Economic hardship being imposed on fishermen's families because of four turtles | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

Actually it is because of bureaucratic nonsense

    It's a story that just keeps repeating itself, with some variations, such as the names changing but the basic proposition remains the same. That proposition is: While they often mean well liberals usually have not come to grips with reality. And that is especially true of liberal bureaucrats.

    Here's the story. Somebody, typically a liberal group with a guilty conscience, decides the sky is going to fall unless the government "does something." So they produce some evidence that things are falling from the sky and scream that we must have new laws and regulations to prevent a catastrophe. They ram through the laws and regulations and then the bureaucrats begin to enforce them, typically using some form of a permit system with stiff penalties for even minor violations. Depending on the disposition and attitude of the bureaucrats citizens begin to experience more and more difficulty getting permits, using their property or a public resource. The bureaucracy of tax-payer funded government regulators and enforcers grows and grows until they seem to outnumber the affected citizenry. Eventually The Question is put to one or more of the enforcers: Why are you doing this? And the answer is, as often as not, "because it's our policy." Try to get them to explain how what they are doing will prevent the sky from falling and they have no clue.

    Here's an example of what we're talking about. Click here to read about the story of a moratorium imposed on the building of the U. S. 17 By-pass in Washington and installing docks on the Washington waterfront. Ninety people lost their jobs in the bridge moratorium and the road was delayed for months, without any valid science behind the reason for the moratorium. The bureaucratic explanation is contained at this link in the story. The fact is that there was NO research to show that building the bridge would affect the fish.

    We'll spare you the details, but we found the same phenomenon of bureaucratic idiocy when the Whacko Environmentalist tried to impose a 50 foot buffer all along the streams as far inland as Raleigh. Turns out they had NO science to support their contention that the buffer would make a significant decrease in non-point pollution going into the streams, much less making its way to the sounds or ocean.

    Then, of course there is the global warming debacle.

    Now we have a similar debacle developing in the sounds of North Carolina. The bureaucrats are restricting commercial fishermen from catching fish as they have for generations. The purported reason is that the fish stocks are being depleted. But they have no solid evidence of it. Simply stated the method they have for counting the fish is bogus. We have documented that fact in this article.

    Now we have some bureaucrats who found out four sea turtles were killed by commercial fishing and now they are going to impose severe economic hardship on PEOPLE that is much greater than anything done to a few turtles.

    Click here to read the sound bit TV report from the Associated Press.

    Mattie Lawson, a candidate for the N. C. House from the district affected by these bureaucrats sent us a copy of a letter she received from Britton Shackelford that was written in total frustration to Dr. Louis Daniels, the Director of N. C. Marine Fisheries. Mr. Shackelford is the president of the N. C. Watermen United (NCWU), an advocacy organization of commercial harvesters, charter/headboat owner-operators who earn their living as working fishermen and recreational fishermen who fish "for fun," but do not make their living by fishing. Here's a review of their situation as provided to Mattie Lawson by Melba Milac, secretary of the NCWU wrote:

    President Obama appointed Dr. Jane Lubchenko as the Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a division of the US Department of Commerce. Lubchenko came from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and has been following an agenda to "force" US fisheries into being part of the global market by down-sizing the industry with an allotment program called Catch Shares. NCWU has been "on the front lines" in opposition to Catch Shares; there is a whole section of their website dedicated to it at: http://www.ncwu.net/OBXChamberOfCommerceCatchShares.pdf

    NOAA and other environmentalists were instrumental in bringing up the Agenda 21 declaration in the United Nations once again; it was defeated about two weeks ago.

    NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) - with its eight regional councils - are also trying to expand the areas of Marine Sanctuaries in the world's oceans; The National Marine Fisheries Service has also been working to cut back the volume of catches in US fisheries by citing the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) passed first in the 1980s and renewed in the 1990s - legislation enacted to guarantee that fish stocks are healthy and have sufficient time for rebuilding. But the glaring error in the Act was to proscribe an arbitrary 10-year period for re-growth for all species. Fishery managers have closed fisheries and insist on ten years for stock rebuilding and sustainability, even with fish that have a different life cycle and are abundant, e.g. red snapper. NCWU is working right now with US Congressman Walter Jones and others in the US House and Senate to pass bills that would reform the original Magnuson-Stevens Act. The reforms would put money in place to carry out accurate stock assessments and provide current scientific data so intelligent decisions can be made for fisheries. The Keep Fishermen Fishing Rally in Washington DC this past March was to support the bills for reforms for Magnuson-Stevens. The Snapper/Grouper Amendment is only one of many Amendments that curtail fishing.

    North Carolina's fishermen are facing many diverse issues that threaten their livelihoods and their right to work. They are a vital part of the local, state and national economies. Many of them say, "I am not asking for assistance or money; I am only asking to be allowed to work."

    Now connect the dots. Remember in the article linked in the first of this piece we show that the methodology used to count fish populations is admittedly inaccurate. The government knows this. Common sense tells you it is bogus, as we point out in detail at the link above. Yet these bureaucrats are going to impose severe economic hardship on hard working fishermen who are already suffering disproportionately from the economic depression we are all going through. In this economy every politician running will espouse the fact that North Carolina needs to create new private sector jobs. Well, more importantly North Carolina needs to keep the private sector jobs we already have. Certainly food producers are the last working segment we should punish with regulations that impose punitive fines and rules that cost them money directly and indirectly by placing their enormously costly gear into obsolescence on a whim!

    And the final dots: Four turtles.

    Commentary

    Anybody who has ever spent much time on the waters of North Carolina knows that there are a number of variables that impact the census of fish at any given time in our sounds and streams. And common sense tells us the same is true for turtles.

    Simply stated, there is flimsy science behind most of these regulations and bureaucratic actions. But nonetheless, real people suffer as a result of the bureaucrats' actions.

    The time has come to impose a moratorium on such regulations until the science is adequate to show that the effect of the policies and practices actually solves the problem real problems we are trying to solve.

    Bless us and save us.