58 



HEDY L. RIJKEN 



State Representative • District 4 



Liinc, Lincoln, Polk, Tillamook and Yamhill Counties 



Testimony of Representative Hedy Rijken 



before the 



Subcommittee on Regulation, Business Opportunities and Technology 



June 4, 1993 



Good morning Chair Wyden and committee members: 



Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify before you this morning. My name 

 is Hedy Rijken and I represent Oregon House district 4, which encompasses Lincoln 

 County and parts of Tillamook and Lane Counties and includes the city we are meeting 

 in this morning. As a coastal district, district 4 has felt first-hand the effects of the 

 recent U.S. Department of Commerce decision allocating this season's whiting harvest. 



Approximately half of the entire Oregon trawler fleet that fishes for Pacific whiting is 

 based right here in Newport. According to agriculture and resource economist Hans 

 Radtke, this Newport fleet has been "instrumental in the pioneering and development 

 of the whiting fishery." That pioneering work included development activities that 

 stretched back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. It included contacts with Russian, 

 Polish and other foreign partners. It included about $10 million worth of investment in 

 fishing vessels and another $15 million in equipment for processing plants. The 

 whiting industry in Newport even transported an entire fish meal processing plant 

 down from Alaska in order to better use both the whiting resource and to turn what 

 were once leftovers into added-value products. Four whiting processing plants are now 

 located here which, together with the local trawler fleet, employ about 1,700 workers 

 and bring more than $35 million into the local economy during a normal season. 



But this is not a normal season. When the Commerce Department decided — contrary 

 to the recommendations of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and 16 hours after 

 the whiting season was scheduled to open in April — to allocate the bulk of the 

 whiting harvest to factory trawler ships based in Puget Sound, it did some serious 

 damage to this pioneering industry. Rather than the $35 million in expected receipts 

 the Newport area will be lucky to see $15 million this year. Rather than 1,700 jobs in 

 harvesting and processing, we could be facing fewer than half that amount. The new 

 processing capability added this year that would have allowed local industry to take 

 advantage of the fruits of their labor will go to waste because the bulk of the whiting 

 harvest will go to a fleet and an industry that has had no hand in the painstaking 

 development effort that brought the whiting fishery to economic viability. 



Worse yet, the decrease in the expected harvest in whiting will mean an increase in 

 pressure on other fisheries in the area, such as crab and shrimp, which can ill afford the 

 added competition. That may drive off the smaller boats headquartered in the area that 

 have depended on these fisheries to make their own livings. 



Office: H-287 State Capitol, Salem, OR 97310 • Pfione: (503) 378-8040 • Fax: (503) 378-6933 

 Home: P.O Box 573, Newport, OR 97365 • Phone: (503) 265-5536 • Fax: (503) 265-8899 



