tailchaser001
11-05-2010, 01:19 PM
New DFG regulations could eliminate all private fish stocking
Doug Elliott doesn’t mince his words: “They want to take away our guns, they’ve said that. Now the state wants to take away our fishing poles, too.”
For the past few months Elliott, who owns Corona Lake with partner Bill Andrews, and runs the fishing concession at Santa Ana River Lakes, has been telling anyone who will listen that one of the unexpected and unnecessary ramifications of the lawsuit against the Department of Fish and Game’s trout and salmon hatchery program is going to be the closing of private hatcheries and fishing lakes who buy fish from those facilities.
If things go the way Elliott fears, all of those hatcheries and fishing lakes will be out of business in short order.
Why? Because of the expenses involved in meeting the DFG’s new requirements under the recently-completed hatchery environmental impact report (EIR), which was mandated by the lawsuit. But the irony is that the lawsuit was only directed at DFG facilities. Currently, private hatcheries and fishing lakes in 37 counties, including most in the southern half of the state are exempt from the same regulations that govern DFG facilities. Those suing the DFG didn’t ask for this, the judge didn’t ask for this. It’s the DFG that decided to “throw private industry under the bus,” according to Elliott.
The DFG staff decided to include private facilities in the new EIR, right along with the state hatcheries. According to the EIR, all of these facilities -- from private hatcheries, to stock ponds, to homeowners associations with their own lakes, to county park lakes, and even golf course ponds -- are going to be required to conduct biological surveys to determine what endangered or “decision” species may exist in their water. They will also have to test to determine if the fish being planted in the lake or grown in the hatchery have any diseases or if invasive species like New Zealand mud snails or quagga mussels are present. The invasive species testing would have to be done quarterly, and all surveys and testing will have to be done at the expense of the lake or hatchery owner.
A catfish farm owner in the Imperial Valley, said he believed the surveys and testing would cost over $1 million annually and quickly put him out of business, and private trout growers throughout the state -- from Mt. Lassen Trout Farms in Red Bluff to Alpers Ranch in Lee Vining to Jess Ranch in Hesperia -- are all concerned the costs with complying the DFG’s ill-conceived EIR will also put them out of business.
If they don’t close up shop, the cost of hatchery fish will increase so much that most anglers will simply not be able to afford to catch stocked trout or catfish at the popular private lakes, and the volume of fish planted at many public facilities (county and city park lakes) would decline or simply disappear. For example, the catfish plants funded by the DFG at many park lakes during the summer are all produced in private facilities that are likely to close.
Elliott and other private lake operators, hatchery owners, and individual anglers are supporting a lawsuit that has been filed against the DFG’s hatchery EIR in hopes of saving their businesses and these popular fishing programs. Anglers can get more information and become involved by joining the new group, California Association of Recreational Fishing (CARF). The web site is www.savecalfishing.org.
Final approval of the state’s EIR goes before the state Fish and Game Commission for discussion on Nov. 18 and then possibly adopted Dec. 16, but the Commission could delay adoption pending the outcome of the CARF lawsuit and the lawsuit against the EIR by the original litigants who sued the DFG to get the EIR prepared and new environmental protections in place (they say the EIR is flawed, too, and have sued again).
If the final EIR is adopted by the Fish and Game Commission, and the lawsuits fail to get any modifications of the EIR, owners of privately stocked lakes and hatchery operators would need apply for stocking permits and renew them annually. They would have to provide evidence that the fish are free of disease each year, and test for invasive species quarterly. They would also have to conduct research to prove no endangered or “decision species” are present. If any of these species are present, there are only three options: Don’t stock, prove stocking will not harm the species, or prove the stocking improves things for the endangered or decision species.
All of this work will have to be done by a certified, non-DFG biologist. Since there is no certification process in place, it is likely that if the regulations are adopted, private growers would not even be able to find someone to do the work, even if they could afford it. That would mean shutting down the facility until the DFG sets up a certification process and private biologists go through the training to become certified. This alone is likely to be a two or three-year process. The result: hatchery businesses would disappear and private stocking programs would become extinct.
http://freshwater.976-tuna.com/news.php
Doug Elliott doesn’t mince his words: “They want to take away our guns, they’ve said that. Now the state wants to take away our fishing poles, too.”
For the past few months Elliott, who owns Corona Lake with partner Bill Andrews, and runs the fishing concession at Santa Ana River Lakes, has been telling anyone who will listen that one of the unexpected and unnecessary ramifications of the lawsuit against the Department of Fish and Game’s trout and salmon hatchery program is going to be the closing of private hatcheries and fishing lakes who buy fish from those facilities.
If things go the way Elliott fears, all of those hatcheries and fishing lakes will be out of business in short order.
Why? Because of the expenses involved in meeting the DFG’s new requirements under the recently-completed hatchery environmental impact report (EIR), which was mandated by the lawsuit. But the irony is that the lawsuit was only directed at DFG facilities. Currently, private hatcheries and fishing lakes in 37 counties, including most in the southern half of the state are exempt from the same regulations that govern DFG facilities. Those suing the DFG didn’t ask for this, the judge didn’t ask for this. It’s the DFG that decided to “throw private industry under the bus,” according to Elliott.
The DFG staff decided to include private facilities in the new EIR, right along with the state hatcheries. According to the EIR, all of these facilities -- from private hatcheries, to stock ponds, to homeowners associations with their own lakes, to county park lakes, and even golf course ponds -- are going to be required to conduct biological surveys to determine what endangered or “decision” species may exist in their water. They will also have to test to determine if the fish being planted in the lake or grown in the hatchery have any diseases or if invasive species like New Zealand mud snails or quagga mussels are present. The invasive species testing would have to be done quarterly, and all surveys and testing will have to be done at the expense of the lake or hatchery owner.
A catfish farm owner in the Imperial Valley, said he believed the surveys and testing would cost over $1 million annually and quickly put him out of business, and private trout growers throughout the state -- from Mt. Lassen Trout Farms in Red Bluff to Alpers Ranch in Lee Vining to Jess Ranch in Hesperia -- are all concerned the costs with complying the DFG’s ill-conceived EIR will also put them out of business.
If they don’t close up shop, the cost of hatchery fish will increase so much that most anglers will simply not be able to afford to catch stocked trout or catfish at the popular private lakes, and the volume of fish planted at many public facilities (county and city park lakes) would decline or simply disappear. For example, the catfish plants funded by the DFG at many park lakes during the summer are all produced in private facilities that are likely to close.
Elliott and other private lake operators, hatchery owners, and individual anglers are supporting a lawsuit that has been filed against the DFG’s hatchery EIR in hopes of saving their businesses and these popular fishing programs. Anglers can get more information and become involved by joining the new group, California Association of Recreational Fishing (CARF). The web site is www.savecalfishing.org.
Final approval of the state’s EIR goes before the state Fish and Game Commission for discussion on Nov. 18 and then possibly adopted Dec. 16, but the Commission could delay adoption pending the outcome of the CARF lawsuit and the lawsuit against the EIR by the original litigants who sued the DFG to get the EIR prepared and new environmental protections in place (they say the EIR is flawed, too, and have sued again).
If the final EIR is adopted by the Fish and Game Commission, and the lawsuits fail to get any modifications of the EIR, owners of privately stocked lakes and hatchery operators would need apply for stocking permits and renew them annually. They would have to provide evidence that the fish are free of disease each year, and test for invasive species quarterly. They would also have to conduct research to prove no endangered or “decision species” are present. If any of these species are present, there are only three options: Don’t stock, prove stocking will not harm the species, or prove the stocking improves things for the endangered or decision species.
All of this work will have to be done by a certified, non-DFG biologist. Since there is no certification process in place, it is likely that if the regulations are adopted, private growers would not even be able to find someone to do the work, even if they could afford it. That would mean shutting down the facility until the DFG sets up a certification process and private biologists go through the training to become certified. This alone is likely to be a two or three-year process. The result: hatchery businesses would disappear and private stocking programs would become extinct.
http://freshwater.976-tuna.com/news.php