Law

SAN FRANCISCO — August 14, 2014 — The 38 foot vessel Paloma washed ashore off Ocean Beach near San Francisco, California.  The master of the vessel, Timothy Lybrand, had made a distress call earlier that the vessel had run aground onto the rocks just offshore.

He stated he was going to abandon ship and swim ashore some 25 yards away.  The Coast Guard dispatched air and sea rescue boats to the scene while nearby fishing vessels also searched for the missing man.  Aided by the San Francisco Fire Department, the area around the Paloma was systematically searched.  After 9 hours, the search was finally called off as no sign of the captain Lybrand could be found.

Later reports stated Lybrand had warrants for his arrest for failure to appear in court in 2012.  Police suspect the fisherman had not perished with his vessel but is in hiding somewhere in the San Francisco area.

Read the full story at ShipwreckLog.com

 

ALBANY, N.Y. — August 13, 2014 — Senator Ken LaValle said, "I sponsored this legislation to enable the great traditions of the East End fishing industry to continue from generation to generation."

Senator Ken LaValle’s bill to enable an easier transfer of State fishing licenses to family members was signed into law today.
 
Senator Ken LaValle said, "I sponsored this legislation to enable the great traditions of the East End fishing industry to continue from generation to generation.  Now, the licenses can be passed on to family members without the individual being required to live in the same residence.  We must do all we can to help ensure the survival of the fishing industry."

Read the full story at LongIsland.com

 

August 8, 2014 — A judge has ruled that observer coverage is too low in the North Pacific Groundfish fisheries.

This comes as part of a ruling by the United States District Court for the District of Alaska, issued late on Wednesday, on on The Boat Company’s lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service. The judge’s central ruling stated NMFS violated the law when restructuring the observer program for the North Pacific ground fish fisheries.

“NMFS must prepare a supplemental EA [Environmental Assessment] that addresses the question of when data being gathered by the restructured Observer Program ceases to be reliable, or of high quality, because the rate of observer coverage is too low”, Judge Russel Holland wrote in his decision.

Read the full story from Undercurrent News

August 8, 2014 — A federal court judge has questioned whether the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is doing enough to protect salmon and halibut from trawlers whose massive nets strip mine the ocean off the Gulf of Alaska coast.

District Court Judge H. Russel Holland's opinion comes in the wake of a decision by the agency that led to a significant cut in the number of independent observers tracking salmon and halibut bycatch on Gulf trawlers. NOAA, which oversees the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, two years ago went along with a North Pacific council plan that ended up halving the number of people monitoring the trawl fisheries.

Trawlers are 100- to 250-foot-long fishing vessels that drag large nets to catch tons of pollock, Pacifc Ocean perch and other species. They operate with bycatch limits designed to force closures if too many salmon or halibut are caught. Lacking observers to track bycatch, there is nothing to stop trawl skippers from rolling salmon and halibut overboard and pretending like they were never caught in order to ensure fisheries remain open.

Most trawl-caught fish dumped back into the sea die.

When observer coverage fell from about 30 percent of the trawl fleet to less than 20 percent because of program changes, a group called The Boat Company sued NOAA. The Boat Company is a Southeast Alaska-based nonprofit funded by sport fishing and eco-tourism interests that wants to clean up the Gulf fisheries.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

 

CANADA — August 8, 2014 — A judge has ruled the owner of the NHL's Dallas Stars and the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League broke federal environmental laws while renovating his waterfront vacation home in Kamloops.

Tom Gaglardi was found guilty in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday of two counts of harmful alteration of fish habitat.

Gaglardi is president of the firm Northland Properties, which was convicted on the same charges.

His father Robert, who is chair of the company, was also facing the same charges but found not guilty.

Read the full story from The Vancouver Sun

 

August 6, 2014 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

Litigation was filed today alleging that several agencies and their representatives have failed to abide by the Endangered Species Act, (ESA),  in the protection of sea turtles.

Filed in Raleigh, North Carolina by two commercial fishing organizations, the complaint requests that the Court rule that the defendants have violated and continue to violate Section 9 of the ESA and have allowed the recreational hook and line fishery to "operate in a manner that has caused and is continuing to cause the illegal take of endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles and the unauthorized take of threatened loggerhead, green and leatherback sea turtles". They further request that the Court order the defendants to implement regulations in the recreational hook and line fishery until they receive an incidental take permit, and further, for the federal agencies to conduct abundance surveys and nesting population surveys. The groups filed a letter of intent to sue in March of this year.

The listed defendants are Penny Pritzker, Secretary of the US Department of Commerce; Sally Jewell, Secretary of the US Department of the Interior; Dr. Kathleen Sullivan, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Daniel Ashe, Director of the US Fish & Wildlife Service; John Skvarla, Secretary of the NC Department of Environment & Natural Resources; Dr. Louis Daniel, Executive Director of the NC Division of Marine Fisheries; and Gordon Myers, Executive Director of the NC Wildlife Resources Commission.

Plaintiffs are the North Carolina Fisheries Association, Inc,; and the Carteret County Fisherman's Association, Inc., both non profit trade associations of commercial fishermen, seafood dealers and processors.

The complaint states that the defendants have long realized that the recreational hook and line fishery has been in violation of the ESA, yet have failed to take any action to prevent the illegal take of sea turtles in the fishery. On the other hand, commercial fishermen have been required to adhere to a number of measures in efforts to protect sea turtles, including shrimping, large mesh gillnets and the longline fishery.

Read the filing in the District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina here

PORTLAND, Ore. — August 4, 2014 — For the first time in its history, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must disclose the amount of pollutants its dams send into waterways in a groundbreaking legal settlement that could have broad implications for the corps’ hundreds of dams nationwide.

The corps announced in a settlement Monday that it will immediately notify the conservation group that filed the lawsuit of any oil spills among its eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Oregon and Washington.

The corps also will apply to the Environmental Protection Agency for pollution permits, something it has never done for the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

The settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Portland ends the year-old consolidated lawsuit by the conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper, which said the corps violated the Clean Water Act with unmonitored, unpermitted oil discharges from the eight hydroelectric dams.

No one outside the corps knows how much pollution is flushed into waterways every day. The agency doesn’t have to track it, and before Monday no one with sufficient authority compelled them to do so.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Seattle Times

August 1, 2014 — Michael D. Hayden, 41, and William J. Lednum, 42, both of Tilghman Island, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to violate the Lacey Act and to defraud the United States through their illegal harvesting and sale of striped bass, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division Sam Hirsch, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Superintendent of the Maryland Natural Resources Police Colonel George F. Johnson IV and Regional Special Agent in Charge for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Honora Gordon.

“These defendants admitted to systematically plundering the Chesapeake Bay of an important and protected natural resource, and at the expense of the many honest fishermen who play by the rules,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Hirsch. “The Justice Department is committed to enforcing environmental laws that protect our shared natural resources and sustain the vital marine life of the Chesapeake Bay for future generations.”

According to their plea agreements, Hayden and Lednum were “captains” on fishing vessels owned by them, William J. Lednum Fisheries d/b/a Michael D. Hayden Jr. and Michael D. Hayden, Jr., Inc.  The defendants also employed numerous “helpers” as part of this scheme, including co-defendant Kent Sadler.

From at least 2007 to 2011, Hayden and Lednum illegally harvested, possessed, falsely labeled and/or sold at least 185,925 pounds of striped bass.  They used illegally weighted and/or anchored gill nets, left the nets in the water overnight, and set the nets during times when the commercial striped bass gill-netting season was closed.  The defendants exceeded their maximum daily vessel limit of striped bass and either unloaded the surplus onto an anchored vessel or paid others a fee to check-in fish for them.  Hayden and Lednum falsified the permit allocation cards and daily catch records for their striped bass fishing trips to over-report the numbers of striped bass caught and under-report the weights.  This allowed them to request additional state tags under false pretenses and therefore harvest additional striped bass illegally.

Read the full story at eNews Park Forest

BARNSTABLE COUNTY, Mass. — August 2, 2014 — A West Yarmouth man was sentenced Friday to two years in the Barnstable County Correctional Facility for poaching thousands of oysters from beds in Dennis and Barnstable last summer.

Michael Bryant, 37, pleaded guilty in Barnstable Superior Court to shellfishing in a contaminated area, a commercial fishing license violation and six counts of larceny of more than $250.

Judge Gary Nickerson sentenced Bryant to the two-year term for shellfishing in a contaminated area and 10 years of probation for the remaining offenses. Bryant must complete two years of supervised probation; after that, his probation will end upon the payment of restitution.

A restitution hearing was scheduled for Sept. 12. The Cape and Islands District Attorney's Office estimates that restitution will be $25,000.

Bryant was responsible for a string of raids on oyster grants in Crowes Pasture in Dennis and in a town-run area in Barnstable in June and July of 2013.

In court Friday, James Ward, a victim who owns grants in Crowes Pasture, thanked law enforcement officials who "made this day possible." He was joined by Lynne Fox, a co-worker, and Aaron Brochu, who also owns grants in Crowes Pasture that were raided by Bryant.

Read the full story from the Cape Cod Times

PORTLAND, Maine — July 25, 2014 — In a ruling that was expected, a federal judge has rescinded a consent decree that had been imposed on the Maine Lobstermen’s Association since 1958.

The federal Department of Justice, which had implemented the decree against the Maine Lobstermen’s Association 56 years ago after the association lost an antitrust lawsuit, had indicated it would not object to the restrictions being lifted.

In a prepared statement released Thursday, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association indicated that having the decree vacated after adhering to it for more than 50 years was like a “breath of fresh air.” With about 1,200 members, the lobstermen’s group is the largest commercial fishing industry trade association in Maine.

Judge Brock Hornby issued his ruling in repealing the final judgment on Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Mary Ann Mason, a Washington,D.C.-based attorney who represents the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said in the statement that the decree had long outlived its purpose and was no longer needed to protect market competition.

“The lobster fishing industry has changed fundamentally in the more than five decades since the final judgment was entered,” Mason said in the statement. “During that time, federal and state environmental, economic and fisheries management regulations have fundamentally altered the industry.”

The decree was a result of a lawsuit the Department of Justice brought against the organization in 1957, after federal officials became concerned that members of the group were trying to fix the market by setting a minimum price that lobstermen would be paid for their catch.

Read the full story at The Bangor Daily News