Decision expected today on sardines

Published 5:00 pm Thursday, September 19, 2002

A decision on whether sardine fishing will continue in Oregon this year is expected today. Hundreds of area jobs are at stake as sardine processing operations sit idle.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is forwarding paperwork to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans for approval of an emergency rule to allow harvesting to continue in Oregon, Washington and northern California.

The region reached its sardine quota Sept. 14. Sardine industry representatives and members of Oregon’s congressional delegation have pressured NMFS to shift some of southern California’s unused quota to the growing sardine fishery in the Northwest.

An antiquated allocation scheme gives two-thirds of the annual sardine quota to southern California fishers and leaves the Northwest with one-third. On Oct. 1, the quota will be divided 50-50, but fishers say that’s not soon enough to beat coming winter storms that make sardine fishing difficult.

The decision will be posted on the NMFS Southwest Regional Office Web site: swr.nmfs.noaa.gov/ news/news.htm