Federal, state, and local officials say the swift end to the 2008 salmon season requires an equally swift decision about providing disaster assistance. They want to avoid the lag time coastal communities faced between disaster declaration and assistance after the 2006 salmon fishery closure.
The pending 2008 closure - one far more sweeping in scope than the 2006 shutdown - prompted U.S. Rep. Darlene Hooley and Oregon's U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith to request immediate federal disaster assistance.
"The decisions made on the 2008 salmon fishery will be, quite literally, life altering for many, and historic for the coast," said Hooley. "The federal and state response must be swift and sure to provide disaster assistance to our coastal communities." Hooley wants the federal assistance included in the 2008 Emergency Disaster Supplemental Appropriations Bill expected to go to Congress in late April or early May.
Meanwhile, she wants to reach out to those in coastal communities who are battening down the hatches against what they consider a pending economic catastrophe.
Hooley is expected in Newport Sunday to lead a public forum at the Yaquina Bay Yacht Club. She has invited representatives from local, state, and federal agencies to join her at the forum "to answer questions regarding resources available to those affected by the closure," and to discuss the next steps in the process. Hooley said she wants to meet with folks in these communities "to ensure that their voices are heard, loud and clear," and to have the agency representatives provide the needed answers and help to those folks "so they can weather this economic and social storm."
"I stand by Oregon's fishing families, who harvest - at great risk to themselves - one of the best food sources in the world," Hooley noted. "Oregon's coastal fishermen and their families are getting the short end of the stick for what seems to be, at best, a continual science experiment of salmon management."
At worst, she added, it's clear that officials must find solutions for the underlying causes of "these repeated and continually worsening salmon population collapses."
Until then, Hooley noted, disaster payments "are only an aspirin for a broken system."
Wyden and Smith, for their part, sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, requesting that he "work quickly" with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger "to assess the impacts" and declare an immediate "fishery failure" under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. "This declaration will provide the authorization needed for Congress to provide disaster assistance for affected communities," they noted.
This year's shutdown - the most restrictive in West Coast history - will affect not only the commercial and recreational salmon fisheries, but the supporting businesses that rely on them along the Oregon and California coasts.
Terry Dillman is assistant editor of the News-Times. He can be reached at (541) 265-8571 ext. 225.