Fellow salmon trollers,
I am going to DC for the Presidential Inauguration. We have scored tickets for the swearing in ceremony. We will be meeting with new Alaska Senator Mark Begich while we are there.
If you have any short messages you would like me to communicate to the new administration and Senator concerning salmon trolling please post here and I will personally deliver the best ones or maybe all of them.
I have not secured a private meeting with President O'Bama yet but the way things have been going the last week who knows? I did found the Commercial Fishermen for OBama on his campaign website.
I am going to post a couple of ideas to kind of get things percolating.
Salmon troller messages for the new president
Re: Salmon troller messages for the new president
Senator Begich and President OBama,
As you consider projects to put Americans to work please consider that the Forest Service and Alaska Department of Fish & Game have identified thousands of salmon stream obstructions in the Tongass Forest due to inadequate culverts and logging road construction and maintenance. Funding for removal and correction of these salmon passage blockages would put a lot of Alaskans to work, would allow thousands of salmon to return to historic spawning redds, and would improve salmon production and harvest in SE Alaska. This improved harvest would employ people in the harvest, processing, and retailing of the salmon. US and worldwide consumer health would be improved by the increased consumption of one of the best foods on the planet, wild Alaska salmon.
(The species which would benefit most from these corrections would be coho, a prime target for trollers.)
As you consider projects to put Americans to work please consider that the Forest Service and Alaska Department of Fish & Game have identified thousands of salmon stream obstructions in the Tongass Forest due to inadequate culverts and logging road construction and maintenance. Funding for removal and correction of these salmon passage blockages would put a lot of Alaskans to work, would allow thousands of salmon to return to historic spawning redds, and would improve salmon production and harvest in SE Alaska. This improved harvest would employ people in the harvest, processing, and retailing of the salmon. US and worldwide consumer health would be improved by the increased consumption of one of the best foods on the planet, wild Alaska salmon.
(The species which would benefit most from these corrections would be coho, a prime target for trollers.)
Re: Salmon troller messages for the new president
Hi Eric:
That's awesome you'll get a chance to witness this historic inauguration!
There are so many messages we need to send Obama and his team. We held a meeting here in Juneau with Mark Begich and spoke to him about a number of them, but the list is very long and probably somewhat foreign to the ears of he and the types of people who have garnered appointmenst. Treaty, ESA, Magnuson-Stevens, USCG Safety Regs/VMS/AIS, aquaculture, GMO, food safety, EPA discharge, NOAA/NMFS budget...
Since you reference fish passage, I'll start by sharing information that you might have forgotten about. A few years back ATA oversaw engineering of a fish pass design to restore the Klawock Causeway. I subcontracted Ducks Unlimited and worked with USFWS on the project. We now have couple year old DOT approved blueprint in the can sitting in the ATA office. That's several hundreds of thousands of dollars that the USFS wouldn't have to spend on a restoration project. That said, it's gonna take nearly half a million to build this culvert system. We'd sure like to see that done. The Klawock River has the potential to provide a lot of fish to all gear types.
Enjoy yourself and tell us all about it when you get home.
Dale, ATA
That's awesome you'll get a chance to witness this historic inauguration!
There are so many messages we need to send Obama and his team. We held a meeting here in Juneau with Mark Begich and spoke to him about a number of them, but the list is very long and probably somewhat foreign to the ears of he and the types of people who have garnered appointmenst. Treaty, ESA, Magnuson-Stevens, USCG Safety Regs/VMS/AIS, aquaculture, GMO, food safety, EPA discharge, NOAA/NMFS budget...
Since you reference fish passage, I'll start by sharing information that you might have forgotten about. A few years back ATA oversaw engineering of a fish pass design to restore the Klawock Causeway. I subcontracted Ducks Unlimited and worked with USFWS on the project. We now have couple year old DOT approved blueprint in the can sitting in the ATA office. That's several hundreds of thousands of dollars that the USFS wouldn't have to spend on a restoration project. That said, it's gonna take nearly half a million to build this culvert system. We'd sure like to see that done. The Klawock River has the potential to provide a lot of fish to all gear types.
Enjoy yourself and tell us all about it when you get home.
Dale, ATA
Re: Salmon troller messages for the new president
Dale,
Can you forward me more details about this project? Sounds like a great one.
Can you forward me more details about this project? Sounds like a great one.
Re: Salmon troller messages for the new president
Hi Eric... you've got mail.
By the way, don't forget the Pacific NW and all that degraded habitat and water that's affecting fishermen up here and in 4 other states!
Cheers!
dk, ATA
By the way, don't forget the Pacific NW and all that degraded habitat and water that's affecting fishermen up here and in 4 other states!
Cheers!
dk, ATA
Re: Salmon troller messages for the new president
I have 2. Scrap the offshore fish farm concept currently being pushed, and do something about the drag fleet by-catch.
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salmontroll
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Re: Salmon troller messages for the new president
illegal fuel price gouging by suppliers and our dependance on foreign oil. Funding Natural Gas retrofitting and infrastructure.
www.pickensplan.com
www.pickensplan.com