The Virginian-Pilot
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Two lawmakers from Hampton Roads want to change how Virginia regulates the lucrative menhaden fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.
For more than 100 years, politicians in Richmond have overseen the harvesting of menhaden, a silvery bait fish with major commercial and ecological value in the Bay.
It is the only species in state waters governed by legislators; the rest are managed by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission in Newport News.
State Sen. Ralph Northam, D-Norfolk, and Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, on Wednesday unveiled bills that would shift authority for setting catch restrictions and quotas for menhaden to the marine commission - a change that the menhaden industry has opposed, and defeated, in the past.
The two legislators said their intent is twofold: more efficient government and more scientifically based management of menhaden, which filter excessive algae in the Bay and are fodder for numerous game fish.
Environmentalists and recreational anglers endorse the bills, representatives of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Coastal Conservation Association said at a news conference Wednesday in Richmond.
Virginia is the only state on the East Coast that still allows the industrial harvesting of menhaden, conducted by a fleet of boats and airplanes that help spot great schools of the fish in coastal waters.
Millions of menhaden are taken to a processing plant owned by Omega Protein in Reedville, a coastal town on the Northern Neck peninsula. There, they are made into pet food, fish oil and omega-3 health supplements. Because they are so oily, menhaden are not eaten by people.
The menhaden industry, a big economic engine on the Northern Neck, has been living under a Baywide quota of 109,020 metric tons per year, a deal brokered in part by the governors of Virginia and Maryland three years ago.
In November, a coastal fishing commission voted to extend the Bay quota three more years, to 2013. Omega Protein, based in Texas, supports the cap and has never violated it, state marine officials said.
In addition to the Northam-Cosgrove bills, the General Assembly will take up another menhaden bill this year, this one to endorse the cap extension to 2013 and keep management in the hands of lawmakers.
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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Bush Has Used Menhaden Fleet to Launder Drug Money
George H W Bush’s Zapata Oil Co, unable to compete with OPEC supertankers, in the sixties and seventies, instead used their Gulf of Mexico oil platforms as customs free transfer stations for South American cocaine en route to America.
GHW Bush and the Rape of Our Menhaden Stocks
The lowly menhaden, in Colonial times, in the Chesapeake Bay, traveled in schools so large that they were often mistaken for islands. This filter fish feeds exclusively on phytoplankton, zooplankton and organic plant detritus (decomposition products). And as such, has the potential to remove up to 25% of the excess nitrogen in the Bay.
Unfortunately, this beautiful little baitfish has come under unrelenting, industrial fishing pressure, from heavily subsidized Omega Protein of Reedville, Virginia. To the point that it can not sustain the economically valuable striped bass and blue fin tuna populations, which have depended on this menhaden biomass for hundreds of thousands of years. To the point that the menhaden is unable to fulfill its filter functions in the Bay.
For what? The lowly menhaden is used in the production of Rustoleum. And as for fishmeal for chickens and hogs.
The ironic thing is that Omega Protein, until 2007, was 58% owned by George H W Bush’s Zapata Oil Company. Did you know that Zapata Oil, unable to compete with OPEC super tankers, in the sixties and seventies, instead used their Gulf of Mexico oil platforms as custom free transfer stations for Sout
GHW Bush is Behind the Menhaden Slaughter
The launches and helicopters returning from Zapata’s oil platforms, didn’t have to clear customs when returning to the USA. Search: Zapata+Cocaine+Bush+CIA and you will be amazed!,
Furthermore, Omega Protein has received, in the past twelve years, at least $42 million in (NOAA) federal loan guarantees for plant construction and purse seine boat refurbishing.
Enough is enough! Now is the time for the governor and the state legislature to send a message to the Bush family: You have used Zapata and Omega Protein to launder your drug money. And used millions from NOAA to further subsidize Omega Protein. Well, we are going to, however belatedly, remove your business partners at Omega Protein from our state waters. What ever our state loses in Reedville, will be repaid a hundred times over in the striped bass fishery and in the fall run of medium and giant blue fin tuna and in improved Chesapeake Bay water quality.
George Meredith MD
Virginia Beach
Second choice
Menhaden are the favorite food of striper. When the Omega factory boats deplete the menhaden, their next favorite food are small crabs, but they are more difficult to catch, resulting in lean and diseased striper.
The larger consequence is the demise of the blue crab fishery from the protected striper. Menhaden are filter feeders, like oysters. The oysters are mostly gone now. Unless the wholesale vacuuming of menhaden from the Virginia shore is stopped, we will have very few blue crabs or striper.
Menhadden first and Stripers next!!!
We need tougher fines to keep the Charter Boat fleet from illegal striper fishing in the EEZ. Take thier boats and gear from them just like we do from poachers who hunt game illegally. Why have a law that is not enforced. Just recently on a fishing website a charter boat Capt. openly admitted to fishing illegally in the EEZ and showed pictures of the fish to boot(no land in site). Talk about rubbing the taxpayers nose in a law they paid to create for the protection of stripers for future generations to fish...what a shame...we need to crack down on these thiefs and greedy bad apples and let them know we mean business when it comes to protecting these fish. More and more Charter boats fishing out of the rudee inlet are taking up the practice of illegal fishing of these great fish.