Dale J. Jones, whose decade as the head of federal fisheries law enforcement has produced a dossier of alleged heavy-handed practices against the fishing community, authorized a mass document-shredding operation last November while under scrutiny by the U.S. Commerce Department inspector general's office, a federal committee chairwoman charged yesterday.
The shredding came to light during the second of two separate House oversight subcommittee hearings into the findings in the yet-to-be-finalized report of Inspector General Todd Zinser.
The revelation of the destruction of documents was made by Madeline Z. Bordallo, D-Guam, who chairs the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Insular Affairs Oceans and Wildlife. Her statement came at the start of a two-hour hearing — a day after another House panel had grilled Jones and oceans chief administrator Jane Lubchenco about NOAA enforcement wrongdoing in another hearing in Gloucester's City Hall.