Safety

WASHINGTON, DC (March 21, 2009) – COMMERCIAL fishing is by far the country’s most dangerous occupation. Taking 112 lives per 100,000 workers each year, it easily outstrips the second worst killer, logging, which kills 86. Fishing would be less deadly if the Coast Guard could mandate safety examinations of fishing vessels before they leave the dock, but fiercely independent fishermen have resisted attempts at this. It is high time for the industry and the Coast Guard to sit down and agree on a safety program that could save lives without creating costly or cumbersome hurdles.

A bill granting the Coast Guard the explicit authority to do mandatory dockside examinations was attached to the service’s budget authorization last year. It passed the House overwhelmingly, but the Senate never approved similar legislation, leaving the safety provision high and dry. Under the House proposal, Coast Guard officers could examine fishing vessels at least twice in each five-year period.

The bill would also require a training program for the operators of fishing boats, though it would allow some credit for past experience. The bill calls for two grant programs, one for the training and another for research on fishing safety.

Read the Boston Globe opinion in full via the Coast Guard Commandant’s official blog

 

 

NEW BEDFORD (January 14, 2009) — Safety concerns prompted by the recentsinking of the fishing vessel Patriot brought Gloucester Mayor CarolynKirk to the Whaling City Tuesday to ask the local fishing industry tosupport her efforts in making vessel tracking devices a common searchand rescue tool.

The Coast Guard’s response to the Jan. 3 sinking has raised "many questions," specifically why the Coast Guard does not consistently use the Vessel Monitoring System or VMS — a satellite-based tracking device that the federal government uses to enforce fishing regulations — to locate distressed fishing vessels, Mayor Kirk said during a meeting of the New Bedford Mayor’s Ocean and Fisheries Council. The council met for the purpose of plotting its strategy to get the federal government to overhaul what members see as a flawed fishing regulatory system that is leading to the demise of New England’s once-prosperous groundfishing industry. Read the SouthCoastToday.com story in full

 

NEW BEDFORD, MA (January 14, 2009) — A nascent coalition of politicaland fishing interests came into being yesterday around the notion thatthe VMS tracking or vessel monitoring system used to enforce theregulation of commercial fishermen could be as helpful — and should be— in finding and saving them.

Meeting here less than two weeks after the Coast Guard had trouble working the VMS system for data on the whereabouts of a Gloucester trawler — it sunk with its two-man crew on Jan. 3 — the political leadership of the state’s leading fishing ports joined hands yesterday with congressional and industry forces. The agreement was spontaneous and emotional that the Coast Guard make better use of the VMS system in search and rescue operations. Read the Gloucester Daily Times story in full