47 



Friday, December 27, 1991 The Seattle Times A 7 

 HARVESTING RIGHTS ^ 



Fishery needs good management 

 or national resource will be gone 



TTie public has been subjected to a barrage of 

 rhetoric^bj^^^ opposing pides in a high-stalces battle 

 over Harvesting »rTghts rto the billiori-doflar .North 

 Pacifidgroundnshresoorde:. ■ ; " ? ; V. 



The Pacific Seafood Processors Association 

 (PSPA), Jargely financed by Japanese conglomer- 

 ates and abetted by Alaska's not -so-subtle Sen. Ted 

 Stevens, are claiming a pre-emptive right to the 

 groundfish. Their justification, in my opinion, is 

 founded in arrogance and greed. 



In a recent coliimii, John lani, a representative of 

 PSPA, commented presumably to rebut the facts 

 reported by The Times regarding conflicts of 

 interest and self-serving deasions by. the North 

 Pacific Fisheries Management CounciL lani would 

 have you believe that this paper and its highly 

 respected' reporter compromised their ethics by 

 omiltiAg so-called "facts', to ^pporl the position of 

 >the American Factory Trawler Association. 



The facts are dear, the fisheries council is 

 captured and totally ^incapable of 'managing the 

 resource to the net national benefit of the nation as 

 a whole. 



lani is the one guUty of oniitting facts: 



1). He knows that AFTA had no mfluence over 

 The Times or its repo:ler. 



2). He knows that The Times thoroughly 

 investigated the facts; having spent significant effort 

 listemng to arguments on both sides, including his. 



3). fie did tiot- mention that he and his 

 organization employ as a paid lobbyist the chairman 

 of the council and ^re in a position to control the 

 council%_ agenda, debate- and priorTtJes of staff 

 members as welTas to exercise efdut'onal Gcenseover 



the staff's work product. 



4). He did not mention the unpardonable damage 

 that he and his selfish organizanon are doing to the 

 public's resource by tying up the limited resources 

 available for conservation and scientific purposes 

 and utilizing it for PSPA's self-serving agendas. 



5). He did not mention that editorial boards 

 . including -the Anchorage Daily News have all 

 referrea to, the. North Pacific Fisheries Council as 

 riddled with confbct and bankrupt as to process. 

 Each of these boards has called for immediate 

 reform. 



The Anchorage paper made the analogy of 

 having Exxon, AJRCO and BP mnning the Depart- 

 ment of Ecology. 



6). He did not mention that collectively his 

 members virtually control the Alaskan fisheries for 

 crab, salmon, halibut and herring. The only re- 

 sources they do not have in a strangle hold are the 

 groundfish. 



The shoreside special-allocation plan now sits 

 with the U.S. secretary of commerce for approval. 

 Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the subcommittee 

 on oversight and investigations of the Committee on 

 Energy and Commerce, has written the secretary 

 demanding what constitutes a full and complete 

 response to the actions advocated by PSPA and 

 responses to the accusations of misconduct by the 

 council. 



Unless this system of management of a valuable 

 public resource is changed to take away the 



Xrtunity for misconduct and misbehavior, we 

 continue to be burdened with similar corrupt 

 decisions by the North Pacific Fishery Management 

 Council and other councils across the country. It's 

 easy to predict that without responsible manage- 

 ment of America's fishery, we will soon come to a 

 point where we will have nothing to fight over. 



- Stuart W. Looney, President, 

 Royal Seafoods, Inc., Seattle 



