Daily Archives: June 16, 2024
A fishing boat captain and two deckhands died in a disastrous Oregon bar crossing. Could it have been prevented?
Joshua Porter got dressed for his job around 4 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2019, sat down at the end of the bed, buried his face in his hands and told his longtime partner he didn’t want to go. He was scared. A storm was brewing off the Oregon coast, where the Mary B II would be competing with dozens of other fishing boats in the first days of the Dungeness crab fishing season. In the handful of days he had worked on the Mary B II, Porter had become concerned. The 50-year-old captain, Stephen Biernacki, new to the Pacific Northwest’s waters, repeatedly refused advice from experienced sailors, had once ran his boat aground and seemed to be unfamiliar with the most elementary aspects of fishing for crab. “Well, why are you going?” Denise Barrett Ramirez, standing in the bedroom doorway of their Toledo home, asked him that morning. “Got bills to pay,” Porter replied. “I have to go.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 17:44
Frank Lasee: Wind Turbines and Lobsters Mean Less Lobsters and Not Enough Electricity
National Lobster Day is a good time to think about what the expensive, subsidized offshore wind development is going to do to lobsters and the $400 million lobster industry. Offshore wind will disrupt fishing for them and harm their habitat. This is not good for the Maine lobsters, and it is not good for electric affordability either. The 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind ordered by President Joe Biden–not Congress–is catering to the far left of the Democrat Party’s base. Over 2,000 wind turbines and foundations, 6,800 miles of cable and hundreds of specialist vessels are needed to deploy 30 GW, according to the Department of Energy. The offshore wind industry spent $2.7 billion in supply chain, transmission, ports and boats in the first year of operation. Their costs have only begun. Electricity rates are going up wherever they add offshore wind electricity generation. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:30
Remembering Ken Coleman, longtime commercial fisheries advocate
Ken Coleman, a longtime Kenai resident and commercial fisheries activist, died in his home May 7 at age 72. Anyone involved in Cook Inlet fisheries politics in the last 40 years probably either heard of or from Coleman. He was a staple presence at Cook Inlet Board of Fisheries meetings, always ready to put in a word for commercial set-netters, especially with the recent effort to create a permit buyback program. I’ve been at this now for 10 ten years on this reduction thing, the inception and where we are today. And I don’t know if I have another rodeo in me, if this doesn’t pass here,” Coleman said in an interview last year. Though recent years have been poor for setnetters, Coleman often talked about how he wanted the fishery to be available to his children and grandchildren. Coleman fished the beaches of Cook Inlet south of the mouth of the Kenai since the 1970s. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:31
Why do fishermen feel disillusioned after Brexit?
“I don’t think it matters who I vote for, they’re all lying,” said fisherman Dave Toy. He said it was not what he voted for and as a result he did not see any point in voting in the general election. Fishermen said they had wanted Brexit to deliver an increase in fish stock, but instead had got more paperwork. They cited the introduction of a mandatory catch app to record catches before they are landed, new vehicle monitoring systems, inspections and the requirement of medical certificates, which was later removed for existing fishermen. The government said the measures had improved both safety and fish stock management. Fisherman Graham Nicholas said life post-Brexit had been difficult. Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 06:41
