Petition to State Water Control Board Calls on Enhanced Regulation of Menhaden Vessels’ Vacuum Pump Water
** PUBLIC IS ENCOURAGED TO SHARE COMMENTS DURING 21-DAY OPEN COMMENT PERIOD **
Washington, D.C., Aug. 14, 2023 – A coalition of recreational fishing and boating groups is endorsing a petition that states that the vacuum pump water released by industrial menhaden fishing vessels in Virginia waters contains waste discharges that are not permitted under state water quality code. The petition calls on Virginia’s State Water Control Board, a division of the Department of Environmental Quality, to regulate the contaminated wastewater as a point source pollutant, similar to a sewage or factory outflow.
The petition, put forth by Andy Cortez, a Virginia conservationist with over 36 years of state, federal, and international experience, states that the vacuum pump water from industrial menhaden fishing vessels contains levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, suspended solid waste, and organic matter that are not in compliance with at least three state water quality codes. Cortez’s petition requests that SWCB either amend existing Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (VPDES) permit regulations or develop a new regulation.
“The discharge from these commercial fishing boats is producing a point source pollutant that exceeds what is acceptable under state law,” says Mr. Cortez. “These vessels are demonstrating a blatant disregard for the health of Virginia’s waterways, and it’s time that they be regulated in ways that help protect some of our most valuable and vulnerable resources.”
Among the conservation groups endorsing the petition are the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association, Coastal Conservation Association, American Sportfishing Association, and Marine Retailers Association of the Americas.
“This petition asks that the industrial menhaden industry’s daily discharges of fish waste and deoxygenated water are regulated the same as every other wastewater discharge in the Commonwealth,” says Jaclyn Higgins, forage fish program manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “Adding excess nutrients into Virginia waters helps create dead zones that harm recovering fish populations, such as striped bass, weakfish, and croaker.”
“As more research and analysis is done on the impact of industrial menhaden fishing in the Chesapeake Bay, the threat to sportfish populations and the marine ecosystem at large only continues to grow” says Chad Tokowicz, government relations manager at the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas. “Not only are many sportfish caught as bycatch during the harvest, examination of the wastewater from these menhaden fishing vessels highlights the increased threat they present to the ecosystem, as this nutrient-laden water can create dead zones and areas devoid of oxygen, delivering a 1-2 punch to sportfish in the bay. Not only is the Bay’s primary forage base being removed in staggering amounts, but it is also subjected to diminished water quality where these vessels are operating.”
“Omega Protein has violated water quality laws before, so unfortunately it isn’t surprising they’re under scrutiny again for polluting Chesapeake Bay,” says Dinkus Deane, President of the Virginia Anglers Club, one of the Commonwealth’s oldest fishing clubs. “Good neighbors don’t dump their waste in their neighborhood and put local folks’ health, livelihoods, and marine life at risk. Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality is obligated to regulate the contaminated wastewater, and if Omega is truly a good neighbor as they claim, they’d do the right thing and stop this practice immediately until a remedy is found.”
“If any other industry or individual in the Commonwealth blatantly pumped this amount of harmful pollutants into Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, they’d likely be fined or even possibly shut down until they fixed the problem,” says Capt. Chris Dollar, Coastal Conservation Association’s conservation consultant for Chesapeake Bay. “This is yet another preventable injury to the Bay’s already weakened water quality and unnecessarily endangers crucial marine habitats for important game fish and forage fish. We’re simply asking that the East Coast’s only industrialized menhaden industry comply with Virginia’s existing water quality codes and that the State enforces them.”
The petition is the second within a month that raises concerns about the harmful impacts of the industrial menhaden fishery within Virginia waters. An earlier petition urged the state’s fishery regulators to limit allowable fishing zones of the industrial menhaden fleet, based on the depth of their 1400-foot-long, 500-pound purse seine nets that often extend deeper than the Chesapeake Bay waters they fish, resulting in fish spills, the unintended mortality of game fish, and damage to the seabed.
The public is encouraged to comment online on the water quality petition until Sept. 4, 2023, through this link: https://townhall.virginia.gov/L/ViewPetition.cfm?petitionId=394.
About the Author
I am out on the Chesapeake Bay every day of the week in my boat in the middle bay around the Rappahannock in the pink tank and as far north as the Potomac. I have constantly watched these fishing boats stay in the water, red with putrid, smelling liquids that pump out of their boats, I’ve also seen tons and tons of illegal fish dumped into the water that they picked up by mistake. There are no fish left in the bay the game fish don’t come into the bay anymore because there’s no food for them to eat the Chesapeake Bay which is one of the greatest watersheds in the United States, has been decimated And politicians have been paid off. Throw a Omega Protein out of the bay now.
I am out on the Chesapeake Bay every day of the week in my boat in the middle bay around the Rappahannock in the other rivers and as far north as the Potomac.
I have constantly watched these fishing boats stain the water, red with putrid, smelling liquids that pump out of their boats, I’ve also seen tons and tons of illegal fish dumped into the water that they picked up by mistake. There are no fish left in the bay the game fish don’t come into the bay anymore because there’s no food for them to eat the Chesapeake Bay which is one of the greatest watersheds in the United States, has been decimated And politicians have been paid off. Throw a Omega Protein out of the bay now.
All the males in my immediate are avid sport fishermen and boaters. We have property in Mathews Co, Virginia. We have been there for more that ten years. According to them, ( my family members and their friends ), the fishing has deteriorated with each passing year. They attribute this to the over fishing of Omega Proteins. Due to their continued polluting of the bay as well as reducing, by astronomical tonnage, the food source necessary for the larger species of fish everyone has been impacted inc. sport fishermen, commercial fishermen, boat sales, bait and tackle sales, summer rentals, and tourism in general. Why come here to fish if there are none?
Bunker is crab pot bait….