Fishery managers worry about effects of NOAA cuts

The long-term impacts of recent staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are still unknown, but fishery managers on the West Coast called the situation troubling. On Thursday, NOAA laid off more than 800 workers as the Trump administration continues its push to reduce the federal workforce. West Coast lawmakers have warned that the cuts — and the potential for more layoffs in the future — could endanger lives and threaten maritime commerce and the fishing industry. NOAA manages federal tribal, commercial and recreational fisheries and includes the National Weather Service, which provides weather forecast data. For West Coast fisheries, the firings have created uncertainty for fishery management now.

This week, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a quasi-governmental body that recommends management measures for a number of fisheries on the West Coast, will meet to begin — among other things — the process of setting summer and fall salmon fisheries. Typically, this involves a high degree of collaboration and input from state and federal agencies and other stakeholders. NOAA employees in particular provide key data that inform the council’s recommendations. Much of the information needed for this year’s salmon management discussions has already been pulled together.

“Fortunately, we are a long ways down that road this year,” said Pacific Fishery Management Council Executive Director Merrick Burden. “How this affects next year, we don’t know yet.”

One more immediate area of concern is groundfish, an important and highly-managed West Coast fishery that includes around 90 species. The Pacific Fishery Management Council and its partners are only just beginning their regular look at these fish. “I fully expect that the cuts and hiring freezes that NOAA is going through right now will affect that process and our ability to measure the health of our groundfish stocks,” said Burden.

According to Burden, fisheries management is “like a series of building blocks and each block serves a purpose.” It starts with data collection and turning that data into scientific products that help fishery managers understand and measure how fisheries are doing. With this information, the Pacific Fishery Management Council can make course corrections like opening and restricting fisheries, which are “all key tools to ensure the long term sustainability of the resource and continued access for the fishing industry and recreational fishers,” according to Burden. With NOAA being the largest science and data collection provider for the council and other fishery managers, Burden said, “...when they start hemorrhaging staff and capacity, it affects everyone.”

Brad Pettinger, a longtime commercial fisherman and chair of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, agreed, saying the firings will impede essential work to keep fisheries operating within established legal parameters. He feels there’s an argument for cutting positions and making things more efficient, but under the current framework for fisheries management, they need those people. Pettinger and others don’t know entirely who has been fired and Pettinger says the fishing industry, on the whole, has been left in the dark.

“The administration folks aren’t talking to people in the industry about what they really need,” Pettinger said. “I don’t think there’s any feedback happening … people reaching out and saying, ‘Hey, what’s gonna happen if we do this?’”

Officials with NOAA declined to comment on the firings except to say they involved probationary workers. Other sources told KMUN that, in addition to recent hires, the firings may have included longtime NOAA employees who had been recently promoted and were still on probationary status. On the West Coast, the states have a hand in regulating a number of key fisheries like Dungeness crab and shrimp. Pettinger said this could give local fishermen a cushion for now as uncertainty emerges in federally-managed fisheries. Still, there is no escape from uncertainty for the states.

Oregon relies on research and data collected by NOAA scientists for salmon seasons and also works with the Bonneville Power Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior, all of which are dealing with cuts or face the looming possibility of cuts. While Oregon fishery managers can try to fill any gaps that emerge, there are limits, both logistically and because of what is laid out by statute.

“We can try to pick up some of the analytical pieces to some degree,” said Tucker Jones, who serves as the ocean salmon and Columbia River program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “But there are some things…from the jurisdictional standpoint that we cannot do. There’s a lot of uncertainty everywhere with our federal colleagues and, honestly, I feel for them right now. They’re all humans and, in a lot of cases, friends … This is an incredibly difficult time for them.”