NOAA has released a video and an essay on the Office of Law Enforcement website touting its value to the nation and the fishing industry by ensuring “a level playing field” — even as the agency continued to suppress a $500,000 addendum to a special judicial master’s report on abuses of the badge carried out against commercial fishermen in Gloucester and across the Northeast.
The 66-case study by Special Master Charles B. Swartwood III was completed and delivered to the office of then Commerce Secretary John Bryson last March, but still has not been made public.
In late September, after Bryson was found unconscious behind the wheel of his car in suburban Los Angeles and resigned from the cabinet, a spokeswoman for Acting Secretary Rebecca Blank said she had asked her staff to “gather more information regarding issues identified” in the 554-page report by Swartwood.
But since then, numerous queries to Blank, Cameron Kerry — general counsel for the department and the brother of U.S. Sen. John Kerry — NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco and her chief counsel Lois Schiffer have been ignored.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times>>
Callifornia crabbing: Here's a fun video shot on the decks of the Majestik while catching Dungeness crab off the coast of northern California.
Over 500 lots of seafood processing equipment formerly owned by Adak Seafood will be sold at auction on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 10 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Daylight Time at the Hilton Garden Inn in Anchorage Alaska.
The equipment is located in a recently updated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing facility in Adak, Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Hilco Industrial, which conducts 75 machinery and equipment auctions in a wide range of industries annually, will conduct the auction.
Adak Seafood opened originally as Ada Fisheries in Anchorage in 1986. The facility, updated in 2005, is located on the island of Adak, the southernmost city in Alaska near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The facility processed cod primarily, as well as halibut, blackcod, crab and pollock, Hilco says.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
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