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5. The intensifying of these harvest onto early, immature or 

 depleted (from post-spawning conditions) fish is both 

 economically wasteful and a major concern from the 

 biological point of view. It has been made public record 

 during council testimony that early fish are smaller thus 

 have lower yield but, even more important, due to their 

 depleted conditions the quality of the fillet or surimi 

 is either marginally acceptable or unusable. This was 

 the experience of the factorship this season as they 

 could make only poor quality product and it has been 

 offered out to the market at very distressed prices. 

 This was a key reason for the shorebased industry not 

 wanting to operate until late May. 



I do not feel any study was made of the impact to coastal 

 communities and the numerous small fishing operations that are 

 going to be negatively impacted by the recent allocation decision. 

 It is especially disturbing to me when that information has been 

 made part of the Council record during public testimony about this 

 issue and such impacts have been clearly described in the 

 supporting documents sent to the Commerce Department by the Council 

 staff. 



According to a study do|rfe through the cooperation of the 

 Oregon Coast Management Association along with assistance form 

 Oregon State University and the Coastal Marine Experiment Station, 

 Mr. Hans Radtke, and economist, determined that a single coastal 

 trawler that would harvest about 9 million pounds of Whiting during 

 a full six to seven month season, is responsible for generation 

 about $ 2,700,000 of personal income in the state of Oregon. This 

 is including the spin-off from wages of both the vessel crew, plant 

 employees, support industries and their employees and service 

 industries such as grocery stores and clothing stores. 



This same onshore average Whiting trawler will generate income 

 equivalent to approximately 135 jobs paying about $ 20,000 a year. 

 The number of jobs created by the onshore Whiting fishery in 1992 

 generated about 1620 jobs in Oregon and over $ 32,000,000 of 

 statewide personal income impact. 



The completely new allocation plan formulated by the Commerce 

 Department did not address the original concerns covered by the 

 original allocation. It did not spread the harvest over a longer 

 period of time to allow for a better return from the fish as they 

 grow in size. It did little to address the concerns about large 

 volumes of by-catch of other species. It ignored the Pacific 

 Council's long stated policy of attempting to maximize the social 

 and economic benefits to the affected coastal states and the 

 Historical Catcher Vessels along with good fishery management. No 

 effort wads made to understand the needs for something beyond an 

 annual battle for fish quota. 



