Fishing Industry

Tacoma Weekly: Hatchery closing could devastate local fishing – and beyond

From the Tacoma Weekly:

Fishermen – tribal, commercial and sports – around the south Puget Sound area could be receiving more bad news if a proposal to close the 90-year-old Voights Creek Hatchery is approved in the state’s final budget later this month.

While recent statements from state wildlife officials and Puyallup Tribe officials working on plans to save the hatchery reflect cautious optimism that the hatchery might yet survive, there is plenty of concern to go around – in all quarters of the fishing industry – if it doesn’t.
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Fish Are Food, Too

June 24, 2002

Why do rich farmers get all the breaks and poor fishermen get the shaft? The president recently signed the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 into law, increasing federal subsidies to farmers in the United States by at least $83 billion to well over $100 billion over the next ten years—two-thirds of it going to the largest ten percent of farmers. It was the biggest such hand out in history, and it was an action by a president who came into office promoting free trade, not protectionism.

Obviously, people need food, and obviously, agriculture is critical to the economy.

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