”

    http://www.ewec2010proceedings.info/offshore2011/programme_test/info2.php?id2=566&id=104%20&ordre=1

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-offshore-wind-offensive-plagued-by-problems-a-852728.html

    I am headed out of town for the rest of the week; I will contact you when i return, if you’re interested.

    • freefish7 says:

      Please do contact me Mr. Grachek. I really like learning new things and believe a difference of opinion can be a good thing when it is part of an open and honest discussion. A wise Captain I fished with for years told me this. “When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.”

      You can contact me through this post or at this email address. [email protected]

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