Public Hearing - EISs for the Proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal ...

11/3/2012
1 I fish with a gill net, it's a quarter mile
2 long. It's always attended. And it's incidentally
3 been modified to reduce impacts on Marbled Murrelets.
4 We fish from July through November around
5 this area.
6 The most direct impact that this project
7 would have on me would be vessel traffic. As
8 fishermen we're obliged to stay out of the vessel
9 traffic lanes. So with the increased traffic in the
10 lanes this would be more time that we're supposed to
11 be out of the lanes when there is vessels there. If
12 there is no traffic we can go through the lanes.
13 The thing is with the currents around here,
14 the speed of the current is up to two knots. And on
15 drifts with our nets when we are out in the lanes and
16 there is a number of fishermen out there, they can
17 drift through the lanes and wind up in the lane when
18 the vessels are coming by. Yes, we're supposed to not
19 make that happen, but sometimes it does.
20 There is 200 non-treaty gill net permits
21 that can be fished, and there are 75 purse seine
22 permits. And also that doesn't count -- I don't know
23 how many non-tribal -- or tribal fishermen there are
24 fishing.
25 So this poses a significant threat with the
Seattle Deposition Reporters, LLC www.seadep.com * (206) 622-6661 * (800) 657-1110 Page: 60