FROM THE CROWE'S NEST

Like No Other In History

   After decades of hammering fishermen as the sole cause for the decline of the fish stocks, government agencies are beginning to take a look at some of the long-sited other possible causes. That water has long been seen as a place to dump trash is not news. Relatively new is type, amount and where this trash is dumped. The contents of modern trash-dumping was well-illustrated when the Coyahoga River at Cleveland, Ohio, burst into flames in June, 1969.
   Dumping in inland waters has gone on for decades. But now, ships haul garbage further out of sight and out of mind into the gulf stream. A few years ago, the gypsy garbage barge, which no port would accept, drifted for months, demonstrating how it was unwanted, as well as the likelihood that less-publicized barges are illegally dumping, as well.
   These are all sanctioned methods of trash disposal. One might say the remarkably-common oil spill is sanctioned, also, because the causes of such spills are practically ignored. The big spills make the news, until the drone of the story is displaced by something newer.
   The federal government has been more than willing to pile regulations on the fishing industry, but it has, by comparison, turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the estimated 6,000 oil spills annually on the northeast American fishing grounds.
   Compared to global warming, rising water temperatures and contaminated rain changing the water, regulating oil shipping is relatively simple. At least it would be, if politics and payoffs were eliminated. A few starting points are: double hulls, no drunks at the helm, control mechanisms for barges and more rigorous inspections for seaworthiness of all tankers everywhere.
   It’s time for the burden of responsibility for the state of the oceans and the fish stocks in them to be taken solely off the backs of fishermen and shared by those who are known to have had a negative impact on the oceans. Petroleum as a cargo is like no other in history.
   The nearsighted corporate, the blind-eye political, and the loophole legal system that lets a million gallons of crude a fishing ground and yet busts a guy for throwing a beer can overboard, is an arrangement that needs fixing like no other in history.