48 



This amount of $108,000 is very small because the factory trawl- 

 er employment base is approximately 10,000 people and, as shown 

 above, only a small fraction of total work for that fleet involves 

 whiting. 



Correspondingly, the input/output model showed local income 

 gain under the council's preferred alternative to be $11 million 

 higher than under the best offshore case. This contrasts with a loss 

 of $22 million to the Seattle area economy. 



The council chose to support the small coastal economies over 

 the much larger regional economy, which already accrues the bene- 

 fits of the offshore industry. Secretary Brown's reversal of the 

 council decision finds a national benefit in increasing the dispro- 

 portional relationship between coastal and regional economies and 

 implies conscious utilization of the social and economic fabric of 

 rural communities. 



Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Congressman Kopetski. 



[Mr. Coenen's statement, with attachments, may be found in the 

 appendix.] 



Chairman Wyden. Thank you. That was very helpful. 



Mr. Sylvia. 



TESTIMONY OF GILBERT SYLVIA, MARINE RESOURCE 

 ECONOMIST, HATFIELD MARINE SCIENCE CENTER 



Mr. Sylvia. Thank you for the opportunity to allow an academic 

 economist to be here. 



I am a marine resource economist. I have worked on whiting 

 issues over the last 4 years. I am a member of the Oregon State 

 University and here at the Hatfield Marine Science Center as part 

 of the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station. 



I have looked at four areas: Market issues; public policy; product 

 quality; and value-added products. I will say now that those four 

 issues cannot be separated for this particular fishery. 



What I would like to do is briefly touch on six topics that will 

 show those relationships. 



Pacific whiting is a very complex fishery. The biology is very 

 complex and the product characteristics of the fish while still in 

 the ocean is very complex. Therefore, when, where, and how you 

 manage this fishery affects the biological economic returns from 

 the fishery. I think that is very important to emphasize. All of the 

 work that we have done has showed that. 



Such things as total volume, quality of output products, market 

 price and production costs — all of these ultimately affect the bene- 

 fits that can be generated, the inputs and investments to control 

 product quality in approved market opportunities. 



We found, for example, that improving product quality can add 

 onto 25 percent of the price of the product and can lead to the pro- 

 duction of a number of value-added products, including the kind of 

 value-added products that we see here produced from the so-called 

 wastes of Pacific whiting. 



We also found that because there is so much variation in product 

 quality, you don't necessarily want to produce one product form. 

 You may want to produce three, four, or five product forms. 



