Fisheries panel backs 'clean ocean zone'
(Note: As America's ability to feed itself and fuel itself is taken away -- ostensibly for a "clean ocean" and "habitat" -- it is outright global control of resources and freedom, nothing but. Where is the public outrage? Where is the public? The same people that pay premium prices for fresh seafood and oil and gas for their homes and transportation/recreational vehicles are silent ... as they follow the Judas Goat of "Environmentalism". This is NOT protection, it is CONTROL: of America's coasts, and the resources they still produce, albeit in ever decreasing amounts, due to this stealing of freedom. There are nineteen coastal states, not counting the Great Lakes states, which number 7 more. That's more than half of America's states rendered at the "mercy" of the United Nations and Global Control Binding Treaties.)
 
May 6, 2004
 
By Kirk Moore, staff writer 732-557-5728
 
The Asbury Park Press
 
Neptune, New Jersey
 
To submit a Letter to the Editor: yourviews@app.com

Seacaucus, New Jersey - In a narrow vote, Mid-Atlantic fisheries managers yesterday endorsed the concept of a "clean ocean zone" off New Jersey, with a ban on sand mining and oil and gas exploration -- and tighter regulations on wastewater discharges and proposed offshore wind-energy generators.

Some recreational fishermen were among the minority in the 8-to-6 vote on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.
 
While they said they will wait and see the actual legislation being proposed by the environmental group Clean Ocean Action, two fishermen indicated a split still remains between anglers and activists over the use of old subway cars on artificial fishing reefs.

In a presentation to the council -- which manages fish resources in federal waters from Long Island to North Carolina -- Clean Ocean Action Executive Director Cynthia A. Zipf said her group's Clean Ocean Zone Initiative campaign aims "to lock in the progress that we've made" cleaning up New York Bight waters.

Late this summer, Clean Ocean Action will ask members of Congress to sponsor a bill that would prohibit a number of mineral mining and drilling, industrial and disposal activities between Montauk and Cape May, out to 600-foot depths at the end of the continental shelf, Zipf said.

Those waters deserve special protection for their recreational and commercial fisheries worth several billion dollars annually, recreation for some 20 million residents in the region and important sea habitat, including submarine canyons and the fringe of the Gulf Stream, she said.

However, Zipf said the group's proposal includes several clauses, aimed at reassuring fishermen who worry that zoning legislation could turn into a declaration of no-fishing zones, akin to wildlife preserves on land.
 
Several national environmental groups are pushing for such marine protected areas to be a centerpiece of federal oceans policy.

"This clean ocean zone is not an effort to include fisheries management areas," she told the council.

Patrick H. Augustine, a council member representing New York State, said he would not be convinced without seeing a draft of the proposed legislation.

"It's an MPA (marine protected area), there's no question about it.... It's a controlled area," Augustine said.

He added that there are still hard feelings over Clean Ocean Action's opposition to sinking old New York City subway cars on fish havens.

"We still sting a little bit in New York over the rail cars," which cost millions of dollars to decommission and wound up going mostly to other coastal states because local environmentalists complained about asbestos in the cars, he said.

Zipf had been asked to address the council by member James Lovgren, a commercial fisherman from New Jersey who has worked with her group.

"I'm very, very disappointed with the recreational community in New York and New Jersey," he said of lingering feelings over the subway cars dispute. "I think it's petty."

The council ended up voting 8 to 6, with three abstentions, to offer its preliminary endorsement for the clean ocean zone legislation.
 
After the vote, some council members indicated they could end up supporting the legislation once it's actually written.

"There's nothing wrong with the concept," said Tony Bogan, a council member, Brielle charter boat captain and member of United Boatmen and NY/NJ, a regional captains' industry group.

Despite gains in the last 20 years, such as the ban on sewage sludge dumping at sea, environmental activists, industry and government agencies still struggle over continuing issues such as harbor dredging and sand mining, Zipf said.
 
Her group is campaigning for special protection of the New York Bight as a way "to end these permit-by-permit battles," she said.