A message sent from West Marine to all of their customers...

Dear West Marine Boater,
We generally don't stray very far from our mission of trying to provide you with excellent products and services for your boat and boating lifestyle. We also usually keep our political and social opinions to ourselves, believing it's not our place to solicit others, even when the cause is, in our opinion, worthy. Perhaps it's that West Marine has reached the ripe old age of 40, or perhaps it's the state of some of the world's natural resources, but we feel compelled to make an exception to our normal policy and attempt to help raise the awareness of some significant risks that this and future generations of boaters are facing. In this message today, we're not seeking any business or other gain for West Marine. We're simply trying to be good stewards of the oceans and marine environments, for the benefit of all.

We hope you'll accept our opinions, advice, and call to action as sincere, positive and responsible; as that's how they are intended. What would you do if you knew that many species of fish and other marine life in the ocean will be gone within 30 years if levels of C02 continue increasing at their present rate? We believe you would take action to stop this from happening, because informed people make informed choices.

This letter is about what we can and must do together now to help solve a very serious, but little-known problem, Ocean Acidification. Sally-Christine and I are lifelong boaters. What we have learned from sailing across the Pacific over the past 6 years, and especially from scientists focused on marine conservation, is startling. Whether you spend time on the water or not, Ocean Acidification affects all of us and is something we believe you will want to know about. Ocean Acidification is primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

When carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ends up in the ocean it changes the pH, making the sea acidic and less hospitable to life. Over time, C02 reduces calcium carbonate, which prevents creatures from forming shells and building reefs. In fact, existing shells will start to dissolve. Oysters and mussels will not be able to build shells. Crabs and lobsters? Your great-grandchildren may wonder what they tasted like. Carbon dioxide concentrated in the oceans is making seawater acidic. Many of the zooplankton, small animals at the base of the food web, have skeletons that won't form in these conditions, and sea-life further up the food chain - fish, mammals and seabirds that rely on zooplankton for food will also perish. No food - no life. One billion people rely on seafood for their primary source of protein. Many scientific reports document that worldwide, humans are already consuming more food than is being produced.

The implications are obvious. The issue of Ocean Acidification is causing irreversible loss to species and habitats, and acidification trends are happening up to ten times faster than projected. We want you to know what this means, how it affects all of us, and what we can do about it. Today, the atmospheric concentration of C02 is about 387 parts per million (ppm) and increasing at 2 ppm per year. If left unaddressed, by 2040 it is projected to be over 450 ppm, and marine scientists believe the collapse of many ocean ecosystems will be irreversible. Acidification has other physiological effects on marine life as well, including changes in reproduction, growth rates, and even respiration in fish.

Tropical and coldwater corals are among the oldest and largest living structures on earth; the richest in terms of biodiversity, they provide spawning areas, nursery habitat and feeding grounds for a quarter of all species in the sea. Coral reefs are at risk! As C02 concentrations increase, corals, shellfish and other species that make shells will not be able to build their skeletons and will likely become extinct.

The good news is we can fix this problem. But, as you guessed, it will be difficult. Ocean Acidification is caused by increased C02 in the atmosphere. Solving one will solve the other.

The House of Representatives has acted, passing HR 2454, the Waxman-Markey "American Clean Energy and Security Act", but it was severely weakened. Now the Senate has announced that it will move similar legislation this fall. We need the Senate to join the House in its leadership, but to demand far greater emissions reductions than were able to pass the House.

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that in order to stabilize C02 in the atmosphere at 350 ppm by 2050, global carbon emissions need to be cut 85% below 2000 levels."

That's a very tall order! And the way our political system works (or doesn't) makes its tougher.

It will take all of us to step up and take responsibility to make this happen.

Here is what you can do: Contact your Senator now using one of these techniques, listed in order of effectiveness.

1. Visit your Senator at their local office. It is easy to make an appointment. Tell them your concerns about C02 and the oceans, and to move strong climate legislation immediately that will reduce our greenhouse gas concentrations to levels that will not threaten our oceans. The experience is rewarding. (Alternatively, drop a letter off at their local office.)

2. Call your Senator and leave a message urging action be taken to reduce C02 , address Ocean Acidification, and move strong climate legislation immediately that will reduce our greenhouse gas concentrations to levels that will not threaten our oceans.

3. Click on this link to send an email, which will go directly to your Senator based on your address.

http://www.oceana.org/acid <http://e.westmarine.com/a/hBKbsxBAQaiZ8B7uhOjAcYnIdho/wm6-0>

You may use the letter provided, but it is more effective to edit it, and in your own words urge them to move strong climate legislation immediately that will reduce our greenhouse gas concentrations to levels that will not threaten our oceans. Ocean Acidification is an issue we can do something about. We need a groundswell of informed citizens to get Congress to have the backbone to stand up to the entrenched interests of coal, oil, and gas and not compromise on the reduction of C02. We also need real leadership to aggressively create jobs using sustainable technologies. The choice is ours. We can solve this or not. What we do know is that the future facing our children, grandchildren and indeed all of humankind depends on our decision. Please join us in sharing this letter with others. We appreciate your taking the time to contact your Senators; it is easy to do and effective. Thank you for your support.

The issue of Ocean Acidification is causing irreversible loss to species and habitats, and acidification trends are happening up to ten times faster than projected. We want you to know what this means, how it affects all of us, and what we can do about it. The future facing our children, grandchildren and indeed all of humankind depends on the actions we take today to solve this growing problem.

Randy Repass
Chairman
West Marine
Randy@westmarine.com

Sally-Christine Rodgers
Board Member

Mississippi catfish farmers say Vietnam is sinking their business

The millions of pounds of Vietnamese fish imported to the U.S. each year are not classified as 'catfish' and may not be subject to the same inspection regulations that will soon apply to the American fish.

Los Angeles Times
By Richard Fausset and Richard Simon June 16, 2009

Reporting from Belzoni, Miss., and Washington — In Vietnam there's a kind of fish that's white-fleshed and whiskered and otherwise pretty darn catfish-like. But in the eyes of the U.S. government, the creatures aren't catfish.

Now fish farmers in the American South fear this government classification will allow the Vietnamese fish to slither around inspection regulations that will soon apply to American catfish.

It's one of many reasons fish farmer Scott Kiker is singing the catfish blues.
Kiker has been forced to shrink his dominion of teeming fish ponds in Mississippi from 270 acres a few years ago to about 80 acres today. His operation, like the U.S. catfish industry overall, has been stung by the soaring cost of grain, as well as last year's spike in diesel prices. And the restaurant industry, like the broader economy, is slow enough to make a preacher cuss.

But there is one issue Kiker believes Washington can address: the millions of pounds of Vietnamese fish imported to the U.S. market each year, amounting to what he contends is unfair competition.

Southern catfish farmers believe that problem could be solved if the Obama administration expanded the government's definition of catfish to include the fish from Vietnam.

"They ought to have to do what we have to do. It's not fair," Kiker said.

Kiker, a friendly, ruddy-faced man with a pair of sunglasses perched on his head, recently gave a tour of his aluminum-walled hatchery, lined with troughs full of gelatinous yellow eggs being aerated by small rotating paddles. It is a clean, simple operation -- one that his 12- and 16-year old daughters help run in the summer. It's also closely regulated, using only federally approved water additives and antibiotics.

"Our standards are so high, and they don't have any," Kiker said of the Vietnamese. "That's the bottom line."

That argument is ringing out from the farms of the American Southeast, where catfish -- once a river-dwelling delicacy whose availability was subject to the fisherman's luck -- has evolved since the 1960s into a crucial cash crop.

Some observers in Washington warn that changing the definition of "catfish" may heighten tensions between the U.S. and Vietnam, and possibly ignite a trade war.
"This goes far beyond just the definition of a fish," said Gavin Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute, a trade group.

The Vietnamese government notes that in 2002 Congress prohibited the Vietnamese species -- generally sold as basa and tra -- from being marketed here as catfish.
The 2002 legislation declared that no fish can be marketed as catfish "unless it is fish classified within the family ictaluridae," which is found in the South. The Vietnamese species come from the pangasiidae family.

The problem, from the Southern perspective: Butchers buy basa and tra and tell customers it's catfish. So do some restaurants. The fish industry has fought back with the help of sympathetic state legislatures: In August, Alabama will join a number of states that require restaurants to inform customers where their catfish comes from.

At issue at the federal level is a little-noticed provision of last year's farm bill that will soon subject catfish, whatever its origin, to a new, more rigorous inspection regimen. The provision was included after Chinese seafood was found in 2007 to include drugs banned in U.S. fish farming.

Critics of the push to reclassify say it amounts to protectionism. Supporters say it will increase food safety.

To the Vietnamese, it's confusing.

"The Vietnamese feel pretty whipsawed here," said Brenda A. Jacobs, a Washington trade lawyer who has advised the Vietnamese government. "They can't call their seafood 'catfish,' but they could be subject to a new inspection requirement that is applicable only to catfish?"
Does this reflect confusion, she asked, or an attempt to undermine fair competition?
Thoan V. Ngo, commercial counselor at the Vietnam Embassy in Washington, said he hoped the Americans "would see this as being less about just the definition of a fish and more about the definition of how the U.S. treats developing countries."

When asked about Vietnam's concerns, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), said, however, "I'm more concerned about my constituents than I am their constituents."

The specifics of this rather esoteric trade issue are well-known in Humphreys County, where Kiker has his ponds. This desktop-flat stretch of rich Mississippi Delta farmland once proudly produced more catfish than any other U.S. county. Not anymore.

The acres devoted to producing catfish in the county dropped from 29,650 acres in 2001 to 18,400 acres last year.

Though the industry is waning here, the ictaluridae family still holds a place of honor in thecounty seat of Belzoni, a town of 2,600 with a small catfish museum and brightly painted catfish sculptures that dot the downtown sidewalks.

Jim Steeby, a Belzoni-based aquaculture specialist for Mississippi State University, said that a bad batch of Vietnamese fish could give a bad name to Mississippi catfish -- and do even more harm to Humphreys County's signature industry.

"We have a reputation in this industry of having an immaculate product, and we don't want it tarnished," he said.

Steeby drove around the two-lane roads of the county, pointing out numerous swaths of land that once held shallow, nine-acre pools of fish -- and were now overrun with weeds or, in the best cases, sown with row crops.

Steeby stopped at the home of catfish farmer Michael Pruden, 55, who was getting ready to transfer some fish from 160 acres that he was taking out of production. Later, Pruden and his young daughter switched on an automated feeder to sprinkle his ponds with soy-corn pellets. The placid ponds erupted in splashes as hundreds of the primordial, wide-mouthed creatures rocketed to the surface for lunch.

Steeby said there would always be someone doing this work in a region where a plate of lightly breaded catfish ranks with pan-fried chicken as the mark of a worthy chef.
Pruden, a salty son of farmers in a John Deere ball cap, wasn't so sure.

"Unless it gets better," he said, "there's no future growing fish."

richard.fausset@latimes.com

richard.simon@latimes.com

Do you speak FISH? - FISH FRAUD A NATIONAL PROBLEM FOR THE USA

Investigation turns up fish fraud at restaurants

Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia

Saturday, June 27, 2009 - P3

By Isaac Wolf

Scripps Howard News Service

Restaurants in four cities across the country have been caught charging patrons for top-notch seafood while actually peddling inferior fillets. A Scripps Televisiton Station Group investigation in Kansas City, Mo., Phoenix, Baltimore and Tampa, Fla., found that in 23 out of 38 meals tested the fish species was incorrectly marketed and billed as fanicer fare.

For instance, fish listed on menus as "red snapper" often was found to be far cheaper tilapia, while "grouper" was really catfish, the investigation found. Such substitutions can save a restaurant a bundle - while red snapper fillets cost about $5.20 a pound wholesale, tilapia goes for just $2.20 a pound, according to food commodity analysts.

The Scripps reports, based on DNA analyses of the fish, provide more evidence of the pervasiveness of fish fraud in U.S. restaurants. Although similar testing has been done in New Yorkd City and Mobile, Ala,, The Scripps project is the first to look at severarl cities in different parts of the country.

It also is the most extensive look at the incidence of fish mislabeling since a National Marine Fisheries Serivice report found the 37 percent of fish and 13 percent of other seafood, such as shellfish, were mislabeled over a nine-year period ending in 1997.

Spencer Garrett, who leads the fisheries-service laboratory that conducted that study, thinks fish fraud has increased since then. But he doesn't know for sure, because no follow-up study has been done.

The Scripps investigation found:

- The president of an international restaurant chain, Bice Bistro, admitted to swapping catfish for grouper after KSHB tested fish in Bice's Kansas City, Mo., location.

- JK Sushi in Phoenix changed its menus the day after KNXV discovered that the advertised red snapper was actually tilapia.

- The owner of Baltimore restaurant Luna Del Sol apologized after WMAR found that the "grilled grouper" - priced at more than $25 - was in fact Asian catfish.

- When Acropolis Greek Tavern in Tampa, Fla., was caught serving catfish instead of grouper, the eatery's owner told WFTS that the fish suppliers - and not him - were to blame.

Industry experts say fish fraud comes in a variety of forms: substitution and mislabeling at the restaurant level, mis-representation by restaurant suppliers, and fraud by domestic fish importers and foreign exporters.

Los Angeles federal prosecutor Joseph Johns, who broke up a fish-fraud ring last year, said the scope of the problem is huge.

"There's just an unbelievable amount of fraud being perpetrated on the American public," Johns said. "It's high time somebody really [looks] into this."

But government oversight has been scant, Scripps found.

Industry experts say that because the federal government isn't tracking mislabeled fish in restaurants or supermarkets, they have no idea how often it is happening - or how much money it is costing the public. Americans consume about 5 billion pounds of seafood a year.

While federal authorities want to understand the extent of the fraud, they don't have the resources to address it head-on, said Gavin Gibbons, spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute, a Washington-based trade group that wants closer oversight of fish imports.

In a February report, the Government Accountability Office criticized the Food and Drug Administration, which concentrates on food-safety matters, for giving short shrift to detecting and preventing fish fraud. The GAO investigators urged the FDA to expand its focus to include false labeling and to collaborate with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to root it out.

But the FDA, citing budget constraints, said it is not planning to scrutinize fish for misrepresentation, said agency spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek. "Species substitution isn't our top concern. But we do take it seriously."

Also pleading a shortage of resources, the parent agency of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says it doesn't have the staffing to conduct spot checks on fish imports for labeling accuracy more than every month or two, said Alan Wolf, NOAA assistant special agent in charge for the Northwest regions of the country. The service spends most of its time protecting endangered fish species.

U.S. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, wants the FDA to ratchet up its checks and is working with other members of the Senate Commerce Committee on legislation to improve seafood labeling, quality assurance and safety.

Garrett, who directs the National Seafood Inspection Laboratory, thinkgs fish inspections for veracity should be mandatory. Currently, federal inspectors examine for quality only a third of fish imports under a voluntary program in which large purchasers, such as supermarkets and restaurant chains, pay a fee for the tests, he said.

"We have to tighten our [inspection] program and then demand the same from our exporters," Garrett said. "We need to take a fresh look with new eyes at an old problem."

To take such a look, Scripps reporters in March ordered fish meals listed on the menus at the restaurants and sent the fish to two testing facilities: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Guy Harvey Research Institute at the Oceanographic Center of Nova Southeastern University, and St. Augustine, Fla.-based Fish DNA ID.

After KSHB in Kansas City found that Bice Bistro was selling catfish instead of the advertised grouper at the Kansas City eatery, the restaurant chain's president, Raffaele Ruggeri, admitted that his company regularly changes species without updating its menu.

"We would consider changing the name on our menu to accurately reflect all species of fish being served nationally, but in no way will we change the product as we stand by its quality," Ruggeri said in a statement. His company, Bice Restaurant Holding, owns 40 restaurants around the world.

Lawyers at the Federal Trade Commission are reviewing KSHB's report to see whether Bice's practice amounts to false advertising and will decide whether to launch an investigation, said agency spokeswoman Betsy Lordan. The FTC never has investigated cases of fish fraud but has the authority to do so, she said.

According to the Scripps TV investigation, sushi houses are among the places you are most likely to receive the wrong fish. Scripps tested fish billed as red snapper at nine Japanese restaurants - eight in Kansas City and one in Phoenix. All of them substituted cheaper species, the reporters found. Sushi houses commonly serve Izumidai, a cheap tilapia specialy processed to have a red hue so it resembles snapper.