Understanding Government

In a story that should be a wake up call to policy-makers, outsourcing has gone public. As David Barboza of The New York Times reported on Saturday, seeking out low-wage workers off shore isn’t just for iconic American brands such as Apple, General Electric and Levi-Strauss; the phenomenon is increasingly prevalent among public agencies across the nation. (more…)

Sacramento river levee

Massive federal irrigation pumps, sucking up a bounty of water after an abundant California rainy season, are wreaking  havoc on already-stressed fish species, while state and federal officials fret that sudden and sustained heat in the High Sierra could cause devastating flooding. (more…)

An Icelandic aquaculture entrepreneur has staked his claim in the waters off Baja California, Mexico in the form of giant offshore fish farms, and if federal regulations now under review are significantly altered, the far-sighted project could migrate north of the border, off of San Diego.

That’s the bottom line of one heck of a fish story by Mike Lee in today’s edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune. The plan, by Oli Steindorsson, chief executive of Umami Sustainable Seafood, is to raise giant tuna in offshore pens for sale to the Japanese market and consumers in general. (more…)

sea lamprey

Now that there is no federal government shutdown we can start to analyze all the cuts made in order to achieve a $38 billion reduction in federal spending for the rest of the year. One cut, reports the Associated Press’s John Flesher, is a reduction in money to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (which is run out of the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration and is not to be confused with the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative). About 90 percent of the commission’s $22 million annual budget goes to working with Canada to stop the spread of invasive sea lamprey in the Great Lakes. The eel-like lamprey are “parasitic invaders” and budget cuts surely means that more of the species will proliferate in the Great Lakes. Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin has promised to fight against Fishery Commission cuts in the FY12 budget.

Chinook salmon

California’s vanishing salmon are suddenly bouncing back. After four years of declining populations that have worried scientists, bankrupted fisherman and launched desperate conservation measures, a near record year is predicted for Chinook or King salmon, prompting regulators to prepare plans for opening the Pacific for the first real commercial and recreational salmon fishing season since 2007.

The federal Pacific Fishery Management Council released three conceptual options for the coming season yesterday, reports Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle. All three options allow for much more fishing than last year, predicated on estimates derived from the number of two-year-old salmon, known as ‘jacks,’ that returned to spawn a year ago. (more…)