'Koskeemo' aftermath
Skipper acquitted on hit-run charge
Fishing News photo
• Hailed as Britain's largest factory trawler, the 243-foot Dane completed her maiden voyage to Norwegian waters this spring. Features of the new vessel include a highly mechanized fish processing deck of some 5,000 square feet, deep bilge keels and roll tanks to ensure a steady fishing platform and a six-barrel main trawl winch. She will bring her catch back to Hull, her home port, in seven and 14-pound frozen fillet packs. A sister ship, Pict, is now under construction at Lowestoft.
Gravel pit company guilty of polluting Coquitlam
Sentence will be passed June 22 on a Coquitlam gravel pit company found guilty in provincial court last week of polluting Coquitlam River.
Jack Cewe Ltd. had been charged under Section 33 of the Fisheries Act with two counts involving discharge of a "deleterious substance" into waters frequented by fish.
One count was dismissed on the grounds it had not been shown the firm deliberately dumped polluting materials into the river. But a second charge of "permitting" such pollution to occur over a protracted period was upheld.
Judge Lawrence Goulet said he intended imposing a substantial fine — though he said it would be less than the maximum penalty of $5,000 which can be levied under the act for each day an offence takes place.
The court also is considering a prosecution request for a restraining order which, in effect, would permit the federal environment department to obtain an injunction shutting down the operation in the event of further violations.
Environment department biologist Otto Langer testified at the trial that the main stem of the Coquitlam River near where the pollution occurred had supported 10,000 pink and chum salmon spawners in the early fifties.
The pink run is now virtually extinct and there were only 200 spawners of all species in 1969--1971.
The Jack Cewe Ltd. gravel pit began operating at the site 21 years ago.
Langer testified the river's content of sediment solids above
the gravel pit was found to be only six parts per million. Downstream it was between 3,000 and 6,000 parts per million.
Damage occurred in the form of clogged and smothered spawning areas and a generally degraded rearing environment, he said.
Similar charges under the Fisheries Act are expected to be heard within the next few weeks against two other Coquitlam companies, Johnson's Trucking Western Ltd. and Allard Contractors Ltd., with gravel pits located one on each side of the Cewe operation.
An environment department spokesman said this week the court case against Jack Cewe Ltd. was the result of an investigation spanning more than three years.
During that time, he said, the firm had been warned more than once to end pollution caused by feeder streams being allowed to flow over working surfaces in the gravel pit area.
In 1972 the company was given six months to clean up its operation, he said, but it still failed to take the necessary remedial steps.
Conviction in the case bolsters an earlier judgment which established that pollution of this type falls within the definition of "deleterious substance" when it occurs in a spawning area, the spokesman added.
Meanwhile, a provincial court at Merritt on July 12 will hear 10 charges against Norgaard Readymix involving pollution of fish bearing waters by a gravel pit operation on Nicola River.
Last month, MacMillan Bloedel beat similar charges on a techni-
cality. The forest monopoly was accused by the Fisheries Service of polluting Palmerston Creek near Kelsey Bay from a gravel pit used for supplying materials for logging road construction.
Heavy silting in a salmon spawning area had taken place as a result, the department alleged.
Charges were dropped after company lawyers argued successfully the defendant should have been named as MacMillan Bloedel Industries, a division of the parent company.
PRINCE RUPERT — A fishing skipper charged with failing to remain at the scene of a marine accident earlier this year was acquitted in provincial court at Prince Rupert on May 29.
Judge D.W.S. Ward found there was reasonable doubt as to whe-
Mothership quota set
TOKYO — Japanese mother-ship fleets have been allocated 35,732 tons of that country's total 91,000-ton high seas salmon quota for 1973, as set by the International Northwest Pacific Fisheries Commission earlier this year.
This year's mothership target is fractionally higher than the 35,326 tons attained in 1972, but is down from 37,357 tons in 1971.
Total high seas quota for Japan last year was 87,000 tons. In 1971 it was 95,000 tons.
Ten motherships and 332 attendant gillnet catcher vessels are participating in the fishery this season.
The motherships fish in Area A, west of the "abstention line" and north of 45 degrees North latitude. Other non-mothership high seas fisheries are conducted both in Area A and in Area B, west of 165 degrees- East longtitude and south of 45 degrees North latitude.
Tonnages allocated to each fishery this year are: 35,732 tons to the Area A mothership operation; 8,268 tons to the separate Area A drift gillnet fleet; 41,800 tons to Area B ocean gillnetters and longliners; 5,200 tons to the Japan Sea gillnet operation.
ther David Clattenburg, skipper of the seiner Pacific Rover, was guilty as charged.
Clattenburg was accused by RCMP at Prince Rupert of leaving the scene of a collision in which the veteran packer Kos-keemo sank near Pitt Point at the northern approaches to Grenville Channel on March 14.
A few days after the incident a spokesman for the federal transport ministry's Steamship Inspection Branch in Prince Rupert suggested that other charges might be laid under the Canada Shipping Act.
According to reports, the Koskeemo's stern section was sheered off by the impact of the collision. The 47-year-old packer rolled over and sank shortly afterward. Her skipper and three crew members took to a liferaft and were picked up by the Western Express about half an hour later.
When the collision occurred the Pacific Rover, which suffered practically no damage in the mishap, was bound for Prince Rupert with a full load of herring. The Koskeemo was running southward empty.
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JUNE 8> 1973 /3
