AFFTA is proud to speak out on behalf of our industry

AFFTA President Ben Bulis speaks with U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen

AFFTA President Ben Bulis traveled to Washington, DC this week to speak out on behalf of our waterways and habitat, as well as our health and vitality as an industry. The proposed new rulemaking for the Clean Water Act will protect many of our small streams, which are important spawning grounds for fish. Our industry will not survive without healthy fisheries…and access to them. 

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So what are we up against?

On May 14th the Republican led House of Representatives passed HR 1732, the Regulatory Protection Act of 2015 that would block the EPA's proposal to protect millions of miles of streams.

The House bill, which was introduced by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), would force the EPA  to halt the proposed Waters of the U.S. rule which would offer protection to two million miles of streams and 20 million acres of wetlands. Right now, those areas are not clearly designated under the Clean Water Act.

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How did your House Rep vote?

Care to guess how the new EPA rule would fare under some of the 2016 GOP Presidential hopefuls? 

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Clean water benefts more than just people and fish, it's also good for craft suds.

Testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday, Andrew Lemley, government affairs representative for New Belgium Brewing Company, voiced strong support for the EPA’s proposed Waters of the United States rule.

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That doesn’t sound like “coastal conservation” to me…

Another must read from Charles Witek.

Hatcheries, for example, don’t promote conservation at all.  They are its very antithesis, and represent a profound failure of fisheries management.  Instead of encouraging the use of disciplined, science-based management measures to maintain healthy, naturally-reproducing stocks of fish, they encourage irresponsible use of our fish stocks with the promise that any overfishing will be remedied not through harvest constraints, but by dumping yet another load of man-made fish into the bay.

LINK (via: One Anglers Voyage)

Changing mouth of Elwha River documented in aerial photos

Aerial photographs of the Elwha — fed by sediment no longer impeded by hydroelectric dams — show it simultaneously elongating its course seaward, widening what one could call a delta, and “smearing” sediment along the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in what's starting to look like a spit.

LINK (via: Peninsula Daily)

Court won't block salmon-saving plan to kill cormorants

Photo: Hans Stieglitz

Save our wild cormorants salmon.

A judge has refused to block a plan to shoot more than 10,000 double-crested cormorants in the Columbia River estuary.

LINK (via: The Spokesman Review)

Power of the River - advance teaser

Filming currently underway in Bhutan.

Pollutants from Mount Polley breach may have long-term effects

Go figure.....

Months after a dam at Mount Polley mine collapsed, releasing more than 25 million cubic metres of tailings and water, a polluted plume of sediments continued to circulate through Quesnel Lake.

Now a study by researchers from two universities and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans is raising concerns about the long-term impact of that plume, which is still exposing fish, plants and insects to copper, selenium and other metals.

LINK (via: The Globe and Mail)