The 10 types of marine pollution, the primary source/ cause of each, and the effects are listed on p.18 of Ref. (93W1).

Most economists have agreed that "externalities" -that is effects not normally accounted for in the cost-revenue analyses of producers - are the leading economic cause of pollution (73C1).

Dag Nullah (a freshwater lake in Pakistan) once yielded 400 tonnes of fish/ year. It is now barren, destroyed by pollution (93B1).

A third of US shellfish beds are closed, primarily because of pollution (EPA Journal (Sept.-Oct.1990)).

Half of the shellfish-growing areas off Nova Scotia have been closed because of contamination (Ref.18 of (93B1)).

Some 69% of US shellfish-growing waters were approved for harvest in 1995, vs. 58% in 1985 ((98A1), p. 6).

Currently, environmental degradation of the marine environment is depressing total annual landings by 3-5% (Ref. 3 of (98W1)) compared to losses due to over-fishing on the order of 10-15%. This effect will become more important if general environmental degradation continues. The potential exists for these losses to become greater than the losses that the fishing industry causes (Ref. 4 of (98W1)).

Despite international bans, ships discharge 5-50 million tons of oil at sea per year. More than 0.7 million tonnes are spilled into the Mediterranean per year (Ref. 44 of (99M1)).

A 1985 US National Research Council study of oil in the sea found that 21 million barrels/ year enter the oceans from street runoff, ships flushing tanks, and effluent from industrial facilities (89L1). Some 600,000 barrels/ year enter the oceans from accidental spills. As little as 0.1 ppm oil in sea water has serious effects on the reproduction and growth of fish, crustaceans and plankton (89L1). Phytoplankton and zooplankton, the base of the oceanic food chain, congregate in the top 0.01" of the ocean, as do some fish and shellfish in the early stages of their lives (89L1).

The US and Canada have each banned oil drilling on large portions of their continental shelves (99M1).

Runoff and routine maintenance of oil infrastructure are estimated to account for over 70% of total oil discharged into the oceans ((85N1) p. 82).

One common problem in estuaries is the occurrence of major "blooms" of phytoplankton caused (probably) by excess nutrients from rivers (excess fertilizer, sewage, soil sediments, etc.) (90C2). These blooms kill fish and other aquatic life. Blooms have endangered salmon in Swedish mariculture, dolphins off the Carolinas, fish life along the German coast of the North Sea, swimming beaches and fishnets on the Adriatic Sea (90C2). On a small scale, blooms are part of the natural cycle of the sea, at least in temperate areas. Nutrients from human activity change these small blooms into massive outbreaks (90C2).

Red tides are described in an article by Donald M. Anderson, Scientific American, 271(2) (August 1994) pp. 62-69.

Nutrients washed into the sea from pollution on land feed algae that cause "blooms". As these algae decompose, oxygen is badly depleted, causing fish kills. Toxic blooms ("Red Tides") have been found to correlate well in location and time with nutrient levels (89L1).

When algae blooms die, they deplete the oxygen over large areas of water, creating "dead zones" where nothing can live (97F1).

During 1991-1998, algal blooms in the US have caused nearly $300 million in economic losses in the form of fish kills, public health problems, lost tourism and seafood revenues (Ref. 38 of (99M1)).

The number of phytoplankton cells in the upper Chesapeake Bay has increased by 250 times since the 1950s. The result has been a rise in the number of algal blooms: areas of water blanketed with algae. Between 1950-80, the amount of water in the main part of Chesapeake Bay which had little or no oxygen increased by 15 times. During the summer, most water deeper than 40 ft. from the Annapolis Bay Bridge to the Rappahannock River contains no oxygen, and is therefore devoid of life. [In 1980 59% of Chesapeake Bay watershed was forested, 26% was agricultural, 15% was industrial, commercial or residential.]~ (The Environmental Fund data, May 1984).

Since 1972 the east coast of the US (Mass. to North Carolina) had 6 major toxic blooms. Bloom-contaminated shellfish can be deadly (89L1).

"Harmful Algae blooms" include pfiesteria, red tides that closed down the Gulf of Mexico's shellfish industry in 1996, brown tides that periodically wipe out Long Island's scallop industry, and paralytic shellfish poisoning which affects the shellfish industry of the West Coast of the US. Many of the one-celled creatures involved in algae blooms are harmless until they come into contact with chemicals found in abundance near land. Then their populations explode and throw off a family of poisons that can cause lesions and kill fish. In humans these creatures can also cause skin lesions and short-term memory losses in those who come into contact with the water or inhale the spray (97F1).

In a 1991 North Carolina fish-kill caused by a pfisteria bloom, sewage from large hog farms appeared to be one of the causes of the bloom (97F1). Politicians ridiculed the scientist's findings and threatened to cut off funding for the research - until an October 1995 bloom wiped out 15 million fish (97F1).

Scientists studying a dead zone at the bottom of Chesapeake Bay suspect chicken manure from huge poultry operations on Maryland's Eastern Shore (97F1).

The large dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is believed to result from nitrogen coming down the Mississippi River from upper Midwestern US agricultural runoff (97F1).

The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico due to agricultural runoff in the Mississippi River basin causing algae blooms that deplete the water's oxygen is now 17,600 km² in size (State of the World 1998, p. 53).

More than $13 million was appropriated for FY1998 to fund US federal-agency efforts to understand, and possibly control, blooms thought to be caused by Pfiesteria (98B2).

A March 1998 bloom of Gyrodinium aureolum algae in Hong Kong killed 1500 tons of farmed fish, and contaminated surviving schools with toxins, leading to an advisory to avoid eating sea fish. Over 350 tons of fish were also killed in China's waters. The kill was equivalent to 50% of fish production in the territory in 1997 (Reuters, 4/11+17+24/98) (iatp@iatp.org, 4/24/98).

In the Seto inland sea of Japan "red tides" increased from 40/ year in 1965 to over 300/ year in 1973. In 1976 Japanese authorities introduced controls designed to cut nutrients entering the sea by 50%. The frequency of red tides peaked in 1975 and have been declining ever since (90C2) (Ref. 22 of (93W1)). (NOTE: This is evidence that "blooms" are the result of human pollution - not some unexplained oceanic phenomena.)

Algae blooms in the Adriatic Sea have killed fish in areas as large as 400 mi² (1000 km²) (89L1).

In May, 1988, a toxic algae bloom in the Skagemak (connects North Sea to Baltic Sea) killed fish valued at $200 million (89L1). The bloom was traced to urban and agricultural pollution (89L1).

By the end of July 1995, the lifeless area devoid of oxygen at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico had grown to 7000 mi² (18000 km²) - the largest dead zone ever recorded. Tolman attributes this dead zone to fertilizer, sewage and runoff that ends up in the Mississippi River. According to Robert Howarth at the Center for the Environment at Cornell University, the overwhelming majority of nutrient inputs into the Mississippi come from agriculture (Jonathan Tolman, Wall Street Journal (9/8/95)).

Lake Victoria the world's second-largest freshwater lake (27,000 miles²), (20% of the world's freshwater supply), is being destroyed by nutrients carried in soil from deforested land, according to International Center for Research in Agroforesty. Satellite sensing detected a plume of nitrogen-and- phosphorous-rich sediments which feed the water hyacinths, which starve fish and plankton of oxygen and sunlight, cause the lake to stagnate, and block traffic, and serve as a breeding ground for malaria-bearing mosquitoes and snails that host bilharzia, a parasite that attacks the liver, lungs and eyes. Vegetation, which used to filter the water of sediments from rivers that flow from the hills to the lake, has been removed (11/4/99 Nando Times). (la)

Runoff from farms, industries, and urban areas has resulted in 50 "dead zones" in coastal waters ("Welcome to Earth: Population 6 Billion", Christian Science Monitor 9/30/99).

Hurricane Floyd's 9/16/99 deluge (20 inches) caused floodwaters to create a growing "dead zone" in Pamlico Sound where fish and other aquatic life cannot survive. The largest affected area is a 350-square mile expanse of Pamlico Sound and part of adjacent Core Sound. Low oxygen levels were found in the bottom waters of Pamlico Sound - 1 milligram/ liter, compared to the normal 7 milligrams/ liter (Associated Press, 10/12/99).

The American Farm Bureau Federation said there is no justification for restricting fertilizers or taking land out of production. Scientists "have not established an identifiable, variable link between nitrogen fertilizer and the hypoxic zone (in the Gulf of Mexico)," the group said in comments filed with the White House science office. "No one has defined what the impact of a cutback in nitrogen fertilizer would be on nitrate levels in the Mississippi River." The gulf's "dead zone" doubled in size to about 7,000 square miles following the 1993 Midwest floods. In the summer of 1999 it expanded to 7,728 square miles, about 700 square miles larger than the previously recorded maximum of 1995. The Mississippi River drains water from 40% of the US and carries more than a million tons of nitrogen. Scientists could not identify any damage to gulf fisheries because of the oxygen depletion but warned that fisheries will "decline, perhaps precipitously," if the gulf suffers the same fate as the Black Sea and other hypoxic areas around the world (eric.uram@sfsierra.sierraclub.org, 8/17/99).

In 8,000 sq. miles of the Gulf of Mexico, no marine life exists more than 30 feet from the surface. Every spring, an infusion of nitrogen-rich fresh-water from the Mississippi River leads to the almost total depletion of oxygen in deeper waters by summer. Restoring and preserving wetland buffer zones is vital to reducing the amount of nitrogen that reaches the Mississippi in runoff from fertilizer and human waste systems (Los Angeles Times 8/8/99).

Excessive nutrients deplete oxygen in a water body, and lead to algal blooms, fish kills, lake eutrophication, etc. They have been implicated as a possible cause of hypoxia observed in several East Coast states and Pfisteria-induced fish kills and human health problems in coastal waters of several East Coast and Gulf States. The hypoxia ("Dead Zone") problem in the Gulf of Mexico is also a result of excessive nutrients. The National Water Quality Inventory: 1996 Report to Congress Executive Summary, found that the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen caused impairment to 40% of US rivers, 51% of surveyed lakes, and 57% of surveyed estuaries (Ami Grace [cleanwaternt@igc.org], Clean Water Network June/July 1999, Status Report, 6/30/99).

Several scientists spoke on the issue of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico at the 1/99 AAAS meeting in Anaheim, California. Otto Doering found that farmers could use a variety of methods to cut nitrogen runoff by 20-25% without hurting food prices or farm exports. Researchers have estimated that the nitrogen load in the Mississippi River needs to be reduced by 20% in order to eliminate the Gulf's hypoxic zone. The majority of this nitrogen load is believed to originate from farms. Doering stated that 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen are delivered to the Gulf from the Mississippi annually. Only 0.27 million metric tons can be traced to municipalities and industries. Agriculture in the Mississippi River Basin uses 6.5 million metric tons of nitrogen annually, so farm runoff is believed to be largely responsible for the excess nitrogen. Doering believes that farmers can reduce nitrogen loss by 20% with improved farm management. "Fertilizer management will be the key thing," he says. "No more fall fertilization. More precise application in terms of place and time for spring planting. Buffer zones along streams. Fewer inputs - about a 20% reduction of the amount of nitrogen used." Over-fertilization appears to be a major cause of the excess nitrogen, and Doering believes economics is a driving force behind the excessive use of nitrogen. "Nitrogen costs 18 cents/ pound and may yield an extra bushel of corn worth $2.20," he said. But even if farmers stopped putting nitrogen on fields immediately, nitrogen currently in the environment would still leak into the Mississippi. The construction of wetlands may help to reduce this leaking. "It's a way of dealing with the nitrogen already in the system," said Doering. "The wetlands allow you to hold the water for periods of time, and nitrogen tends to go into the atmosphere" (99U1).

The average size of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico has doubled since 1992 and now persists from May until October in some areas (99U1).

The number of 1997 advisories in the US increased by 5% over 1996 to a US total of 2,299 (98U4). The number of US water bodies under advisory represents 16.6% of total US lake acres and 8.2% of total US river miles. In addition, 100% of the Great Lakes and their connecting waters and a large portion of US coastal waters remain under advisory (98U4).

In one 3-month period, 300,000 people in Shanghai came down with hepatitis-A due to clams contaminated by sewage discharges (89L1).

The 1991 cholera epidemic (300,000 cases and 3000 deaths in Peru alone) came from fish and shellfish that contacted bacteria-laden bilge water from a Chinese freighter (Ref. 56 of (94W2)).

Non-cancerous, but fatal, tumors called fibropapillomas are turning up in sea turtles worldwide. The prevalence of tumors in turtles found near shore areas suggests a possible link to fertilizer- or other farm-waste runoff. Some turtle habitats have infection rates of as high as 90% (Roger Featherstone, GREENLines Issue #488, 10/23/97 (Defenders of Wildlife)).

In 1988, 63 signatories of the London Dumping Accord also approved a ban on ocean incineration of toxic substances by 1994 (89L1).

The 8 countries bordering the North Sea agreed in 1987 to reduce nutrient- and toxic discharges by 50% by 1995 (89L1). Liquid chemical waste pours into the North Sea at over 2.1 million tons/ year (1.9 million tonnes/ year) (89L1).

In 1993, 2/3 of the US's 1279 fish-consumption advisories were issued in the Great Lakes region, mostly due to mercury, PCBs, chlordane, dioxins and DDT (95A1). Of the 30,000 different chemicals entering the Great Lakes, 362 are reliably monitored (Ref. 51 of (96A1)).

In the mid-1980s, Lake Victoria (62,000 km²) was oxygenated to its bottom - 100 meters down. Now it supports life only in the upper 40 meters or less. This is blamed, in part, on raw sewage and industrial waste from Kisumu Kenya and Mwanza Tanzania (95A1).

Several rivers running into Chesapeake Bay had outbreaks of a poisonous algae-like species called pfiesteria. These and related species have directly caused more than $1 billion of damage to the US seafood industry in the past 25 years (in addition to so-called halo effects - anti-seafood hysteria). One of the main suspected causes of these outbreaks is manure runoff from large livestock operations (97F1).

In 1993, 2/3 of the US's 1279 fish consumption advisories were issued in the Great Lakes region, mostly due to the presence of mercury, PCBs, chlordane, dioxins and DDT (96A2).

Venezuelan Audubon Society says Venezuela's Environmental Ministry is under-staffed, under-paid, rife with corruption, and mired in confusion, e.g.:

• Lake Maracaibo (largest lake in S. America) has become a "garbage pail" of oil and waste from tankers.
• Illegal gold miners poison rivers with mercury.
• Coral reefs in Morrocoy National Park turned gray and died in 1995, probably due to toxic wastes dumped by ships.

(See "Poor Protection Allows Destruction of Venezuela's Exotic Wildlife", 12/23/99 AP).

Ships often discharge ballast-water in harbors and coastal regions upon arrival. They also take on ballast-water in harbors and coastal waters before departure. The result is a transfer of native species to distant regions where they become alien species that can then propagate and do massive damage to native species and habitats. The fairly simple solution to this problem is to discharge ballast water in the open ocean and replace the water by open-ocean water. Ballast exchange at sea can rid ships of estuarine and coastal species taken up in port and replace them with open-water species that pose no threat to coastal waters. This could do much to reduce the introduction of alien fish species that do so much damage to native fisheries. The cost of this procedure is mainly just time. For coastal fisheries, the cost of not doing this has been exterminated fisheries and radically altered ecosystems (98W1).

Worldwide, 38% of (freshwater?) fish populations have been eliminated by exotics, compared to 17% by over-fishing (98U5).

The goby, an exotic fish specie, probably arrived in the Great Lakes from Europe in the ballast tanks of ocean-going ships. They are thriving in the Great Lakes Basin because they are aggressive, voracious feeders that can forage in total darkness. The round goby takes over spawning sites used by native species (98U5).

Before the 1970s, Lake Victoria (Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya) contained more than 350 species of fish from the cichlid family. Today over 50% of these species are extinct or found only in small populations (92W1). This was largely due to the introduction of two exotic species, the Nile perch and Nile tilapia. By 1983 Nile perch made up almost 70% of the catch, and the Nile tilapia and a native sardine made up most of the balance (90A1).

In northern Sulawesi, citizens have cleared coral reefs of harmful invasive species (99M1).

When rock bass arrived in Lake Ontario, the number of fish species in some areas diminished from 14 to 4 (98U5).

In Lakes Michigan and Huron, lamprey (a parasitic eel) caused the commercial lake trout catch to drop from 5000 tons/ year in the early 1940s to under 91 tons/ year 15 years later (95A1).

Around 1986, the Azov Sea fisheries were shut down, and the Black Sea's anchovy fisheries were virtually eliminated ($250 million/ year loss) - both due to introduction of an Atlantic Coast comb jelly (96A2).

Norway ignored its scientists' advice and imported exotic fish stocks for its aquaculture. Now they are poisoning entire rivers in an attempt to eliminate Baltic parasites and Scottish disease (97M1).

Jellyfish that Iranian officials say were carried by oil tankers threaten to ruin Iran's $34 million caviar industry (Earthweek for week ending 5/15/98 in Pittsburgh Post Gazette (5/15/98)).

(Global) One estimate puts the global area swept by trawlers at 14.8 million km² of the sea floor (/year?) ((98W5), p. 1190). Comments: Data given below indicates the area is annual area. (la)

(Global) Bottom trawls - large bag-shaped nets towed over the sea floor - account for more of the world's catch of fish, shrimp, squid and other marine animals than any other fishing method (98S3).

(Global) Crucial fish habitat on the ocean bottom is being ruined by fishermen who drag weighted nets to harvest fish and other seafoods such as sole, flounder, shrimp and scallops. Bottom trawling has been banned for the huge pollock fishery because of concerns about crab and halibut and other fish that were inadvertently caught in large numbers. Bottom-trawling remains in use for various kinds of sole, rockfish, cod and flounder in Alaska, and the fleet of bottom trawlers is generally regarded as having one of the worst records for catching non-target fish and seafood, called bycatch (98W3).

(Global) Loss of habitat diversity from trawling could be a major reason why so many fisheries are declining worldwide. One study shows, for instance, how young cod fish survive better in ocean habitats with more complex seabed structures. Fisheries can't survive in an underwater desert. Fish habitat is also tubeworm-, crustacean-, and anemone habitat (98F1).

(Global) Trawling is one of the most widespread commercial fishing methods in the world. Bottom trawlers catch fish by dragging nets across the ocean floor - sometimes 2,000 meters down - behind ships or boats. The nets are held open by heavy doors and the edges of the nets have chains or metal weights that force fish and shrimp off the sea floor so they can be snared. New, more powerful fishing equipment now allows fishing even on rough bottoms like rocky reefs, which in the past were free from trawling (98F1).

(Global) The area of seabed trawled each year is nearly 150 times the area of forest that is clear-cut. Each year, trawlers drag an area of seabed twice the size of the continental US. We are doing more to the surface of the earth by trawling than perhaps any other human activity except agriculture. Like a forest, the seabed is a complex ecosystem that provides habitat and food necessary for the reproduction and growth of fish and other marine life. Trawling and dredging destroys these structures - which can take decades and even centuries to fully recover, according to the studies. After trawling, sponges, mussels, tube-dwelling worms and the crustaceans that live in disturbed areas are almost all gone. Nothing humans do to the sea has more physical impact (98F1).

(Global) Bottom trawling and dredging, two widespread but under-studied methods of commercial fishing, are the most destructive human activity affecting the world's oceans, according to new scientific studies released 12/14/98. Comparing the fishing techniques to forest clear cutting, a series of articles published in the (12/98?) scientific journal Conservation Biology warned that the living structures of sea beds are being destroyed at a rate much greater than the current rate of destruction of the earth's forests (98F1).

(Global) The overwhelming bulk of the world's trawlable shelves are impacted by fishing, leaving few sanctuaries where biomasses and biodiversity remain high (95P2). Comments: Trawler nets scrape over the bottom (often several times/ year at any given spot), leaving the ocean floor as a smooth surface devoid of features fish need for protection from predators.

(Global) Many of the world's fishing grounds are completely plowed over one to three+ times/ year by bottom trawlers (97H1).

(Global) Fishing crews have long used dragnets to scour ocean floors for bottom-dwelling cod, flounder, and similar species, but modern craft have become devastatingly efficient in grabbing everything on the floor. Diving surveillance, unavailable in earlier eras, revealed that draggers not only capture enormous proportions of the fish but sweep across vulnerable stretches of the ocean floor, destroying plants and noncommercial sea life that are the foundation of the food chain. This sea life is essential to the recovery of commercial species that are seriously depleted (98G2).

The industry has forbidden our government to videotape or photograph them while they are carrying out their scrape- fishery. For the last 4 years, freed from this century-long scourging, wild nature out on Georges Bank has been recovering by going through a succession of plant- and animal types. The animals that first reclaim the scraped-out under-sea landscape are heavily armored creatures that can live in hostile environments - sea scallops. As these animals live and grow, their shells pile up and form a healing scab upon the scraped-over sea floor. Sea anemones, corals, sponges and other animals find these bumpy living and non-living carpets suitable to grow upon. In a normal world, the healing scab of sea scallops that has begun restoring the sea floor of the Gulf and Bank would peak and then decline. Other marine sea floor animals would take up the succession that leads to the complicated system of hundreds of different marine species (99H3).

At four years of age, the Bank's still-juvenile scallops had reached a size where they could be killed legally. Scallops can live at least 18 years. They don't produce that many eggs until they reach 10 years of age. That the scrapers would be killing juvenile scallops didn't matter. They were there, they could be killed and sold, if the scrapers were let loose among them. What was needed was an OK by the administration. Rep. Studds carried the charge to Washington DC. The power of lobbyists and money was such that even the chair of the US Senate's fisheries subcommittee couldn't stop them, though she tried (99H3).

End the welfare; break their death grip on the New England Fishery Management Council and the offshore scrapists that have ravaged Georges Bank will vanish. Once the scrapists have been swept from the seas, the scallops will rise and, their work done, fall, replaced by the coral forests and other living seafloor features that are capable of providing a limitless bounty of cod, haddock, flounder, halibut and the many other sellable fishes to the gill-netters, the tub trawlers and the rest of the fishing fleet that don't destroy fish habitat while harvesting (99H3).

(Australia) Shrimp trawling has reduced seabed animals by more than 50% along the 1200-mile-long Great Barrier Reef (Australia) (Area: 140,000 mile²). For every ton of prawns caught, up to 10 tons of marine life are lost (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 2/1/99).

(Bering Sea) Large declines in crab species in the southeastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska since the early 1980s parallel the growth of bottom trawling in these areas (98D2).

(Gulf of Mexico) The gulf coast of Mexico is one of the most heavily trawled areas in the world (98F1).

In 1994, roughly 50 factory trawlers, far less than 1% of the US fleet, caught about 20% of the fish (98N1).

(Global) 1% of the world's 3.5 million fishing boats account for at least half of the worldwide catch (98N1).

(Global) Factory ships, which account for 1% of boats and 10% of fishermen, scoop up over half of the world's catch (89U1).

(Global) New fishing vessels, combined with increasingly sophisticated fishing technology, have increased the fishing capacity of the world's industrial fleet by 22% since 1991 (98N1).

Large factory trawlers with huge, sonar-directed nets that have the ability to scoop up hundreds of tons of fish at a time (98K1). Factory trawlers' nets are as long as 0.36 km. (98D1). The largest nets can capture 400 tons of fish in a single haul. Factory trawlers stay at sea for months -fishing, processing and storing fish on board, around-the-clock, 7 days/week. Mobility permits factory trawlers to easily abandon depleted waters for fertile fishing grounds elsewhere in the world - leaving local, less mobile fishers to face the consequences of wasted ecosystems (98G1) (98D1).

The domestic US factory trawl fleet did not exist prior to 1983. It grew from 12 vessels in 1985 to 45 by the end of 1988, while catching capacity grew from 250,000 to 800,000 tonnes (98D1) (98G1). By 1992 there were 65 factory trawlers, and a $1.6 billion investment in the fleet (98G1). Additions to the fleet in 1988-90 added 15 large pollock surimi/ fillet factory trawlers with a production potential estimated to be "several times the size of the vessels which entered the fleet between 1985-87." These vessels were rebuilt in foreign countries after the passage of the Anti-Reflagging Act (1988), which Congress enacted to halt the entry of more factory trawlers into the North Pacific. However, all of these vessels ultimately received exemptions from the Coast Guard under the Act's grandfather clause (98D1).

Despite the massive global fishing fleet over-capacity, the Norwegian firm Resources Group International plans to build 24 more super-trawlers at $65 million each (98K1).

Super (factory) trawlers cost $40 million to build, can fish as deep as one mile, and can take in 400 tons of fish in a single netting (98P1).

Don Tyson (Arkansas) received over $65 million in low-interest loans to build 10 super (factory)-trawlers. The Seattle-based factory-trawler fleet has received $200 million in federal subsidies (98P1).

In the largest US fishery - that for Alaska pollock - the glut of factory trawler capacity exceeds the total allowable catch limit by at least 2-3 times. The factory trawler fleet, which has ranged between 45-65 vessels in recent years, catches nearly 20% of the total US catch. Some 36,000 smaller fishing vessels catch the rest (98D1).

Recognizing the devastating environmental potential of factory trawlers, Congress enacted measures in 1997 to prohibit the entry of large-scale fishing vessels into two important East Coast fisheries for Atlantic herring and mackerel. The catalyst for this legislation was a 369-ft. factory trawler that had set its sights on these two fisheries. This legislation was passed with significant support from both environmental- and fishing-industry groups (98D1).

Modern factory trawlers are very expensive, some costing as much as $40 million. Debts create financial pressures that are incompatible with sustainable fishing practices. Excess fishing capacity and debt-driven economics encourage wasteful, dangerous, and destructive fishing practices such as fishing heavily on spawning stocks in pursuit of the lucrative roe and "pulse fishing," where a stock or local school of fish is set upon and fished out (98D1).

About 40% of what super-trawlers catch is considered "by-catch" and is ground up and thrown back into the ocean (98P1).

In 1991, 50 factory trawlers in the pollock fishery, comprising only 2.5% of all ground-fish vessels that year, caught over 1 million tonnes of Alaska Pollock - 75% of the Bering Sea pollock quota. By 1992, there were 65 factory trawlers and an estimated $1.6 billion investment in the fleet (98D1).

The largest, and best-known, fishery for pollock was pioneered by Japanese factory trawlers in 1964, using a technique to convert the flesh into a protein paste known as surimi (98D1).

(Policy) Greenpeace believes strongly that all factory trawlers should be banned from US fisheries, as this sort of technology is incompatible with sustainable, ecologically responsible fishery management (98G1).

Bottom trawling involves use of weighted nets designed to drag on the ocean floor, churning up fish, crabs, sponges, coral and other sea life drawn into the nets (98W3).

Since the Pak Mun dam (northeastern Thailand) was completed in 1994, all 150 fish species have virtually disappeared from the Mun River (96A2).

The Diama Barrage on the Senegal River, built to prevent incursion of salt water during periods of low river flow, is expected to cause the annual loss of 7,000 tons of shrimp and fish (95M1).

Dams in northern Nigeria have lowered freshwater fish catches by over 50% (Ref. 40 of (96A2)).

Since World War II we have seen greatly renewed activities on water development programs in western waters. Salmon and steelhead resources of streams draining into the Pacific Ocean are worth over $100,000,000/ year to the Pacific Northwest economy. In California, Oregon, and Washington practically every major stream is under scrutiny for what it might produce in terms of power, irrigation, flood control and navigation. These are the four arguments that back every recommendation made to the Congress. There are a series of power, irrigation, and flood control dam sites under study in the region of the world-famous Rogue River in southern Oregon, most of which, if built, will cause irreparable harm to a resource that brings to the Pacific Coast area over $2,155,000/ year from sports fishermen (49N1).

Any fishery biologist will tell you that flood control reservoirs make poor homes for fish. The fluctuating fore bay levels periodically desiccate out all fish foods dwelling in the richer, shallow-water areas, with the result that many soon become biological deserts barren of foods and fish alike (49N1).

(Newfoundland) The collapse of the capelin fishery off Newfoundland in the late 1970s produced negative effects on populations of harp seals and humpback whales (98D2).

(Norway) In the Barents Sea off Norway, the collapse of herring stocks in the 1960s and capelin in the mid-1980s is linked to big declines in cod abundance in the mid-1980s (98D2).

(Alaska) From the late 1970s to the late 1980s, the largest Pacific harbor seal rookery in the world at Tugidak (south of Kodiak) suffered an 86% decline in population, parallel to and following the period of record-high pollock harvests in the Shelikof Strait. (Pollock comprised the single largest source of prey for harbor seals.) (98D2).

Many spawning grounds have been cleared to make room for shrimp ponds, golf courses, and beach resorts. As a result of habitat degradation, insured coastal property damages in the US soared to $50 billion in the 1990s (99M1).

Increased atmospheric ozone levels may already have decreased phytoplankton yields in the Antarctic Ocean (92S1).

Krill, the little shrimps at the heart of the Antarctic food chain, are in double danger from climate change and the likelihood of greatly increased fishing. New Australian research shows krill are highly sensitive to ultraviolet light from the hole in the ozone layer while conservationists fear an American corporation is gearing up to massively increase krill fishing in the Antarctic (99W1).

A serious decline in krill, and some decline already appears to be happening, could have a disastrous impact on seals, penguins, whales and sea birds, scientists said. Laboratory tests showed krill was more susceptible to UV than any other animal. Krill is already under pressure from warmer air temperatures and reduced ice cover (99W1).

Krill spends part of its time near the surface and part at depths between 50-100 meters, where it is protected from UV (99W1).

Part [D2] ~ Habitat Degradation ~ Atmospheric Effects ~ Ocean Temperatures ~

In a paper published in Science, John A. McGowan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography documented a 20-year-long rise in Pacific Ocean temperatures. McGowan says the warmer temperatures have harmed a variety of sea creatures, from zooplankton to fur seals to sooty shearwaters, a gull-sized sea bird that has declined by 90% off California (98M3).

(Norway) Incidents of acid precipitation causing fish deaths in parts of Norway are described in Ref. (94H3).

(Europe) About 40% of toxic pollution in Europe's coastal waters is thought to stem from atmospheric deposition. The percentage could be greater in the open ocean (91T1) (98E1).