Following the release of the report, the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation called for prosecutions and fines for the polluting salmon farms. Both levels of government should act on this report and prosecute the worst offenders, said the Foundation's Executive Director David Lane. "Salmon feces and waste feed have been smothering the seabed for years at many salmon farm sites, in clear violation of the federal Fisheries Act," said Lane. "It is time to see some prosecutions and stiff fines to make sure this industry cleans up its act." For more information, contact the Suzuki Foundation at: (604) 255-8819. For a copy of the Canadian report, go to: http://www.elp.gov.bc.ca/vir/region_reports.htm.

4:09/02. TOP CHILEAN FISHERY OFFICIAL OUT FOLLOWING CHARGES OF CORRUPTION REGARDING INTERESTS IN SALMON FARMS: Ecoceanos News reported 30 August that Chilean Sub-Secretary of Fisheries Daniel Albarran has resigned following accusations of corruption and illegal enrichment presented to the General Comptroller of the Republic. The accusations charged Albarran with financial participation in salmon farming industries and granting of aquaculture concessions. The General Comptroller of the Republic has said it will continue to investigate the accusations made by Centro Ecoceanos, the Confederation of Artisanal Fishermen (CONAPACH) and the Ecologist Coordination Center. Albarran has been under investigation by the General Comptroller since November 2000, after Chilean citizen and artisanal fishermen organizations - also members of the "Parliament of the Sea" - presented information regarding the participation of Albarran in the salmon farming company Antarfish/ Aguas Claras, ranked the 21st largest salmon company worldwide, and receiving five government aquaculture concessions worth one thousand million Chilean pesos ($1.5 million U.S.).

During his 17 months in charge, Albarran promoted the creation of fishery privatizations through the implementation of an Individual Fishing Quotas System as part of Transitory Law of Fishery; environmental and labor deregulation in the fishery and aquaculture sector, accelerated granting of salmon farming concessions and expansion of the salmon industry towards pristine regions of Chilo,, Aysen and Magellan in southern Chile. These measures where strongly rejected by environmental and artisanal fishermen's organizations.

In the case of the Transitory Law of Fishery, Albarran granted 80 percent of the fishing quotas for common hake to large industrial corporations, while the artisanal fishermen - who generate almost three times the labor - received 20 percent. In the case of aquaculture, the salmon farming companies are actually occupying many coastal and marine areas of Chiloe and Aysen archipelagos, but not assuming any responsibility for organic and chemical pollution; death, wounding and harassment of mammal and bird populations due to shootings and net entanglements; introduction of exotic diseases and interactions between wild fish and escaped salmon (exotic species); losses in quality of access for shore users from odors and visual pollution and the social impacts they have generated over coastal and traditional communities, according to the accusations.

Cosme Caracciolo, president of the 42 thousand artisanal fishing members of CONAPACH, said that "the resignation of Albarran must set in motion a strict investigation regarding the management of the fishing resources of Chile, the administration of the Fishery Sub-Secretariat since the military government and also the relations and great influence that the industrial sector has in the decisions taken by this public department". Caracciolo affirmed that all the actions, laws and measures that Daniel Albarran implemented while working as Sub-Secretary "are seriously questioned because he, his companies and the great fishery and aquaculture industrials, were benefitted by them". For more information, go to: http://www.parlamentodelmar.cl/.

4:09/03. 2001 NORTHWEST SALMON PRODUCTION LINKED TO WEATHER SHIFT: In a 30 August Associated Press story in the Salem Statesman-Journal, a team of biologists and atmospheric scientists say the low pressure system that sits off Kodiak Island every winter had been pushing nutrient-rich water north toward Alaska and away from Oregon and Washington. This weather pattern known as the "Aleutian Low" likely played a large role in the record return of coho and chinook salmon to the Pacific Northwest this year, according to these researchers. They noted that, from 1977 to 1998, the Aleutian Low was larger and more intense than it had been since the mid-1940s. But in the winter of 1999, the pressure system suddenly shifted west to Kamchatka, and ocean conditions changed almost overnight in the Pacific Northwest. Different kinds of zooplankton - tiny sea plants and animals - appeared off the Oregon and Washington coasts, shifting the food chain in favor of salmon. To see the article, go to: http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=29002.

4:09/04. KLAMATH IRRIGATORS TURN TO INTIMIDATION TACTICS: "The mother of all frivolous lawsuits," is the description given by PCFFA Executive Director Zeke Grader to a class action lawsuit filed 29 August in Siskiyou County Superior Court (Yreka, California) by a Walnut Creek, California lawyer on behalf of Upper Klamath Basin landowners against every organization that has ever been party, including PCFFA, to any recent lawsuit seeking upper basin water reforms or asking that the Bureau of Reclamation follow the law. The suit seeks damages for recent water cutbacks, even though most were drought related. The complaint also alleges that lake fish and coho salmon are not really endangered or threatened with extinction (in spite of all being formally listed under the federal Endangered Species Act) and that saying that they were endangered is part of some vast conspiracy to deprive farmers of their land ("rural cleansing"). This

action is what is called a SLAPP suit (for "strategic lawsuit against public participation") whose sole purpose is to stifle, harass and intimidate opponents who speak out on public issues or against development. Todd True, an attorney with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund said the suit appeared to be "a recycling of claims that were made in litigation by the irrigators in federal court in Eugene....And the court, as it should have, rejected the claims there.." However, the filing of frivolous lawsuits can backfire, and those who bring such suits can wind up having to pay all costs and legal fees of those they attack plus additional fines. Filing frivolous lawsuits is also a violation of attorney professional ethics codes and can result in disciplinary action against the lawyers who bring them.

Most Klamath Project farms are far from drying up. To date this year, according to a Bureau of Reclamation report to a federal task force in Yreka, California on 29 August, Klamath Project irrigators have received over 195,000 acre-feet of water directly from the Bureau. At least an additional 50,000 acre-feet has also been received from the more than 100 emergency wells drilled in Oregon and California, for a total of about 245,000 acre-feet, or considerably over half of a normal water year's allotment in spite of the record drought. Additionally the majority of farms in the Upper Basin have never been on the federal project's subsidized water system, but have long had their own wells or sources of water, and are fully watered even this year. For more information see: www.pcffa.org/klamath.

Also see the 29 August Oregonian Klamath Basin question and answer fact sheet at: http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/xml/ story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/99908617217192308.xml.

In another action aimed at intimidating those seeking water reforms and protection for the fish and the salmon fishery, Klamath Basin irrigators and their anti-government allies are attempting to block the Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC), one of the plaintiffs in the Klamath litigation, from receiving a small grant from the City of Portland to implement energy conservation and storm-water runoff reduction renovations at its recently purchased Portland office property. According to the 30 August Oregonian, the Klamath County Board of Commissioners has written Portland Mayor Vera Katz a strongly worded letter demanding that the grant be rescinded and asserting that providing funds to ONRC shows an 'utter disregard' for the farmers in the Klamath Basin. ONRC has long been a critic of Bureau of Reclamation water policies and water over-allocation in the Klamath Irrigation Project, and is the lead plaintiff in a recent lawsuit to restore some of that water to the National Wildlife Refuges that the Bureau of Reclamation frequently allows to dry up. Multnomah County Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees the grant program, said these grants are for energy conservation and to reduce pollution into the Willamette, not for any political purposes, and should not be pulled for political reasons.

4:09/05. KLAMATH IRRIGATORS SUED BY MUNICIPALITY FOR POLLUTING DRINKING WATER: The small town of Bonanza, Oregon, in the Upper Klamath Basin, has voted to sue surrounding irrigation districts over the impact farm-based water pollution is having on their town water supply, which is now so polluted by nearby farms that it had to be shut down, according to a 29 August report in the Oregonian. Irrigation activities by some farmers in the Basin have jeopardized fish and wildlife populations, including commercially-valuable salmon runs in the Klamath River, but this lawsuit alleges the waste water from the irrigation is jeopardizing human drinking water. To see the article go to: http://www.oregonlive.com/ printer/printer.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/front_page/ 99908613317192122.xml.

4:09/06. WALLA WALLA WATER CONFLICTS OVER FISH PROTECTION BEING SETTLED AMICABLY: A 25 August article in the Spokane Spokesman Review titled 'Calmer Waters Run Deeper,' reports that water conflicts over the Walla Walla River in Washington show a very different story from the contentious Klamath Basin. There irrigators early on acknowledged the problems caused by their annually dewatering the Walla Walla River and stranding thousands of endangered Columbia River chinook salmon and bull trout, and began working proactively with fishing groups and environmentalists to put more water back in the river for fish. It's produced some unlikely alliances, as well as improved conditions for fish every year. And for the first time in memory, a few baby chinook salmon are swimming in Walla Walla River tributaries where their parents were planted last year by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. "This is probably the first time in over 70 years that the river has had continuous flow from Milton-Freewater downstream," said Chris Hyland of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For the full story see the article at: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=082501&ID=sl013077.

4:09/07. HIGHER LEVELS OF TOXIC CHEMICALS FOUND IN NORTHWEST SALMON RUNS: The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), completing three years of targeted testing of salmon in the Northwest, has found PCB and DDT chemical contaminant levels in some salmon, including hatchery fish, in sufficient amounts to cause harm to fish health, according to a report in the 31 August Oregonian. Both PCBs and DDT have been banned in the U.S. for many years but remain persistent in the food chain, and though some traces of these chemicals are not surprising, what was a surprise is that the contaminant levels observed in some fish could, in some cases, be sufficient to affect long-term salmon survival. Most surprising are high levels in some hatchery fish, possibly from pervasive contamination in many juvenile fish foods supplied by hatchery managers. For more see: http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_stand ard.xsl?/base/front_page/.

PCFFA is part of a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking the EPA to consult with NMFS on the impact of many common pesticides on ESA-listed salmon and to take steps to reduce those impacts (see Sublegals 3:05/02). Many common pesticides have been implicated as potentially killing salmon, even in dosages much smaller than those set as pollution standards for those contaminants. See the report "Diminishing Returns: Salmon Decline and Pesticides," available at: www.pond.net/~fish1ifr/salpest.htm.

4:09/08. SUIT FILED TO STOP PESTICIDE SPRAYING IN SACRAMENTO-SAN JOAQUIN DELTA: On 29 August, Delta-Keeper, and the San Francisco-based BayKeeper, filed suit in Alameda County (California) Superior Court challenging the legality of a state permit that allowing public and private groups to spray toxic pesticides in waterways for aquatic pests and plants, such as the invasive water hyacinth that has clogged much of the Delta, reports the 30 August San Joaquin Record. The Delta is the passageway from the Sacramento River to the Pacific Ocean, where the largest population of fall-run Chinook salmon along the Pacific Coast is found. The lawsuit, which does not apply to mosquito abatement programs, challenges an emergency permit issued by the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) in July. That blanket permit was approved even after a federal appeals court ruled that a permit was needed before anyone could spray pesticides directly into streams or lakes. The permit approved by the state is designed to expire in 2004, when officials are expected to approve a permanent rule. The plaintiffs, however, say the emergency permit was created under a non-emergency situation and allows continued pesticide use with no regard to waterways that are already polluted.

4:09/09. LOW-FREQUENCY RADIO WAVES MAY REPLACE CHEMICALS FOR CONTROLLING INVASIVE ZEBRA MUSSELS: In a 28 August Associated Press article, it was reported that low-frequency radio waves may be used someday instead of chemicals to control zebra mussels, an aquatic invasive species that causes millions of dollars in damage by clogging water intake pipes at power plants and other installations in the Great Lakes, and may damage aquatic ecosytems as well. Zebra mussels in an aquarium that were exposed to very low-frequency electromagnetic waves - around 60 hertz, or similar to what is emitted by a power outlet - died within 40 days, according to a study conducted by undergraduate students at Purdue University-Calumet in Hammond, Indiana, and presented Tuesday at an American Chemical Society meeting in Chicago. Chemicals such as chlorine and bromine have been used to kill the mussels. The irradiation appeared to cause zebra mussels to lose large amounts of calcium - essential for shell health and muscle control - as well as sodium and potassium. Only 10 percent of unexposed mussels in another tank died after 40 days. During experiments, fish collected from the same waters and put in the same tank as the mussels survived. Native clams did not die until being exposed for 90 days.

4:09/10. NMFS ANNOUNCES INTENT TO NEGOTIATE SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT FOR STUDY OF SEA LIONS: The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced its Notice of Intent to negotiate a sole source contract with San Jose State University Foundation to conduct studies to assess how California sea lions detect the presence of hook-caught salmon and identify possible methods to reduce interactions. A similar pinniped study was conducted by a San Jose State researcher in the Monterey Bay region in 1997 and 1998, who has investigated the foraging ecology of California sea lions and harbor seals by conducting onboard investigations on the commercial and recreational troll fishery. The proposed contract expands upon the 1997 and 1998 studies. This is a simplified acquisition contract with an estimated value of less than $100,000 (W-236 SN50V952), according to NMFS. Questions concerning the proposed acquisition may be directed to Randall Brown at (206) 526-6226.

4:09/11. EXEMPTED FISHING PERMIT (EFP) SOUGHT FOR CHILI PEPPER LANDINGS IN EXCESS OF GROUNDFISH TRIP LIMIT: In the 30 August Federal Register (Vol. 66, No. 169, pp.45833-45834), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published notice of receipt of an application for an exempted fishing permit and its request for comments on an application for an EFP from the California Department of Fish & Game (CDFG). The EFP application applies to vessels with valid California state delivery permits fishing for chili pepper rockfish with small footrope trawl gear south of 40 deg.10' N. lat. If awarded, the EFP would allow this federally managed groundfish species to be landed in excess of cumulative trip limits and a portion of the chili pepper rockfish caught to be sold for profit, providing the vessels carry state-sponsored observers. Observers would collect data that are otherwise not available. According to NMFS, the EFP proposal is intended to promote the objectives of the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP) by providing data that can be used to enhance management of the groundfish fishery. Comments must be received by 1 October; questions or comments should be directed to: Becky Renko, Northwest Region, NMFS, 7600 Sand Point Way N.E., Bldg. 1, Seattle, WA 98115-0070; Tel: (206) 526-6140.

4:09/12. GROUNDFISH FLEET REDUCTION PROJECT ANNOUNCED BY PMCC AND ECOTRUST: The Pacific Marine Conservation Council (PMCC) and Ecotrust have announced a joint initiative to gather and analyze date for use by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) in their efforts to reduce the size and harvest capacity of the Pacific Coast groundfish fleet.

Called the Groundfish Fleet Reduction Information & Analysis Project (GFR) it will involve data collection on a port-by-port basis throughout California, Oregon and Washington. Intended to be completely transparent, it will involve members of the fishing community in developing useful guidelines and tools for groundfish fleet reduction. Astrid Scholz, with PMCC, will be the Primary Investigator for the GFR project. For more information on GFR, go to: http://www.pmcc.org.

4:09/13. TRAWL COMMISSION AND GROUNDFISH TEAM MEETINGS: The Oregon Trawl Commission will meet 7 September in Astoria, Oregon. On the meeting agenda is the Pacific Groundfish Conservation Trust and the At-Sea Data Project. Also scheduled on the agenda are groundfish promotional items and a discussion of the United Nations' Food & Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Responsible Fishing Program. For more information, contact the Commission at: (503) 325-3384.

Later in the month, the Pacific Fishery Management Council's (PFMC) Groundfish Management Team will meet at NMFS Southwest Fisheries Center Santa Cruz Laboratory to prepare final recommendations regarding groundfish harvest levels and management options for the 2002 season. This public meeting will be held 24-28 September. For more information, contact the PFMC at: (503) 326-632 or visit its website at: www.pcouncil.org.

4:09/14. NMFS PROPOSES SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT WITH FAO TO PREPARE STATUS & TRENDS DOCUMENT: The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced it intends to contract with the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Fisheries Department, Rome, Italy, to provide support for planning the 2002 International Technical Consultation on Status and Trends of Fisheries for NMFS Woods Hole laboratory. The FAO will deliver a report of the workshop planning meeting; deliver documentation of agenda and meeting arrangements for the Technical Consultation, and; deliver a report of the Technical Consultation. Authority: 41 USC 253(c)(1). According to NMFS, the FAO is the only known source capable of performing the required work. The proposed contract action is for supplies or services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under authority of FAR 6.302. Interested persons may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement or submit proposals. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Evidence must be provided of ability to perform the required work. Copies of the solicitation will only be provided in response to written or faxed requests received directly from the requestor. Telephone requests will not be honored. Request for copies of the solicitation may be faxed to (757) 441-3786. Notes 22 and 26 apply. (Visit this URL for the latest information about this notice: http://www.eps.gov/spg/DOC/ NOAA/EASC/RFQ-EASC-2001-11021/listing.html) (Notice D-233 SN50V5B6). For more information, contact: Linda Jacobs, Contract Specialist, at: linda.l.jacobs@noaa.gov.

4:09/15. COLUMBIA CRAB BOAT AND CREW LOST, DREDGING BLAMED: The F/V Miss Brittany, a 45-foot wooden hulled crab boat, capsized 7 August in the Columbia River estuary, with two deckhands still missing and presumed drowned. Fishermen blame wave amplification caused by years of dumping dredge spoils near the site as contributing to the boat's capsizing. Dumped dredge spoils move around in river currents and mound up, reducing the area that a given incoming ocean wave volume must then traverse, causing swells to rise much higher than normally would occur. According to fishermen, several boats have capsized in the lower Columbia in recent years as a result of wave amplification, and they believe even more dumping, as planned under the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) Columbia Channel Deepening proposal (see Sublegals 4:04/12; 2:14/08; 2:5/08;

2:1/15), would create additional similar safety problems. The Corps denies that wave amplification had anything to do with the capsizing, but since the accident has removed thousands of tons of dredged material near the site to reduce mounding. In a 29 August letter to the Corps, all four Senators from Oregon and Washington as well as Representatives Brian Baird and David Wu formally requested a full investigation and report. For more, see: the 30 August Oregonian at: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/ html_standard.xsl?/base/front_page/9987405608903267.xml.

4:09/16. NEW ORGEON FISH & WILDLIFE DIRECTOR NAMED: Oregon's Fish & Wildlife Commissioners have officially named Lindsay Ball the new Interim Director of the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW).

Ball, on loan from Oregon State Police, took over the helm at ODFW temporarily on 16 February after the Oregon Legislature forced James Greer to resign. The Commission cast a unanimous vote for Ball, but his appointment must still be confirmed by the state Senate under a new law passed this year. The Legislature has grown more hostile to the Department over the last several years, particularly over enforcement, and the new appointment process it passed has been criticized as likely to make the Director's position more politicized and the Department itself more captive to the Legislative majority. Ball will oversee the Department's move from Portland to Salem, which was also ordered by the Legislature this year. Before taking the interim position at ODFW, Ball had been Director of the Fish & Wildlife Enforcement Division for the Oregon State Police since 1993. For more information, see the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife website at: http://www.dfw.state.or.us.

4:09/17. NORTHWEST WETLANDS RESTORATION A FAILURE: Only 17 percent of wetlands restoration or mitigation projects in the Northwest are actually restoring lost wetlands to full ecological function, and the region is still losing wetlands at an alarming rate, say a number of recent studies. A report in the 25 August Oregonian paints a bleak picture of wetlands mitigation and restoration efforts generally, and outlines a number of studies showing that continued erosion of the Northwest's ecologically important wetlands is continuing. Wetlands provide wildlife habitat as well as natural pollutant filtration functions to keep water clean, and also important natural water storage systems to buffer the effects of drought. Washington State has lost 38 percent of its wetlands, Oregon has lost 31 percent and California has lost a whopping 91 percent of its wetlands according to recent studies. Coastal wetlands losses, important for salmon production, are much greater, and the Upper Klamath Basin has lost 79 percent of its historic wetlands land base. For more information see: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/ story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/ front_page/ 9987405608903267.xml.

4:09/18. CORRECTION ON COMMISSION ACTION ON CHANNEL ISLANDS MPAS: In the last issue of Sublegals (4:08/11), it was reported that the California Fish & Game Commission put over its decision on selection of sites for marine protected areas (MPAs) for the Channel Islands. That report was incorrect. Reader Mike Webber corrects it as follows: "The Commission didn't really "put over" the decision. The only affirmative action that the Commission could take at its meeting last week was to tell the Department to prepare a regulatory package. The Commission did ask the Department to do so and to include other alternatives in the regulatory package, including the proposal presented by Chris Miller. Once the Department submits a regulatory package, probably in October or November, the Commission can begin the formal consideration of reserves at the Channel Islands.

This formal consideration will include public hearings and testimony on all the alternatives contained in the regulatory package. It is unlikely, given the regulatory schedule and the end-of-the-year holidays, that the Commission will make a final decision on the Channel Islands until February 2002." Thanks, Mike.

NEWS, COMMENTS, CORRECTIONS: Submit your news items, comments or any corrections to Natasha Benjamin, Editor at: ifrfish@pacbell.net or call the IFR office with the news and a source at either: (415) 561-FISH (Southwest Office) or (541) 689-2000 (Northwest Office).

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