Category Archives: Pacific
Santa Barbara oil spill $230M class action settlement
Plains All American Pipeline agreed to pay $230 million to resolve claims its negligence caused a 2015 oil spill near Santa Barbara, California. The settlement benefits two classes: the Fisher Class and the Property Class: Under the terms of the settlement, class members in both classes are eligible for cash payments. Payments to Fisher Class members will be determined based on their landing records obtained from the CDFW. Each class member will be eligible for a share of the settlement fund proportional to the number of fish landed or purchased. Payments to the Property Class members will be determined based on the severity of oiling experienced by each coastal property, >click to read< 10:47
Bodega Bay salmon fishing ‘very productive’ so far this season
On a late morning in early July, Dick Ogg stared off into a sea of gray. The 69-year-old Sonoma County local had just departed from Bodega Bay for five days of commercial salmon fishing off the coast. Heavy fog, rough waves and strong winds made this a bad time for a phone call with a reporter. He was able to talk for a few minutes though. Ogg, vice president of the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Marketing Association, has lived in Sonoma County for 62 years and has fished for crab and salmon along the coast for more than 40 of those years. “The ocean conditions right now are probably the best we’ve seen in the last 10 years,” he said. Ogg unloaded his five-day catch in Bodega Bay on a Wednesday, about 3,500 pounds or so, “right in the middle” of the pack, he said. At $6.50 per pound, the haul comes out to more than $20,000. So far this season, “everybody’s done very well … this has been a very productive year.” Video, photos, >click to read< 12:15
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 92′ Rodriguez Shrimper/Scalloper, 3412 Cat
To review specifications, information, and 35 photos’, and video tour, >click here<, To see all the boats in this series >click here< 11:44
Dory Days 62nd Annual Festival schedule
This year marks the 62nd annual Dory Days Festival and it’s packed with three days of fun for everyone in Pacific City, the quaint destination beach town in south Tillamook County. For those of you joining the parade, this year’s theme is Stars and Stripes. In remembrance of Craig Wenrick, his wife Susie Wenrick, their children Dane, Kirsten, Derek, and Keenan & their family accepts the honor of Grand Marshal. For over 30 years, Craig dedicated himself to bringing the highest quality dory caught seafood to the Oregon Coast. In addition to commercial fishing, Craig was the co-chair of the Pacific City Dorymen’s Association and a familiar volunteer for community organizations. Schedule, >click to read< 08:12
Jury awards $595,000 in damages to Lummi Nation for 2017 fish spill
Cooke Aquaculture accidentally released tens of thousands of nonnative Atlantic salmon in 2017, threatening native Pacific salmon, and the Lummi Nation’s traditional reliance on them. In 2017, a floating industrial salmon farm in the Northwest’s Puget Sound broke loose, releasing tens of thousands of Atlantic Salmon into the ecosystem. The nonnative salmon, raised in crammed industrial scale fish pens and considered a threat to native Pacific salmon, quickly swam throughout the bay. The Washington Department of Ecology later found that the farm owner, Cooke Aquaculture, the largest privately owned salmon-farming agribusiness in the world, had neglected to take care of its equipment. >click to read< 13:43
Commercial California King Salmon Season Officially Back in Action
After a recent season break, the 2022 commercial California King salmon season is officially back on, and California’s commercial fishermen are reporting great catches. “Now that the season is open again and the fishing area has expanded, consumers will again see fresh, local California King salmon in their favorite markets,” said David Goldenberg, Chief Executive Officer of the California Salmon Council. The season is currently open now and following a short break mid-month, will resume again at the end of July. Only available May through October, fresh, wild-caught, California King salmon can be found locally at select grocery stores, fish markets, fine restaurants, farmers markets and even direct from fisherman, right off the dock. >click to read< 12:32
32 years later, investigators continue searching for answers in murder of Joseph Fernandes
It has now been 32 years since San Diego resident Joseph Fernandes was brutally murdered aboard a tuna boat docked at the G Street Pier and the case remains cold.“He’s never far from my thoughts,” said Mary Montgomery, Fernandes’ granddaughter. “I do have a sense of peace when I’m near the water.” Fernandes was 69 years old, the retired fisherman was working as a night watchman aboard the Sea Quest Tuna Boat, which was docked at the G Street Pier. As night fell between July 7th and 8th 1990, Fernandes would take his last breath on that boat. >click to read< 16:30
The Untold Truth Of Bumble Bee Tuna
If you’re curious about the history of this thoroughly American product, grab your life vests and Dramamine pills, and set sail with us to discover the untold truth of Bumble Bee Tuna. Have you ever considered the origins of a seemingly always-available product, like Bumble Bee Tuna? Well, if you’ve ever wondered about this tuna industry giant’s history, you may be surprised to learn that when a group of commercial fishing companies joined forces to form the original company, it wasn’t under the name Bumble Bee Tuna, it was known as the Columbia River Packers Association. Founded in Astoria, Oregon in 1899, where its headquarters remained for the next 81 years, the CRPA was a collective formed by A.B. Hammond, who hoped this conglomeration of seven commercial fishing companies would boost the group’s business prowess. >click to read< 13:19
Floating offshore wind generator proposals worry fishing industry
From her home overlooking Yaquina Bay on the Oregon coast, Kelley Retherford can watch as commercial fishing boats arrive at the nearby Port of Newport, delivering their catch to one of several seafood processors that line the waterfront. Saltwater is in her family’s blood, she said. Along with her husband, Mike, and their four adult children, they own and operate four fishing trawlers, harvesting everything from Pacific whitefish and hake to pink shrimp and Dungeness crab. That way of life, however, may be disrupted by a growing interest in offshore wind generators to help achieve ambitious government-mandated zero-carbon energy goals. photos, >click to read< 18:50
Nordic Aquafarms Final Environmental Impact Report Available for Public Review
The County of Humboldt has prepared a Final Environmental Impact Report for the Nordic Aquafarms California, LLC – Coastal Development Permit and Special Permit application (Case Number PLN-2020-16698), and the report is now available on the county’s website. The Planning Commission will be considering the Coastal Development Permit and Special Permit at a Public Hearing on July 28 beginning at 6 pm in the Board of Supervisors Chambers. >click to read< 12:00
Cabo Virgenes Adds to its Fleet
One of the leading companies in the fishery for Argentine red shrimp, Cabo Vírgenes, is about to take delivery of a new trawler built at Astillero Río Paraná Sur, as the company continues to invest in capacity and innovative technology. Astillero Río Paraná Sur, located near Paraná River in the city of Lima, launched the new F/V Atón on 6th May ahead of final fitting out. This is part of the growth of Cabo Vírgenes, which has acquired seven fishing vessels since 2019, including two built for the company by Astillero Contessi. These two represented milestones, as F/V Luca Santino was the first Argentinian fishing vessel with a liquid ice system on board when it was delivered in 2019 and the 25-metreEspartano, delivered in 2020, is the first fishing vessel built in Argentina with an inverted bow. Photos, details, >click to read< 19:22
Western Flyer sails again
The Western Flyer left for Seattle after seven years of intense restoration and rebuilding in Port Townsend, but she will make a detour on the way to her final destination for one last visit to the town that returned her to the ocean. The boat, known most famously as the vessel writer John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts chartered for a research trip to the Sea of Cortez in 1940, had been in Port Townsend undergoing restoration since 2015. On Wednesday, the Western Flyer embarked on stage two of its rehab when it was towed to Snow & Company boat builders in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. There, over the course of the next four or five months, it’ll get a new engine, rigging, hydraulics and mechanical systems. >click to read< 12:14
A piece of western Washington literary history heads back to sea
The boat John Steinbeck was on while writing The Log from the Sea of Cortez is embarking on a new chapter. The Western Flyer has been being refurbished in Port Townsend for the past nine years. Now, the 85-year-old boat is launching into Puget Sound once again. The painstaking voyage back to the sea begins with a bulldozer noisily hauling the 77-foot seiner out of drydock, inch by inch. It’s part of a journey Rom Welborn has been on since he first learned about the boat when writing a high school paper. “It changed my life and it still feels like it’s changing my life,” he said. >Video, click to read/watch< 11:27
Commercial Fisherman/Businessman Jared “Jerry” Trussler of New Zealand
Jared “Jerry” Trussler was born on August 21st, 1938 to Fern and Arthur Trussler in Paso Robles, California and passed away peacefully at his home in Kerikeri, New Zealand on June 24th, 2022. He grew up in San Luis Obispo and Santa Clara Counties and graduated from San Luis Obispo High School with the class of 1956. In 1957, Jerry went to Alaska to work on a commercial fishing boat in the Bering Sea, which he described as the most pivotal point in his career, and he continued to return to Alaska as a commercial fisherman for over 30 years. Jerry also became a commercial abalone diver and obtained his pilot instructor’s license. In 1965, Jerry started a welding company focused on building steel commercial fishing vessels, but later moved on to manufacturing steel water tanks up to 10 million gallons in size for municipalities all over California. >click to read< 21:45
Whale entanglements dropping but threat remains, feds say
The number of whales entangled in fishing gear has declined recently, but the entanglements remain a critical threat to rare species, the federal government said in a report released Tuesday. There were 53 confirmed cases of large whales entangled in gear in the U.S. in 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday. That was a 25% decline from the previous year and a lower figure than the 13-year average, the agency said. Every coastal region except Alaska saw a decrease in whale entanglements, NOAA said. >click to read< 16:06
Safe Fishing Starts with Practice and Prep
The fishing season is currently underway for the North Pacific Fleet based out of Fishermen’s Terminal. From mid-June to September the fleet will fish the waters off the coast of Alaska for salmon, halibut, black cod, and other species. The fishers spent most of May and early June preparing their boats, provisioning, mending nets, and brushing up on safety best practices. The Seattle-based Fishermen’s Memorial organization aims to prevent accidental fisher deaths. Each year the organization honors local fishers who lost their lives at sea by adding their names to the Fishermen’s Memorial monument at Fishermen’s Terminal. Their ultimate goal is to stop adding names. Below are some of the safety demonstrations and exercises that were available to fishers at this year’s event. photos, >click to read< 07:54
Retired Commercial Fisherman David A. Jincks of Newport has passed away
David A. Jincks, age 70, passed away on May 24, 2022, after suffering 10 months with Glioblastoma, an aggressive and fast growing form of brain cancer. David was born February 12, 1952 in Eugene, Oregon to Arthur and Flora Jincks. During high school, he spent summers commercial fishing for salmon and tuna. In 1972 he lost his pollywog tail and became a shellback when he crossed the equator aboard the Research Vessel Yaquina. After returning to Newport, David commercial fished from California to the Bering Sea. In 1986 he traveled to the Soviet Union with a delegation of west coast fisherman to continue negotiations for the whiting joint venture. He twice served as a Newport port commissioner, and also served as the president of the MidWater Trawl Cooperative. >click to read< 14:44
Sustainable fishing off the coast of SoCal
For Ben Hyman, fishing along the California coast is a way of life. He’s been a commercial fisherman for 25 years. “I’ve always been addicted to fishing and loved fishing and grew up surfing, and for a lot of us, it’s just a natural evolution to start wanting to be on the boat and start fishing more,” Hyman said. He opened his own business, the Wild Local Seafood Co., 25 years ago and focuses on selling locally caught seafood such as salmon, halibut, ahi, crab and much more. Video, >click to watch/read< 16:57
Offshore wind lobby warns of bill’s ‘existential threat’
One of the nation’s largest renewable energy trade groups warned in a letter to Senate leadership this week that a House-approved bill could endanger virtually every planned offshore wind project in the country. Sent Wednesday by the American Clean Power Association, the letter took aim at a provision of the “Don Young Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2022,” which cleared the House by a wide margin in March and has yet to be considered by the Senate. The bill’s provision would establish nationality requirements for crew members who work on offshore energy projects in the United States. Crew members would have to be American citizens or permanent residents or citizens of the same country where their vessel is flagged. >click to read< 08:10
Fishing vessel catches fire off the coast of Oregon
U.S Coast Guard crews responded to a fire on a 42-foot commercial fishing vessel off the coast of Manzanita Beach in Oregon early Saturday morning. USCG said they received a distress call at around 6:30 a.m., about 2 miles west of Manzanita Beach. One person on board was rescued from the water by a Good Samaritan, transferred to a USCG crew and brought to shore with no medical concerns. This is developing news. Videos, >click to read< 13:03
Witness describes the scene of a commercial fishing boat fire near Manzanita Beach – >click for video<– 17:55
A Big NO! Oregon Fishermen are rolling up their sleeves to stop the huge offshore windmills
The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners put out a BIG NO! to a federal agency that wants to build huge electric generating windmill farms just off the shores of the Oregon Coast. Lincoln County Commissioners Kaety Jacobson and Doug Hunt decided to send off a rather straight-forward NO! to a request by the federal government that wants to install hundreds of windmills along the coast. The fishermen say trolling for seafood is hard enough without coping with hundreds or thousands of windmills, wired to electrical substations up and down the coast. >click to read< 15:32
‘Deadliest Catch’ Bank Robber – From Catching Crabs Pots to Being Caught
Famed author Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.” In the case of Joshua Tel Warner, he straddled the worlds of television and thievery. It hasn’t escaped our notice that a man whose job in life was catching crabs pots, couldn’t avoid being caught himself. >click to read< 13:27
F/V Western Breeze has been raised
A Newport fishing vessel featured on a spinoff of the documentary series “Deadliest Catch” is back on top of the water, and presumably bound for dry dock, after sinking at the Port Dock 5 fuel dock on Thursday. The Western Breeze is owned by Gary Ripka, who also operates the similarly painted, smaller F/V Redeemer, and in 2016 was featured on the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch: Dungeon Cove,” a Newport-based spinoff of the Emmy-winning series. Ripka purchased the Western Breeze, previously named Miss Melanie, as a bank repossession and rebuilt it, according to a testimonial on the Oregon Coast Bank website. Photos, >click to read< 07:27
Most folks along the Oregon Coast don’t want huge wind farms that threaten fishing areas
On June 15th the federal government, aka Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, will be in Newport to hear public comment on plans to install huge wind farms right off the Oregon Coast. Although BOEM, a federal agency, is angling for major quantities of wind-generated electricity for those living and working along the coast, especially in the fishing industry, don’t want any twirling wind turbines because, they say, energy can be developed on land far cheaper and more reliably. Commercial fishermen are absolutely opposed to placing windmills offshore because they will take fishing areas that are now devoted to commercial fishing. Public meeting details, >click to read< 10:14
Power to Port Dock 5 has been restored. F/V Western Breeze still on the bottom
12:03pm: Report of someone falling into the Yaquina River at Port Dock 5 in downtown Newport. Fire-Rescue and the Coast Guard are racing to the scene. 12:09pm: Unconfirmed report that a fishing boat leaned over in one direction, tossing occupant(s) into the river. The boat now has no one aboard. Reports from the scene say the boat is the Western Breeze. Photos, >click to read< 12:50
Report: Removing Lower Snake River dams – Bill filed to save Snake River dams.
If four Lower Snake River dams were breached to support salmon recovery, the energy, irrigation, recreation and other benefits they provide to the Pacific Northwest could be replaced for $10.3 billion to $27.2 billion, according to a draft report released Thursday by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. The report does not take a position on whether the hydropower dams should be removed, but finds that breaching offers the best chance to recover salmon runs in the Columbia and Lower Snake rivers,,, >click to read<
Republican representatives, led by Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., introduced federal legislation on Thursday to protect the four lower Snake River dams from being breached. The bill was introduced just hours before a draft study commissioned by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and fellow Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, was released. The draft study concluded that it would be costly, perhaps requiring more than $27 billion, but the dams could be breached and their benefits replaced. It would be the action most likely to restore endangered salmon runs and benefit tribes, the draft study said. >click to read< 10:52
Newport Fishing Vessel sinking at Port Dock 5
At 12:02 PM on Thursday, June 9, 2022, Newport Fire Department was dispatched to a report of vessel sinking at Port Dock 5 on Newport’s Bay front. Upon arrival, units observed a commercial fishing vessel tied up near the fuel dock listing to its port side and sinking in water. After ensuring no lives were at risk, fire crews worked with officials from the Port of Newport and USCG Yaquina Bay to set containment and absorbing buoys around the vessel. The cause of the vessel sinking was under investigation. Representatives of the vessel owner are working with Port of Newport Officials to raise the vessel. >click to read< 19:36
President Biden’s plan to save the oceans
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Celebrates World Ocean Day with Actions to Conserve America’s Deepest Atlantic Canyon, Cut Plastic Pollution, and Create America’s First-Ever Ocean Climate Action Plan – >click to read< The following two bullet points are from the Whitehouse Press Release today. Commentary by Nils Stolpe, >click to read< 13:07
Seafood Industry Professions Raise Concerns About Reintroduction Of Sea Otters
West Coast Seafood processors says that their membership is concerned about a study on the impacts of sea otters on coastal fishing. The West Coast Seafood Processors Association says that they join other ocean stakeholders in a lack of confidence about concerns raised about the otters. “We remain very concerned that the issues we identified in our letter last year will not be adequately addressed in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s cost and feasibility study,” West Coast Seafood Processors Association Executive Director Lori Steele said. >click to read< 18:24
New Right Whale Endangered Species Condom Distributed for World Ocean Day
The Center for Biological Diversity will head to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, June 8 to distribute endangered species condoms in honor of World Ocean Day and mark the 50th anniversary of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Center staff will hand out newly designed right whale condom packages with the slogan “Cover your spout… don’t let the right whale die out.” The new right whale design is part of the Center’s Endangered Species Condoms campaign, which draws attention to how human population growth is affecting critically endangered species. >click to read< 10:55
