INSKIP INLET
• Gordie Larkin, UFAWU general executive board member and crewman on the seine-boat Misty Morn, was present at the Inskip Inlet fishery and has prepared this report for The Fisherman on the problems that followed.
Crewmen take bath in an 800-ton pool
• The line formed on the left at Inskip as Northern Dawn (left, above) set and Viking Star and Snow-King came alongside for their shares of the pool. Nearby, the packer-seiner Cape James (below, right) took a reported 50 tons from the bulging nets of Nanceda. From that point on. the division of the fish is unknown, with some crewmen unsure where their fish went or how much they will be paid for it. Union crews delivering to companies that signed union agreements had their shares guaranteed.
THE opening in Inskip Inlet on the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands was the first of its kind in the hectic and often circus-like herring roe fishery. It was a classic confrontation between too many boats and too few fish and the compromise forced on the fishermen by the fisheries department raises some serious questions for the future of the fishery.
The department was faced with an impossible situation: some 43 seine vessels were standing by to catch a quota of 500 tons of herring. The fisheries vessel Howay advised the fleet March 27 that the area would not open for 43 seine boats because the large fleet would almost certainly over-fish and endanger the stocks needed for spawn.
The department proposed two alternatives: a lottery or draw among the vessels to choose six to 10 boats to conduct the fishery, or a pool arrangement in which each vessel would receive a share of the fish taken by three or four catcher boats. These catcher boats would then distribute a share of the catch to the other vessels in the pool.
The department emphasized that it would have nothing to do with the administration of whatever share arrangement was approved, but made it clear that without some plan to minimize the number of vessels fishing, the inlet would remain closed.
For more than an hour, the fleet debated what to do in a radiophone discussion. Some felt — vessel owners in the main
— that a co-operative venture would set a dangerous precedent and mean the beginning of the end for "the freedom to fish." One termed it "Russian-style Communism."
Perhaps influenced by a season that had put as much as 300 tons in some of their holds, they argued that the fish should be "left in the water to spawn."
Another contentious point was how the fish was to be sold. Some favored selling the entire catch to the highest bidder. But when one skipper asked how crew shares would be determined under such an arrangement, there was silence.
From the pointof view of some crewmen, delivery of the fish to association companies — signatories of a union contract — would guarantee them a proper settlement.
Skippers on company vessels
— UFAWU members in the main — also were concerned about the reaction of companies that fielded vessels for this operation only to be cut out of the catch.
More than 20 vessels participated in the debate and finally, agreement was achieved. The fleet was polled and all boats replying indicated they favored a pool.
The next morning at 8 a.m. the fishery opened with four vessels makng sets. The fleet queued up and came alongside, each pump-
ing its share of the pool right out of the net.
It is not known which boats took fish and, in fact, whether all the boats actually took fish aboard; some were involved in previously-arranged pools and left one vessel to take the entire group's catch.
For the fisheries department, it was an apparently elegant solution to a sticky problem. But the Inskip fishery raises some tough questions for the future of the fishery and the precedent the pool established.
Will crewmen whose skippers delivered to non-union companies be assured of a fair share of the catch proceeds? And how, in future, will the catch be split among the companies?
The only just way to split the catch is by totalling the actual landed tonnage and dividing by 43. This has not been done. Tons of herring spewed into the holds of seineboats in Inskip and disappeared from the face of the earth.
Some vessel owners have been able to fleece both companies and crews in a single operation: they are keeping their excess over their true quota, selling to cash buyers and settling with crews for $650 a ton.
The only protection crewmen have from this kind of robbery is a union contract. The companies, of course, can look out for themselves, and may choose to protect their interests by ensuring this kind of pooling doesn't happen again. What then, will happen to the openings where concentration of gear makes fishing impossible?
Management of the fishery in the interests of fishermen and the resource, rather than the companies, may dictate expansion of the Inskip Inlet type of fishery, but with proper supervision to ensure that crewmen get their share and that established companies get reasonable quotas.
Such supervision of company catches might also avoid the hemorrhage of jobs away from established plants, a loss of work that led to job action in Prince Rupert.
• Fisheries Pacific region field director Ron MacLeod told The Fisherman that 801 tons was taken at Inskip by the following boats: Mary Todd (60 tons). Western Pioneer (81 tons), Northern Dawn (200 tons) and Nanceda (460 tons). How the catch was then divided is not known.
Coast off spiff threat mounts daffy
IN the spring of 1972, a report commissioned by the federal environment department warned that a major oil spill could be expected in B.C. coastal waters every 20 years if supertankers began carrying oil from Alaska to the Cherry Point refinery near Blaine, Wash.
Seven years later, with large tankers heading for Cherry Point through the strait daily, the possibility of a massive spill affecting some of the most productive fishing areas on the coast is no longer a gloomy environmental prognostication, it's an immediate threat.
But if U.S. monopoly oil interests get their way, the odds soon will be stacked even higher against the environment and the fishery resource.
Northern Tier Pipeline currently is pushing a $1.5 billion project to pipe crude oil as far east as Minnesota from yet another tanker terminal located at Port Angeles, on J uan de Fuca Strait across from Victoria.
Touted as an 'all American' route, the scheme in fact has all
the disturbing features of the existing Cherry Point route and would increase still further the chances of the BC. fishery being hit by environmental disaster in the event of a collision, grounding or other mishap involving a supertanker.
As such, it's a matter which concerns every fishing organization in B.C. The UFAWU, however, is the only fishermen's group which has voiced those concerns at public hearings held by the U.S. interior department's Bureau of Land Management.
UFAWU president Jack Nichol and researcher Arnie Thomlinson went to Port Angeles to outline the union's position before one of those hearings March 15. The union later submitted a written brief which enlarges on the reasons why organized fishermen and allied workers oppose the scheme.
The submission is particularly critical of what it sees as basic weaknesses in a draft environmental statement prepared by
the Bureau of Land Management.
That statement, the union contends, is based largely on outdated and "highly inaccurate" data and in general "falls far short of the degree of rigor and disciplined analysis that is required."
Specifically, it says, the statement plays down the value of the fishery resource in Canadian waters adjacent to the proposed terminal and its marine approaches.
At one point, the statement places a value of only $H.9 million on the 1977 fishery in waters off Vancouver Island. Elsewhere, the union says, it "implicitly assumes that neither the Fraser River nor the west coast of Vancouver Island would he affected by the Northern Tier pipeline proposal."
This is an "indefensible assumption," the UFAWU declares, because "any or all of these areas would be seriously impacted by tanker accidents."
Moreover, the actual landed value of the 1977 B.C. salmon
catch in "areas of high risk"was at least $40 million while the real value of the catch to the Canadian economy was several times greater than that.
"In view of the fact that the environmental statement grossly underestimates the value of the Canadian fishery which is at risk," the union says, "we urge an accurate and thoroughly documented evaluation of both the landed and true value of the fishery resources in Areas 17 to 29 inclusive (waters of southern Strait of Georgia, Juan de Fuca Strait and west coast Vancouver Island)."
Another major shortcoming of the environmental statement is its failure "to address the very serious problems of safety and responsibility which characterize foreign tankers," the union notes.
This omission is all the more glaring because the statement estimates that the Northern Tier proposal would add onemoreoil-carrying vessel a day to existing tanker traffic in Juan de Fuca Strait, and that at least 25
pecent of this increased traffic would be in the form of supertankers of up to 327,000 tons deadweight carrying crude oil from points outside the U.S.
All the evidence suggests that bulk of this non-Alaska crude oil would be carried by supertankers registered in Liberia, Panama and other 'flag of convenience' havens, the UFAWU states.
Pointing to the "notorious reputation of such vessels and the ineffectiveness of existing international law," the union stresses that any worthwhile environmental impact statement would have included a "risk analysis" which took into account the accident records, seaworthiness and competency standards of all tankers.
It would also have assessed weather conditions and navigational hazards along the West coast, studied the volume of existing tanker traffic and presented a realistic scenario of probable accidents involving tankers anywhere within 200 miles of the coast.
THE FISHERMAN — APRIL 12, 1979/5