August 15, 2014 — In his 50-page ruling handed down in U.S. District Court on Aug. 6, Holland said that NMFS arbitrarily ignored the potential impacts of increased costs and lower observer coverage. He ordered NMFS to prepare a supplemental environmental assessment "that addresses the question of when data being gathered by the restructured observer program ceases to be reliable, or of high quality, because the rate of observer coverage is too low.
NMFS implemented the restructured observer program in 2013 with the stated goal to expand the proportion of the Gulf of Alaska fleet observed and randomize the deployment of observers on vessels.
The restructured program, however, doubled the daily cost of observer coverage, which led to a sharp reduction of human observers on certain high-volume trawlers that are responsible for significant bycatch of salmon and Pacific halibut in the Gulf of Alaska.
Jon Warrenchuk, of Juneau, an ocean scientist with the international advocacy group Oceana, said that "while the newly restructured program had the right idea to endeavor to provide expanded information about fleet activities, the actual implementation fell entirely short of that goal and actually reduced coverage on the large bottom trawl fleet known to have high rates of discards.
"Trawlers are leaving the docks to catch thousands of tons of fish without having an observer on board – this is unacceptable," he said.
Read the full story at the Cordova Times