Fishing law brings big changes.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

FLORENCE - You might call it The Law of the Sea.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act is the final authority for a 197-mile-wide band of ocean territory wrapping around the United States. It kicked Russian, Japanese and Norwegian fishermen out of the United States' staked-out stretch of ocean upon its original passage in 1976 and set the ground rules for the nation's first organized commercial fleet.

Now, the act has been reauthorized for the first time in a decade, bringing big changes to the way fisheries are regulated - changes that could leave significant footprints on Oregon's coastal economy for decades.

The law was hailed by conservationists, booed by powerful seafood buyers and met with some anxiety by the fishing fleets most affected. The provisions range from minuscule and bureaucratic to sweeping and life-altering, especially for fishermen whose livelihood is dependent on how many fish they're allowed to haul in each season.

Among the more significant changes:

More power to science

Before the reauthorization, a series of appointed councils decided how much fish the fleet could catch, and who got what share. Stacked with representatives favorable to the industry, some of these councils have allowed gross overfishing of certain fish stocks, such as West Coast groundfish, which led to collapses in the 1980s and 1990s.

Magnuson-Stevens now requires the councils to rely on their science committees to make that call. To conservationists, that means no more wiggle room.

"Generally speaking, councils have been pretty good about following the advice of their scientists," said Peter Huhtula, executive director of the Pacific Marine Conservation Council. "But making excuses for overfishing is playing with fire."

To others, it means more closed fishing seasons, like the one that crippled the West Coast salmon fishery last year because of poor returns on the Klamath River.

Rod Moore is executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association. He's also on the Pacific Fishery Management Council, one of the regional governing bodies set up to implement Magnuson-Stevens that sets catch levels for Oregon, Washington and California. Moore argued that the new science requirement robs fishery councils of leeway in keeping a fleet afloat during rough years.

When the Klamath runs dropped too low last year, for example, the Pacific council would have been forced to close all commercial salmon fishing along the West Coast. Instead, there was a limited season.

But short-term economic impacts to benefit the long-term viability of the fishery are in everyone's best interest, said Tony DeFalco, director of regional operations for the Marine Fish Conservation Network, a nonprofit coalition of conservationists, fishermen and marine scientists.

"In moving toward science-based management, you can have more sustainable catch levels over time," DeFalco said.

Help for the Klamath River?

The law also includes provisions that could lead to some long-term fixes of the Klamath River.

Magnuson-Stevens requires the U.S. secretary of commerce to complete a recovery plan for Klamath River coho salmon and make it available to the public by June.

If the plan is robust enough, and not just a cobbling together of current - and inadequate - existing strategies, it could mean widespread improvements to the health of the river, said Glen Spain, Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. It would also help the chinook fisheries, he said.

Divvying up the catch

In Alaska, some fisheries are allocated via a system of "individual fishing quotas," which allow fishermen, processors or an entire community to own for life a share of the catch. This happened because small fishing communities wanted to ensure that the fleet brought their haul into port for processing. Without that business, small towns along the Alaskan coastline wouldn't survive.

The law's reauthorization forces regulatory councils to take another look at a quota system, a notion that makes fishermen and conservationists alike nervous. The good thing about quotas is that they're allocated for life, intended to give the owner a vested interest in making sure future fish stocks are healthy.

But in bad years, quota owners may decide to sell their shares to bigger outfits. On the West Coast, it could mean giant processors such as Pacific Seafoods can buy other shares and tie up more of the business, putting smaller operations out of work.

The Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization does, however, forbid "excessive amount" of quota ownership.

Sped-up recovery plans

The new law requires councils to respond within two years of a fish stock being overfished with a plan to rebuild the species.

Moore doesn't like that provision because it's an unfunded mandate, he said. "The amount of scientific research and know-how that needs to go into it, plus the administrative burden, takes a lot longer than two years," he said. "Nobody's giving us the money or the scientists to do that."

No dollars

Where's the money?

The biggest problem with the bill is in fact money, said Patty Burke, marine resources program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Burke said there are some good things in the act, such as a tsunami preparedness initiative that would beef up detection, forecasts and warnings of tsunamis; a required recovery plan for Klamath coho stocks and a program for reducing unwanted "bycatch," species unintentionally harvested by fishermen aiming for another kind of fish.

But, she said, "It ...doesn't put funding with them. Without money, it's just black and white typing on a big piece of paper."

Whether that's true remains to be seen.

The last time Magnuson-Stevens was reauthorized, in 1996, it did make a significant impact on the West coast fishing industry - even if a decade passed before the most significant reform called for by the bill was enacted.

Two years ago, the Pacific council addressed the bill's provisions aimed at ending overfishing by closing off 200 miles and 75 percent of federally owned ocean real estate to groundfishing, a decision that both fishermen and conservationists agree will help the still-depleted populations rebound.

If the latest reauthorization carries as much weight, more changes could be in store.

"This is a step forward," DeFalco said. 'We're heading toward more recognition of what the broader impacts of fishing are."