'No oil port needed in B.C.
Treaty talks
'Complete policy reversal needed'
UFAWU secretary George Hewison has returned from Canada-U.S. fisheries talks in Ottawa more convinced than ever that only a complete reversal in Canada's position will avert one of the biggest resource sellouts in this country's history.
The union scored a victory earlier this fall with government assurances that fishing industry advisors would not be excluded from any future reciprocal fishing and salmon interception talks with the Americans.
However, unless the unbroken series of retreats before aggressive U.S. demands is halted, it will be a bitter victory.
"It would be too simple to call the performance 'bungling,' " Hewison reported to The Fisherman earlier. "No, it is part of a much broader scenario of continentalism and betrayal of Canada's sovereign interests.
"The responsibility doesn't lie with the civil servants who are charged with impossible terms of reference which require them to run political interference as part of their jobs. It lies with the top Liberal government politicians, the cabinet members and the prime minister, who have placed Canadian fisheries on the chopping block."
Hewison witnessed the latest round of talks in Ottawa last week. He says there is no sign of a salmon interception treaty between the two countries next year or even in 1979 —" and at the rate we're going, perhaps never."
And, he reports, already there is talk of negotiating a new one-year interim treaty which he is certain would contain only slight See TREATY — page 11
Tneri/nerman
Vol. 42, No. 21 2 Vancouver, B.C. 25 cents October 24, 1977
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Richard Morgan photos
• Need for fishermen to participate in West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry is impressed on fleet at Steveston by Don Taylor (top photo, left). Under glare of camera lights, Frank Nishii (bottom photo, centre), UFAWU gillnet adviser to International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission, tells inquiry commissioner Dr. Andrew Thompson that ocean currents would ensure that effects of major oil spill as far away as Alaska Panhandle would be felt in Steveston.
Phase One of formal hearings of the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry having been completed, commissioner Dr. Andrew Thompson decamped to Steveston for two days, October 21 and 22, to hear what fishing industry workers and their friends have to say about the prospect of supertankers and oil ports on their coast.
With eloquence, passion, occasionally humor but always with deepest sincerity, they told him.
Supertankers already are entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca delivering Alaskan oil to Cherry Point, Wash., but under no circumstances must the traf-fice be allowed to increase. The same goes for the rest of the coast. The long sweep of coast from the entrance to Juan de Fuca up to Amphitrite Point — "The Graveyard of the Pacific' — must be a tanker-free zone. Nothing like the Alert Bay spill in which 56,000 gallons of oil swirled up and down Johnstone Strait must ever be allowed to happen again.
The prospect of supertankers drawing 80 feet of water negotiating the treacherous waters between Rose Spit and Triple Island as they head for the even-harder-to-navigate approaches to Douglas Channel, does not even bear thinking of, Thompson was told.
More's the pity that the community hearing, held at Steveston's Buddhist Church, was not better attended, especially since the UFAWU had worked so hard to promote the event which was the first real opportunity for working people in the lower mainland to express their views.
UFAWU gillnetter Frank Nishii admitted he was "sad and disappointed" attendance wasn't better.
The union's Fraser Valley organizer John Clark offered another explanation the second day of the hearing.
There exists in the fishing industry a "deep-rooted and largely justified cynicism" toward the government, he told Thompson. In its continuing policy of prosecuting minor fisheries infractions while letting major polluters go free, the government does little to discourage it.
But none of this is to suggest that the Steveston hearing was not a success.
Commissioner Thompson now has before him a wealth of evidence — all of it expressed in a language laymen can understand See OIL PORTS —page 12
UFA WU wins $10 increase
Food herring price $77.50 ton
By an 82 percent vote coast-wide, UFAWU herring fishermen have accepted the Fisheries Association's offer of $77.50 a ton for food herring, an increase of $10 a ton over last year's price.
Acceptance was recommended by the union's herring negotiating committee, which held an
Area 20 closure assailed as 'betrayal of fishermen'
Hopes there would be another opening for Area 20 chum fishermen had dimmed to barely a glimmer by Fisherman press time.
The commendation that the Area 20 Fishermen's Emergency Committee had offered to Fisheries' Pacific regional director general Dr. Wally Johnson on October 6 for agreeing to reconsider the total closure, by last week had turned to bitterness after Fisheries' October 14 announcement that Area 20 is closed for the balance of the season.
The closure was a contradiction of the promise given to fishermen at Victoria that the
area would reopen if tests warrant, declared secretary Archie Kaario of the emergency committee.
"It is in fact a betrayal of the fishermen's committee . . . because tests indicate progressive strengthening of chum stocks from October 11 to 14."
Kaario said the Fisheries Service should stand by its commitment to allow another opening "if further testing indicates such a possibility."
Fishermen told him that if conservation is to be a workable policy, the burden of it cannot be borne by just one group of fishermen.
eight-hour bargaining session with the processors on October 14 and another four-hour bargaining session on October 19.
The union entered the talks with an asking price of $92.50 a ton, which the association countered with its proposal that the price be held at last year's figure of $67.50 a ton.
A coastwide quota of 25,000 tons has been set by the Fisheries Service, with assurances that it will not affect the roe herring quota. Last year only 7,500 tons of herring were taken for food.
"Although this year's fishery is experimental to some degree, because of shortages of herring in the North Sea and the 200-mile limits that have been imposed by some countries we are optimistic that the Pacific herring fishery will find ready markets both in Europe and Pacific Rim countries," commented UFAWU business agent Bill Procopation, who headed negotiations.
Most of last year's food herring quota was harvested from Georgia Strait and the Fisheries Service has promised a minimum quota of 10,000 tons from the gulf this year.
Another 5,000 tons have been allotted to Areas 23 and 24 and 1,000 tons to Areas 25, 26 and 27.
Quotas of 4,000 tons have been set in the Granite-Deep water Bay area of Johnstone Strait, 3,000 tons in northern Hecate Strait and 1,000 tons from local stocks in the vicinity of Prince Rupert.
The companies assented to the union's proposal that the Christmas layup commence at 2 p.m.
Friday, December 16 and extend until Sunday, January 8. No vessel will be required to sail before 8 a.m. January 7.
They agreed also to the union's demand that the food fishery will not be continued after January 27 until termination of the herring roe fishery.
Oil spills cause lasting damage to marine life
Damage done to marine life by major oil spills persists for years and the use of dispersants serves to increase the damage.
Even more damaging to fish than major oil spills is the cumulative effect of smaller discharges over a long period.
These are the conclusions reached by scientists engaged in studying the effect of major oil spills as far apart as Chedubucto Bay in Nova Scotia, Strait of Magellan in Chile and Cornwall, England, as well as minor spills in the Pacific Northwest.
A seminar of 160 scientists held at Halifax October 13 heard a report from Martin Thomas of the University of New Brunswick
that marine life in Chedabucto Bay still had not recovered from the damage caused when the Greek tanker Arrow spilled half her 16,000-ton bunker oil cargo after she grounded on a reef and sank in 1970.
After seven years, marine animals and plants in polluted areas of the bay are only one third as plentiful as in non-polluted' areas, according to regular checks made at test points.
In the Strait of Magellan, John Emery of the University of Southern California told the seminar, marine life is returning
See DAMAG E — page 9