Saving Seafood

LOUISIANA: Former LDWF boss claims allegations ‘fabricated’

January 6, 2017 — Former state Wildlife and Fisheries secretary Robert Barham used the public comment period during Thursday’s Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meeting to refute allegations of misspending and fiscal irresponsibility during his eight years at that post.

Most of the questions center around LDWF spending in the months and years following the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

The allegations came during Charlie Melancon’s stormy 11-month tenure as head of the state agency. Melancon resigned the position last week, and Gov. J.B. Edwards named state Rep. Jack Montoucet, D-Crowley, to take the post effective Jan. 16.

“I’m here to address the news reports of the last year,” Barham said. “When I took the job (LDWF secretary) eight years ago, the department was entrenched in systematic financial mismanagement.

“It became clear the department would be in the red within a year, and we made programmatic changes through operation and management decisions that we would be four current years in the black.”

Read the full story at the Acadiana Advocate

Louisiana fisheries secretary says governor forcing him out

December 19th, 2016 — Louisiana’s wildlife and fisheries secretary says he’s being forced out of his Cabinet position by Gov. John Bel Edwards, months into the secretary’s work to correct widespread financial problems identified by auditors.

Charlie Melancon, leader of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said Friday he was asked by Edwards’ chief of staff Ben Nevers to leave the office in mid-February. Melancon says he wasn’t given a reason for his forced exit.

Melancon has clashed with recreational fishermen, and drawn criticism for agency changes he’s pushed after auditors found shoddy management of agency finances under his predecessor in the previous governor’s administration. 

Edwards spokesman Richard Carbo said needed agency reform “took a backseat to unnecessary public battles from the secretary,” so Edwards decided to “move the agency in a different direction.”

Read the full story at WWL.com

LOUISIANA: Charlie Melancon out as Louisiana wildlife and fisheries secretary

December 15, 2016 –BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana’s wildlife and fisheries secretary, Charlie Melancon, is leaving his leadership post after a short tenure marked with controversy.

Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a statement Wednesday saying: “Charlie and I have agreed that we should move the agency in a different direction.”

A former congressman, Melancon has clashed with recreational fishermen and Republican U.S. Rep. Garret Graves since taking over the job when Edwards’ term began in January.

Melancon’s also run into controversy about programs he cut and changes he made in response to a legislative audit that found shoddy management of agency finances under Melancon’s predecessor.

Melancon hasn’t commented publicly about his exit.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at KTBS

LOUISIANA: Social media erupts over plan to kill fish-tagging program

December 1, 2016 — Louisiana’s recreational anglers have been in an uproar since learning Wednesday morning that the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries intends to do away with its popular fish-tagging program. Social-media users have been blasting the department’s administration, especially Secretary Charlie Melancon and Assistant Secretary Patrick Banks, who runs the Office of Fisheries.

The story posted Wednesday on NOLA.com that announced the change has been shared all over Facebook, with frustrated anglers commenting to express their exasperation with the agency and its leaders.

Following are some of the comments:

Kyle Jon Johnson: Wow. “The program provides no meaningful data” ?!?!? How is that dude (Banks) even in that position?

Steve Kissee: Not about the money. Looks like it’s personal now for Melancon! Classic political maneuver.

Mike Daney: I got my first tag kit in the other day. Haven’t even used it. Really disappointed.

Read the full story at the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Top official ‘disturbed’ after Louisiana wildlife and fisheries audit finds widespread financial issues

November 15th, 2016 — Louisiana’s wildlife and fisheries secretary said he’s ordered a “complete internal review” of his agency’s operations after auditors found questionable spending, missing state-owned property and shoddy management of finances under past leadership.

“I was very disturbed to learn that (the department) deviated from its core mission and best management practices,” Charlie Melancon, who took over the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries this year, wrote in response to an audit released Monday.

The review by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera’s office details widespread financial issues across the department under Melancon’s predecessor, raising questions about millions of dollars in spending. For example, auditors say Gulf oil spill recovery money intended for fish testing instead paid for unnecessary iPads, cameras, boats and now-missing fishing equipment.

Draft audit findings had been previously reported by The Associated Press in September. Purpera’s office released the official report publicly Monday, which included Melancon’s response.

The publicly-released audit toned down language used in the draft version that had suggested the fish testing program was so mismanaged that it “cannot ensure that the work accomplished was sufficient” to declare the seafood was safe. Instead, the final version cites a 2015 state health department report that said the sample results found substances that “were below concentrations that could potentially threaten the public’s health.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Advocate 

LOUISIANA: Coastal Conservation Association head blasts Wildlife & Fisheries secretary in email

November 3, 2016 — The head of Louisiana’s largest recreational-fishing advocacy group sent his members Wednesday a stinging rebuke of the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries over his support of the current structure of red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico.

Coastal Conservation Association Executive Director David Cresson said in the emailed message that at the most recent meeting of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, held the week of Oct. 17 in Biloxi, Miss., regulators discussed dropping the recreational season in federal waters next year to only one day.

The 2016 season was initially set at nine days but was extended to 11 days due to widespread bad weather during the short season.

In the missive, Cresson laid some of the blame at the feet of department Secretary Charlie Melancon, who has stated publicly his support for the Gulf Council and expressed strong opposition to HR 3094, a bill working its way through Congress that would transfer management authority to the five Gulf states.

“Inexplicably, Secretary Melancon supports this system,” Cresson wrote. “He even said at the July meeting of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission that ‘the Gulf Council saved the red snapper.’

“Secretary Melancon is mistaken.”

Read the full story at The Times-Picayune

NOAA: Red snapper data can’t be shared with states

October 12th, 2016 — A letter written late last month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates  that if red snapper are ultimately removed from federal oversight to be managed by the five Gulf states, much of the data currently collected on the species by NOAA — including stock assessments — would not be shared with the states.

The letter dated Sept. 22 from Eileen Sobeck to Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Charlie Melancon contradicts what Rep. Garret Graves — the author of H.R. 3094 that would strip red snapper from federal oversight and award it to the Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority — has said about how potential costs associated with stock assessments and data collection for snapper will be covered if his legislation becomes law.

Requests for telephone interviews to discuss details of the NOAA letter with Melancon were denied.

But Graves said the letter is just another in a long list of allegations brought by the LDWF in an attempt to derail the bill.

“The reality is this: NOAA is going to go out there and do fish surveys, and they don’t have any idea what type of fish is going to come up in that net or on that long line, so for them to suggest that they’re going to pretend that some fish isn’t there and another fish is there is completely bogus,” Graves said. “And if NOAA is going to jump in and play these political games with Charlie (Melancon), have at it. Y’all enjoy your next two and a half months of playing games because y’all are gone. It’s just continued silliness and obviously has no merit.”

Read the full story at Louisiana Sportsman

LOUISIANA: Charlie Melancon continues battle with Garret Graves’ bill

October 6, 2016 — Controversy continues to swirl around Charlie Melancon and his state agency’s position on regional management of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.

The latest for Gov. John Bel Edwards’ appointed top man in the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries comes from a Sept. 15 letter Melancon penned to Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the standing chairman of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee.

In the missive, Melancon continued to decry HR 3094, a bill introduced by Rep. Garret Graves, R-Louisiana, that would hand recreational red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico to the five Gulf states.

Melancon continued to state his objections to the bill, the same ones he and his staff offered in July, and continued to indicate that Bishop’s amendment passed with HR 3094 would put the onus of data collection on the states despite Bishop’s letter to the LDWF that his amendment did not indicate the states would have to assume the costs of data collection.

Read the full story at The Advocate

LOUISIANA: Embattled Melancon says governor supports his red snapper strategy

September 16, 2016 — Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Charlie Melancon called a full staff meeting Thursday, where he attempted to rally employees behind his leadership in the midst of ongoing challenges facing the agency.

“There’s some good news for some, and some bad news for others,” he told the crowd gathered at the department’s Baton Rouge headquarters. “The good news, for the majority, I believe, is I am here for the duration. Some people have exaggerated … my demise.

“For some, the bad news is I am here for the duration.”

Melancon has drawn heat in recent months, particularly from the recreational-fishing community, over his handling of red snapper management. The previous administration, headed by Secretary Robert Barham, pushed to transfer management authority of the popular reef fish to the five Gulf states, but Melancon has expressed his desire to maintain the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s control of the fish.

Read the full story at The Times-Picayune

LOUISIANA: LDWF snapper-management cost estimate undermined

September 13, 2016 — The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ contention that state-run management of red snapper would cost more than $10 million in its first year alone was undermined Wednesday when Congressional officials confirmed the federal government would still pay for stock assessments and research efforts in the Gulf of Mexico — absorbing most of the LDWF cost estimate.

The news came during LDWF’s “Red Snapper Education Day” that featured speakers hand-picked by the department to inform members of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission and the general public on the status of the snapper fishery.

The department, led by Secretary Charlie Melancon, has come under fire from recreational anglers since midsummer for opposing H.R. 3094, which would remove management of Gulf red snapper from the federal government and award it to the Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority, a group comprised of representatives from each of the five states.

Congressman Garret Graves (R-Baton Rouge) sponsored the bill.

Recreational anglers — who received an 11-day federal snapper season in the Gulf this summer — have long complained the federal system is highly-politicized, mismanaged and favors commercial fishermen.

The prior LDWF administration labored for years to strip management from the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, and worked closely with Graves as the bill made its way through the Congressional process.

Melancon contended in June that an amendment offered by U.S. House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) to eliminate from the bill federal funding of state management was a “poison pill” designed to kill the legislation in Washington, D.C.

Read the full story at Louisiana Sportsman