Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Annual Public Hearing
August 30, 2000
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
1
7 BE IT REMEMBERED that heretofore on the
8 30th day of August, 2000, there came on to be
9 heard matters under the regulatory authority of
10 the Parks and Wildlife Commission of Texas, in
11 the Commission Hearing Room of the Texas Parks
12 and Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin,
13 Texas, beginning at 1:46 p.m. to wit:
14
15
APPEARANCES:
16 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
Chairman: Lee M. Bass
17 Ernest Angelo, Jr.
Carol E. Dinkins
18 Dick W. Heath
Nolan Ryan
19 John Avila, Jr.
Alvin L. Henry
20 Katharine Armstrong Idsal
Mark E. Watson, Jr.
21
THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:
22 Andrew H. Sansom, Executive Director, and other
personnel of the Parks and Wildlife Department
23
24
25
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1 AUGUST 30, 2000
2
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good afternoon. I'd
4 like to apologize for starting this session
5 slightly later than -- than scheduled. Afraid
6 we were -- got running behind from this morning
7 and have yet to catch up.
8 Mr. Sansom, would you read our opening
9 statement, please.
10 MR. SANSOM: Mr. Chairman, members, a
11 public notice of this meeting and all items on
12 the proposed agenda has been filed in the
13 office of the Secretary of State as required by
14 Chapter 551 of the Government Code. This is
15 referred to as the Open Meetings Law, and I
16 would like for the action to be noted in the
17 official record of the meeting.
18 Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome all of
19 you here today. As you know, this is our
20 annual public meeting in which you are free to
21 appear before the Commission and speak on any
22 subject related to Parks and Wildlife that
23 concerns you and we're very, very anxious to
24 hear your comments and -- and pleased that you
25 have taken the time to be with us today. The
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1 Chairman, Mr. Bass, is in charge of the meeting
2 and I, as usual, will be kind of assisting him
3 as sergeant at arms. I want to make sure to
4 everyone understands that we've got sign-up
5 cards out front, and if you want to speak, you
6 will have had to have signed a sign-up card
7 because he will call the names from those cards
8 one at a time.
9 Each person will be allowed to speak from
10 the podium here before me, and when name is
11 called, please come forward, state your name,
12 who you represent, if someone other than
13 yourself.
14 In order to move the meeting along, I'm
15 certain that the Chairman will also probably
16 call the next person in line, and if you would
17 come to the back of the room so that you can
18 move quickly, then that will be considerate of
19 other people and move it along.
20 Each person who will -- who wants to
21 address the Commission today will have three
22 minutes to speak, and I will keep time using
23 this traffic clock, which will notify you when
24 the light turns yellow that your three minutes
25 are about to be up, but when it's red, your
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1 time is up, and I would ask that you resume
2 your seat so that others may speak.
3 If a Commissioner asks you a question,
4 that will not count against you. Your time may
5 be extended if you are questioned. If they
6 discuss something along themselves, that time
7 will be not be counted against you either.
8 I ask that you be courteous to the other
9 members of the audience, to our staff, and to
10 the members of the Commission. We don't
11 tolerate here statements that are strictly
12 argumentative or critical of others. We want
13 you to stay on the subject. We know it's an
14 issue that is concern to you, otherwise you
15 wouldn't be here.
16 If you have items that you would -- have
17 in writing that you would like to add to the
18 record, please give them to Ms. Estrada here on
19 my right and she will distribute them to the
20 Commission.
21 Once again, welcome to our annual public
22 meeting and thank you-all for coming and we
23 look forward to hearing your comments today.
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
25 Mr. Sansom. As -- As Andy pointed out, we'll
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1 ask each of you to limit your comments to three
2 minutes. If you can do it in less time than
3 that, that's -- that's obviously, I think,
4 going to be in all of our -- our benefit. If
5 everyone uses three minutes, we're going to be
6 here till 6:30 or seven o'clock because that's
7 how many people have signed up. And somebody's
8 going to be first and someone's going to be
9 last, and that's just -- that's just the way it
10 is, and I apologize to whoever ends up being
11 last, but it's -- it's going to be luck of the
12 draw.
13 And now, I would also ask that if any of
14 you have cell phones, would you please turn
15 them off because it is disruptive to have them
16 ringing during the -- during the hearings, and
17 we don't need any things to -- to distract us
18 from trying to keep the flow going. We do want
19 to hear what everyone has to say. We
20 appreciate people coming in here today and
21 being willing to talk to us about things that
22 are -- that are on their mind.
23 And with that said, I'm going get -- get
24 things going and just grab some names and --
25 and off we'll go, and please -- please be as
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1 expedient as possible when you're the next
2 speaker of approaching the microphone.
3 And I will also ask that, you know,
4 this -- this is not a -- a game show or a TV
5 show, so there's no need for applause, booing,
6 audience participation. We're here to hear
7 what everyone has to say, and if you agree with
8 it, you'll have an opportunity to say so when
9 you have your time to speak. If you disagree
10 with it, you'll have the same opportunity, so
11 you know, we -- we don't need to cheering
12 sections or -- or any of that.
13 First person I'd like to call is Bill West
14 from the Guadalupe -- Guadalupe Blanco River
15 Authority and ask Jerry Norris to be prepared
16 to speak next.
17 MR. WEST: Mr. Chairman, members of
18 the Commission, thank you very much for the
19 opportunity to address you today. I'm Bill
20 West from the Guadalupe Blanco River
21 Authority. I have three quick comments that I
22 would like to make, one associated with aquatic
23 vegetation management, the second associated
24 with a Senate Bill 1 planning process, and then
25 the third possibility of some joint projects
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1 between GBRA and -- and the Commission.
2 First, in terms of aquatic vegetation
3 management, I know that is not a new topic for
4 you. GBRA has -- has participated in the
5 development of the guidance document and
6 proposed rules, and I want to thank the
7 Commission and staff for their efforts. We
8 understand and in the process that the staff
9 will be available to review our respective
10 plans and approve those plans, but I would
11 simply like to request that the motr and
12 Wildlife stay in the business with those of us
13 that deal with that on a daily basis. Texas
14 motr and Wildlife have the staff and the
15 expertise to deal with this issue, and the
16 river authorities and other water districts
17 need that partnership to continue that effort.
18 We cannot do it alone and do it by ourself.
19 We realize that there is a funding issue
20 and we realize that the next coming legislative
21 session that that will be an issue and we will
22 be there to help see that additional funds will
23 be available for motr and Wildlife and
24 associated with this effort.
25 Another point there with aquatic
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1 vegetation management, the liability cap
2 associated with that arena remains to be an
3 issue.
4 Second point is that of Senate Bill 1
5 planning process. Parks and Wildlife have had
6 representatives participating in each of the 16
7 plans that have been developed across the state
8 that will be folded into one state water plan
9 and now that that planning process has been
10 completed and the plans will be put together
11 for the final state plan, those of us involved
12 in implementation of those plans will begin our
13 work and I would simply request that as we
14 start the work of implementation of some of
15 those options in the Senate Bill 1 planning
16 process that the motr and Wildlife staff be
17 there at the table to assist us as we work on
18 those projects to develop water supplies for
19 the state. Many of those options along the
20 Texas Gulf Coast will be associated with
21 in-stream flows and bay and estuary issues, and
22 we request that the motr and Wildlife staff be
23 there with us working on those projects as we
24 try to bring those to fruition.
25 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, Mr. West.
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1 MR. WEST: The third -- Is that the
2 time? I'm sorry.
3 Thank you.
4 CHAIRMAN BASS: Jerry Norris.
5 And John Jefferson, if you'd be prepared
6 to speak next.
7 Thank you, Mr. West.
8 MR. NORRIS: Hello. My name is
9 Jerry Norris and I live in Port Arthur, Texas,
10 and I thank the Commission for the opportunity
11 to bring a very important issue of conservation
12 before you today. Sabine Lake is a
13 saltwater-bordered lake with Louisiana. We
14 have a reciprocal license agreement that allows
15 fishermen from both states to fish each state's
16 waters. The agreement is a licensing
17 agreement, not a size and bag limit agreement.
18 In the State of Texas, we have bag limits on
19 trout, redfish, and flounder that differ
20 greatly from Louisiana. We have limits that
21 are based on biological data gathered by the
22 Texas motr and Wildlife that are more
23 conservative than Louisiana. For example,
24 Louisiana has speckled trout limit of 25 fish,
25 12 inches. Texas bag limits are 10 fish,
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1 15 inches. Based on data, Texas set the limit
2 to trout to help establish a healthy population
3 that will have recruitment from year to year.
4 This has worked all along the Texas coast in
5 every bay system.
6 The problems on Sabine Lake are as
7 follows: A fisherman can leave Texas docks and
8 go anywhere in Sabine System, Texas or
9 Louisiana and fish, then return to a Texas dock
10 with fish that do not meet Texas size and bag
11 limits, but are legal in Louisiana. Texas
12 wardens cannot always establish if the fish
13 were caught in Texas or Louisiana, so the
14 benefit of the doubt is given to the
15 fishermen. The fish may or may not have been
16 caught in Louisiana, and many times are not,
17 but the wardens have to see the actual
18 violation has it occurs. This is a monumental
19 task given the large areas they have to cover.
20 What we're experiencing now, fishermen are
21 catching and keeping more trout that do not
22 meet Texas regulations. With this in mind, I
23 would like to remind everyone that Texas has
24 been the undisputed leader in conservation. I
25 would hope that we can continue to be the
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1 leader.
2 I'm here today with the solution to this
3 problem on Sabine. And the reason I am here is
4 in an effort of conservation of our state's
5 resources. I have a petition with me with 600
6 names on it of individuals who are
7 conservation-minded fishermen who fish in
8 Sabine and are concerned about the fish
9 stocks. These people that have signed this
10 petition are in favor of the following
11 petition. The petition reads as follows, and I
12 would at this time like to submit this into the
13 record. We the undersigned do hereby petition
14 the State of Texas, Texas Parks and Wildlife to
15 write into law that all Speckletrout, flounder,
16 and
17 Red drum that are landed in the counties of
18 Jefferson and Orange of the state of Texas are
19 to be within the size and bag limits of the
20 State of Texas. The reasons for this are to
21 allow juvenile fish of these three species to
22 be allowed the ability to spawn and reproduce
23 before removal by fishermen. Based on
24 biological data fish that do not meet Texas
25 regulations are not allowed to reproduce in a
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1 manner that would allow for a viable resource.
2 Also, law enforcement efforts will be greatly
3 enhanced by the new laws and will allow
4 officers to enforce Texas size and big limits.
5 And also I have some packets for each
6 one --
7 CHAIRMAN BASS: If you'd just leave
8 them with the -- Ms. Estrada there at the
9 desk. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
10 John Jefferson and Dave Moldal are -- if you'd
11 be prepared to speak next.
12 MR. JEFFERSON: Thank you,
13 Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. I'm
14 John Jefferson. I'm an outdoor writer. And
15 with dove season opening Friday, let me be the
16 first to wish you happy new year. Ms. Estrada
17 is distributing some pictures that I'd like for
18 you-all to see. They're photographs of
19 eight-year-old Sarah Smith from Rockport,
20 Texas. She's a lifetime hunting and fishing
21 license member winner. She won the license
22 through the Wildlife Expo Poster contest last
23 year. It's been my privilege for the last,
24 well, for other eight of the last nine years to
25 be one of the judges for the poster, essay, and
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1 poetry contest. The Outdoor Writers'
2 Association with Texas has judged this contest
3 and we saw several things that's kind of
4 concerned us. One, it looked like teachers
5 were using this just as a time filler at the
6 end of school and we would get literally 30
7 entries from one class from kids who may or may
8 not have any interest at all in winning such a
9 license, and a lot of times their entries
10 reflected it. This took up a lot of our
11 judging time. We have a panel of 8 or 9 judges
12 and it took us eight or nine hours to judge all
13 those. We also realize that the publicity of
14 the contest didn't reach sportsman's group,
15 conservation groups, 4-H clubs, Boy Scouts,
16 Girl Scouts, groups that might have people who
17 were really interested in winning such a
18 license.
19 We discussed this with the staff and some
20 changes were made and publicity was improved
21 and the -- the rules were changed, and overall,
22 we felt that the entries recently have
23 reflected that we are getting applications from
24 kids who are interested in the contest and not
25 just because their teacher said they had to
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1 complete a project.
2 Before these, the applications were
3 prepared this year, though the rules were
4 changed. A question came up about whether to
5 continue giving the lifetime hunting and
6 fishing license. I opposed eliminating that as
7 one of the prizes because I felt like this
8 would be viewed as the Commission and
9 Wildlife Expo backing away from support of
10 hunting and fishing. I felt that the hunters
11 and fishermen and the outdoor press would
12 oppose this, and the contacts that the
13 Commission received after the prize was
14 eliminated pretty much support that. And I
15 also felt that increased interest in the number
16 of kids who really wanted this was improving.
17 So I hope that next year the license will again
18 be offered unequivocally. It's offered this
19 year, I understand, after the contacts from the
20 press as an alternative prize. I hope you'll
21 offer it unequivocally.
22 Sarah Smith that you're looking at there
23 is one of the recipients who does appreciate
24 it. She doesn't just appreciate it, believe
25 me, she cherishes it. When we started out on
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1 the boat the day I took the picture, she asked
2 her father, Daddy, will a game warden check us
3 so I can show him my license? And I think
4 it's -- it started her down a path that could
5 well lead her to becoming one of the --
6 MR. SANSOM: Thank you,
7 Mr. Jefferson.
8 MR. JEFFERSON: Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN BASS: Excuse me. Dave
10 Moldal and Stephen Labuda, Jr., if you'll be
11 prepared to speak next.
12 MR. MOLDAL: Chairman Bass,
13 Commissioners my name is Dave Moldal. I
14 represent the Gulf States Regional Office of
15 the National Wildlife Federation. We're the
16 nation's largest member support conservation
17 organization with more than 4 million members
18 nationwide, some 46,000 here in Texas. I'm
19 here today to call attention to the issue that
20 my pose the single greatest threat to fish and
21 wildlife in Texas over the next 50 years.
22 That's the availability of water. As leaders
23 of the state agency responsible for the
24 management and conservation of the natural and
25 cultural resources of Texas you know better
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1 than anyone the degree to which the survival of
2 our fish and wildlife species depends on
3 healthy terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
4 As our state population grows to an
5 estimated 40 million people by 2050, the
6 pressure on our water resources will increase
7 to the point where species, habitat, and entire
8 ecosystems will be at risk.
9 The Texas legislature recognized the need
10 for long-term water planning in 1997 when they
11 enacted Senate Bill 1. At this point, 16
12 regional planning bodies appointed by the Texas
13 Water Development Board under Senate Bill 1
14 have released for public comment draft regional
15 plans to meet regional water needs through
16 2050.
17 Though Senate Bill 1 requires that water
18 plans make appropriate provision for
19 environmental water needs and for the effect of
20 upstream development on the bays and estuaries
21 and arms of the Gulf of Mexico, we are deeply
22 concerned that they do not -- that they not do
23 so in any meaningful fashion. In some draft
24 plans, there is no evidence that environmental
25 water needs have even been considered let alone
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1 provided for. We have attended meetings at
2 which citizens were told that Texas motr and
3 Wildlife and the Texas Water Development Board
4 would take care of these issues.
5 We are aware that the Texas Parks and
6 Wildlife Department staff will comment on the
7 regional water plans this fall and we hope
8 those comments will send a clear message that a
9 failure to plan for meeting the water needs of
10 fish and wildlife resources is unacceptable.
11 Environmental water needs are not well
12 understood by the general public and may not be
13 a priority for planners concerned about meeting
14 long-term human consumptive needs, but they
15 cannot be ignored. If the 50-year state water
16 plan does not provide for the water needs of
17 the environment, Texans will lose not just
18 wildlife and habitat, but significant
19 recreational and economic opportunities as
20 well. We urge the Commission and Department
21 staff to assign this issue the highest priority
22 and to ensure that the Department takes
23 advantage of every opportunity to communicate
24 the importance of water issues to the people of
25 Texas.
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1 Thank you for your continued efforts to
2 protect our natural heritage and preserve
3 it -- preserve it for generations to come.
4 Thank you.
5 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. Stephen
6 Labuda. And David Langford, if you'd be
7 prepared to speak next.
8 MR. LABUDA: Good afternoon, ladies
9 and gentlemen. Thank you for letting me be
10 here today. I did provide copies of my written
11 comments that I hope will be distributed to
12 you. My name is Stephen Labuda, Jr., and I am
13 a Texas native I've been working for the
14 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service here in Texas
15 for 24 years, and presently I'm located down at
16 the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in
17 Cameron County. I'm not a fisheries biologist,
18 or a turtle specialist. I have experience with
19 terrestrial vertebrates and ecology basically.
20 And I'm here to inform the Commission and
21 Director of TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
22 of two issues on the Laguna Atascosa Refuge
23 that may impact shrimp and fish populations on
24 the lower coast. These two issues are (1) the
25 reflooding of Bahia Grande on the recently
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1 acquired Redhead Ridge Unit of Laguna Atascosa
2 Refuge, and (2) an effort to move shrimp and
3 fish past a constructed water-control dam and
4 into a previously important estuary on the
5 refuge.
6 Preliminary investigations of Bahia Grande
7 have disclosed that providing sea from the
8 Brownsville ship channel through a narrow
9 channel will flood approximately 4,000 acres at
10 mean low tide, and roughly 5,000 acres at mean
11 high tide. This re-flooding will re-establish
12 a productive marine nursery that has been dry
13 since the ship channel was first dug in the
14 early 1930's. This project is being developed
15 with a number of cooperators, including the
16 National Marine Fisheries Service, Ducks
17 Unlimited, the Texas Shrimp Industry, Texas
18 Parks and Wildlife Department and others. I've
19 attached a two-page announcement of the history
20 and intended work on Bahia Grande that I'd ask
21 you to refer to for further information on this
22 project.
23 Secondly, in cooperation with industry
24 academia and the state agricultural extension
25 service, the Laguna Atascosa refuge has
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1 developed a plan to move shrimp, fish, and
2 other biota from the Lower Laguna Madre into
3 the Atascosa System. The plan is to move
4 estuarine creatures from the downstream side of
5 the dam on the refuge and into the Cayo
6 Atascoso a meandering, estuarine waterway, and
7 the Laguna Atascosa itself, a large brackish
8 lake that the Cayo flows into and out of. I
9 have also attached a refuge map that shows this
10 particular estuarine system. The particulars
11 of this project entail pumping fish, shrimp,
12 and other marine creatures through periods of
13 high rainfall, when there's a surging runoff
14 into the Arroyo Colorado from the Atascosa
15 System. The pump is being provided by the
16 Texas Shrimp Industry, and is specifically
17 designed not to damage biota and they pass
18 through the pump. Again this project is the
19 result of cooperation and consultation with the
20 Texas Shrimp Industry: Les Hodgson, the Texas
21 Agricultural Extension Service (Marine): Tony
22 Reisinger, and University of Texas Marine
23 Laboratory on South Padre Island: Don
24 Hockaday. These two projects together will
25 provide 8,000 to 10,000 additional acres of
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1 estuarine waters for the production of various
2 fisheries species. Of ancillary value will be
3 the benefit to duck, shorebirds, and wading
4 birds, and other resident and migratory
5 wildlife species.
6 Thank you for allowing you to provide you
7 with this information.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
9 Appreciate the information.
10 Mr. Langford, if you'd come forward and
11 ask David Stewart to be prepared to speak
12 next.
13 MR. LANGFORD: Thank you,
14 Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission and
15 Staff. I am David Langford, Texas Wildlife
16 Association, and is my usual every time this
17 year, I like to wish a happy anniversary to
18 Mr. Sansom and myself who got our jobs at the
19 same time. He's still doing better than me. I
20 still want to -- I would like to commend the
21 Commission and the staff and once again,
22 enumerate a lot of the things that didn't exist
23 in 1990: The Texas Big Game Awards, the Texas
24 Youth Hunting Program, Lone Star Land Steward's
25 Program, Landowner Incentive Plan, the New
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1 Managed Lands Deer Permit, the New Trap and
2 Transplant Newly Revised Permit, the Private
3 Lands Advisory Committee, the brand new Hunting
4 Advisory Committee, the Leasing of Public
5 Hunting Opportunities, Expo. The list could go
6 on. Most significantly, I would like to
7 commend the Department and the Commission and
8 the Staff for recognizing in those ten years
9 that there's a difference between landowners.
10 There's landowners that give and landowners
11 that take. So from those landowners that give,
12 we appreciate being involved and we appreciate
13 the cooperative spirit evident as all of us
14 were a part of creating all of these things and
15 everything else that I haven't mentioned that's
16 new and look forward to continue working with
17 you -- with you-all on these programs and on
18 developing new ones. One thing -- one new
19 thing I would like to put a plug in again this
20 year for, I still think there's room for a
21 lifetime nonresident hunting and fishing
22 license. There's probably not much revenue
23 there to pick up, but I still get phone calls
24 about that all the time.
25 I'd like to thank you again for this
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1 opportunity and it's probably my only official
2 time before the microphone to wish Mr. Bass and
3 Mr. Ryan and Mr. Heath well, since I don't know
4 what we're going to do without you-all up there
5 at the -- sitting at those desks.
6 Thank you again, and I'd like to -- I'd
7 like to close with one comment. It's -- I
8 think it's kind of interesting that I come and
9 follow Steve Labuda from the Fish and Wildlife
10 Service. That's kind of like the fox following
11 the master of the hunt.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Dave Stewart and
13 Larry Pressler, if you be prepared to speak
14 next.
15 MR. STEWART: Chairman Bass,
16 Commissioners, Andy, I'm David Stewart, I'm
17 president of an organization called SMART.
18 You-all have seen us in the last couple of
19 years in the public meeting and I just wanted
20 to make a really a very simple
21 less-than-three-minute statement.
22 Chairman Bass, my organization appreciates
23 every one of you commissioners and Andy all of
24 staff with the cooperation, and when we've
25 started working together the last two years on
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1 certain vegetation issues and we appreciate
2 everything that you-all have done. I just
3 wanted you to know that.
4 Our -- Our last letter in our name is a T
5 and that stands for "team" and we feel today
6 that we have become a team where two years ago
7 we were adversaries. I just want to thank you
8 very much.
9 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good. We --
10 That's -- That's what we strive for
11 relationships to be is partnerships and teams
12 even if we don't always see eye to eye, and --
13 and it's nice to see it's working in some
14 places.
15 MR. STEWART: In my opinion, it's
16 working very well, Chairman Bass. Thank you
17 again.
18 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
19 And Lee Stone, if you'd be prepared to
20 speak after Mr. Pressler.
21 MR. PRESSLER: What a lead-in.
22 Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the
23 Commission, my name is Larry Pressler. I'm the
24 director of Parks and Recreation for the City
25 of McAllen. I'm also the chairman of the Texas
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1 Recreation and Parks Society Legislative
2 Commission -- Committee. And I come before you
3 today also to tell you how much we appreciate
4 Texas motr and Wildlife working with our
5 organization. We're 2,000 members strong now
6 and represent the leadership organization for
7 municipal, county, governments. We have a lot
8 of Texas motr and Wildlife employees as members
9 of the Texas Recreation and Parks Society.
10 And over the past several years, we have formed
11 a bond with Texas Parks and Wildlife that I
12 think is second to none in the United States.
13 I don't know of any other parks and recreation
14 organization and fish and game organization in
15 any state that's as strong as the one that we
16 have here.
17 My message is a little bit different in
18 that we want to thank you for the partnership
19 that we have been allowed to develop because
20 you have allowed us to develop that together.
21 This has allowed us to build on this system of
22 parks, not just the parks system in the state,
23 but the system that we have together. There's
24 about 122 state parks and natural areas and
25 historic areas in the state park system, but
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1 there's somewhere around 5,500 or probably
2 closer to 6,000 by now city and county parks in
3 the state that make up this comprehensive
4 system of parks throughout the state of Texas.
5 It couldn't be done without the Parks and
6 Wildlife Commission and we want to -- we just
7 want you to know that we really appreciate this
8 relationship.
9 One of the most important partnerships
10 that we have to be with TRAPS and Parks and
11 Wildlife is this series of grant programs
12 that's administered through your agency.
13 Together we've proven the funding must be
14 viewed in a comprehensive context instead of
15 state versus city and county. TRAPS and Texas
16 Parks and Wildlife have worked side by side to
17 ensure that Texas residents have a positive,
18 meaningful outdoor recreation experience.
19 Texas Recreation and Parks' account has
20 been very instrumental in providing seed money
21 for those city and county parks throughout the
22 state. Without this seed money, it wouldn't
23 happen. The money that motr and Wildlife
24 grants through the recreation park account
25 stimulates these things that are matched one,
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1 two, and three times over with in-kind
2 services. It might just be providing a backhoe
3 along with it, but the seed money that you-all
4 grant is so important to cities like mine that
5 we just can't thank you enough for that.
6 The ongoing co-op program, it's a
7 wonderful partnership that gives inner city
8 traditionally underserved youth a chance to
9 have life-changing experiences in state parks
10 and natural areas.
11 And finally, we want to thank you for
12 allowing the people of the Rio Grande Valley
13 the opportunity to start developing an
14 ecotourism industry. The World Birding Center
15 project is a tough project. And a bunch of
16 these folks here on this row here join us down
17 there, and Andy's down there every few months
18 to help us. It's a -- it's a difficult project
19 to get going, but we're almost there, and we
20 really thank you for taking the lead in helping
21 Texas to stimulate this ecotourism business
22 down in the Valley.
23 Thank you. Andy.
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
25 Mr. Pressler. Lee Stone. And Casey Durst, if
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1 you'd be prepared to speak next.
2 MS. STONE: Hello. My name is Lee
3 Stone and I'm member of the board of directors
4 of the Native Prairies Association of Texas,
5 and I'm here to speak for that organization and
6 for our state's native grasslands and
7 savannahs.
8 Point one, last year we paid for and
9 completed a resurvey of the 60-some-odd
10 occurrences of tall grass blackland prairie
11 noted on this department's database. We
12 determined ownership, appraised values and
13 when -- when we could, we provided information
14 on conservation easements. In doing that and
15 in doing a separate survey of Falls County
16 southeast of Waco, we have found there are more
17 tall grass prairie remnants than have been
18 reported. We are a small nonprofit with no
19 staff, but now we are now nickeling and diming
20 more county-by-county surveys for tall grass
21 prairie. At the rate we're going, it will take
22 us about ten years to finish, so we are seeking
23 partnerships and funds to help us move this
24 project along more expeditiously and we hope
25 that you'll consider this work to be of the
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1 utmost importance and to partner with us.
2 Point two. Not to hurt my feelings, but
3 speaking for a membership which appreciates and
4 recognizes good quality native grasslands and
5 savannahs, most of the acreage in the state's
6 motr and Wildlife Management areas is in
7 pathetic condition. It is scuffy, overbrowsed,
8 underburned, and under -- undermanaged, and
9 resource management needs are not being met.
10 And I want to mention here that we do have
11 200 members who would be very glad to volunteer
12 and help.
13 Point three. There are only a paultry few
14 kinds of grasses and forbs native available
15 commercially and these are in extremely short
16 supply as most of you know already and there's
17 scarcely any of it from plants originated in
18 the locality of the areas being restored.
19 State Parks and Wildlife Management areas
20 could be vitally important local ecotype seed
21 sources for their surrounding regions if
22 managed properly, and TPWD could further help
23 this situation by contracting when they're
24 doing restorations for local ecotype seeds for
25 the restoration of their parks and wildlife
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1 management areas. This would help drive and
2 support a statewide native seeds industry,
3 which could, in turn help conserve and expand
4 our dwindling native plant resources.
5 Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
7 Ms. Stone.
8 Casey Durst. And Joseph Kovac, if you'd
9 be prepared to speak next.
10 MR. DURST: Good morning, everybody,
11 Chairman Bass, members of the Texas Parks and
12 Wildlife Board, and Mr. Sansom. My name is
13 Casey Durst, I'm 14 years old, and I go to
14 Arlington High School, and I'm a junior
15 shooter. I am representing myself.
16 Every night on record, the news talks
17 about problems facing kids, mostly teenagers.
18 I'm proud to say that, at least for me, I'm not
19 having those problems. There are many reasons,
20 but one main reason comes to mind: Almost
21 every afternoon after going to church, my
22 father and I shoot on the Texas Parks and
23 Wildlife Range in Mineral Wells. It is more
24 than just shooting, it's the 45-minute drive to
25 Mineral Wells and back. My father and I catch
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1 up on a lot of things.
2 That range has basically been my second
3 home. My father has brought me out there since
4 I was six. I've done everything from mow to
5 paint. He finally let me shoot last year. I
6 thoroughly enjoy it. My goal is to shoot for
7 the 2003 under 25 team.
8 I would like to thank the previous
9 administration of the Fort Walters Shooting
10 Sports Club for their support and the Texas
11 Parks and Wildlife for providing me with a
12 place to safe -- safely shoot long range.
13 Thank you for your time.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
15 (Applause.)
16 CHAIRMAN BASS: Joseph Kovac, if you
17 would speak. And Janice Bezanson, be prepared
18 to speak next.
19 MR. KOVAC: Chairman Bass, Parks and
20 Wildlife Commission, and Mr. Sansom, my name is
21 Joseph Kovac. I'm a private citizen and
22 represent myself. I was born and raised in
23 Fort Worth, Texas. I thought that it was
24 important enough to come down to Austin today
25 to thank the Parks and Wildlife that I skipped
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1 a day at my school Trinity Valley in
2 Fort Worth where I am a senior.
3 About six years ago I was introduced to
4 rifle shooting through the Boy Scouts of
5 America. I earned the rifle shooting badge on
6 the trail of requirements to Eagle Scout which
7 I earned my freshman year in high school.
8 Since then, I've become much more involved
9 with rifle shooting and have taken up long
10 range shooting. I practice at Fort Walters in
11 Mineral Wells the land of which is under Texas
12 Parks and Wildlife.
13 Under the past administration of the
14 shooting club at Fort Walters, I received a
15 great deal of help and instruction. After
16 continuously practicing at Fort Walters for
17 three years, the quality of my shooting was
18 good enough to be selected for the United
19 States understand 25 and under 21 team to
20 Bisley, England, to compete in the world
21 championships earlier this summer. Our team
22 won the gold medal there. It is the first
23 United States team to win a gold medal there
24 since 1985.
25 None of my achievements could have been
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1 possible without the wonderful range that the
2 Texas Parks and Wildlife has provided to me.
3 Under the past administration of the club, I
4 have had a wonderful place to shoot and be
5 coached. I hope that this will continue and
6 that the Texas Parks and Wildlife will continue
7 to provide this shooting facility for me.
8 Thank you.
9 (Applause.)
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
11 Appreciate it. Janice Bezanson.
12 If you kids need an excuse pass for your
13 headmaster, I -- I'll will give you one.
14 Janice Bezanson is next. And Jim Haire if
15 you'd be -- excuse me -- be prepared to speak
16 next.
17 MS. BEZANSON: Thank you,
18 Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Andy. I'm Janice
19 Bezanson and I represent the Texas Committee on
20 Natural Resources, TCON, I -- as we call it,
21 which is a statewide conservation organization
22 primarily focused on habitat issues. We have
23 long relationship with Parks and Wildlife.
24 We've worked on many issues together. We tend
25 to test -- go in and testify on your budgets.
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1 We've been get -- providing a lot of input to
2 the Sunset Commission and are very, you know,
3 happy with a lot of the working relationships,
4 the thousand members that I represent are
5 primarily interested in the resource protection
6 functions of Texas Parks and Wildlife. We're
7 looking at a time of unlimited pros -- not
8 unlimited unequaled prosperity, unequaled
9 knowledge of the environment, and yet, the
10 environment is taking a lot of hits. Wildlife
11 habitat is being degraded, water quality is
12 being downgraded, instream flows are being
13 threatened, bays and estuaries. There are just
14 so many issued that we have that need -- need
15 addressing.
16 We know the Department must be
17 concentrating on the Sunset process and the
18 legislation associated with that and the
19 upcoming legislature, but we want to be sure
20 that the Department devotes plenty of time to
21 the
22 water -- the regional water planning cause --
23 situation with Senate Bill 1. We're very
24 concerned. There are something like 33
25 reservoirs are being talked about that wipes
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1 out bottomline hardwood forests it takes water
2 out of the bays and estuaries. It takes waters
3 out of streams. So we feel that this is --
4 must be a major focus of the Department.
5 Staff's been doing a good job of attending
6 those hearings but they need as much support as
7 they can get from the Commission if they're to
8 make a real difference in the decisions that
9 are made.
10 One of the things the Department is doing
11 wonderful job on, and I really want to commend
12 you, is the private lands initiatives that are
13 established the Land Trust Council. I'm on the
14 board of the Natural Area Preservation
15 Association, which is one of the larger land
16 trusts in Texas. We get a tremendous benefit
17 from the Department and from the work that
18 the -- the publicizing of this. We're getting
19 more and more calls all the time from private
20 landowners who want help protecting their
21 land.
22 The vital thing I want to talk about is
23 what I want to talk about every year. I always
24 talk about land acquisition because we think
25 that this is a thing that the Department needs
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1 very, very heavily to be focusing on. Land is
2 being degraded, the wildlife habitat is being
3 degraded. Land doesn't come available all that
4 often, and when high quality land comes
5 available, it needs to be protected now while
6 it is available and before the habitat on it is
7 lost.
8 This is something we have emphasized
9 through the Sunset process. It's something
10 that we hope that the legislature will begin to
11 focus on, and we urge you as Commissioners to
12 talk to the legislature and to say, We need
13 funding for land acquisition for wildlife
14 habitat. Thank you.
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you, ma'am.
16 Jim Haire. And Esther --
17 MS. DIECKMANN: Dieckmann.
18 CHAIRMAN BASS: Dieckmann. Thank
19 you. If you'd be prepared to speak next.
20 MR. HAIRE: I'm Jim Haire with Texans
21 Standing Tall, a state-wide coalition to reduce
22 underage drinking. I appreciate this chance to
23 address the Commission.
24 We -- We support Sunset's recommendations
25 for the Department, from the large increases in
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1 funds to those that would stop the alcohol and
2 tobacco ads. I will address only the beer and
3 cigarette ads in the fishing regulations that
4 every young Texas must see in order to obey our
5 State's fish and game laws. We understand the
6 Department transferred the publishing rights to
7 Texas Monthly to save money but the deal also
8 involved the advertising of Budweiser beer for
9 the Department's sponsor, obviously. The very
10 first edition carried five pages of their beer
11 ads and the Department's foundation records
12 show the beer ad money going to the
13 Department. Researchers tell us that
14 81 percent of beer consumed is done so in a
15 hazardous way. A survey of 15 states shows
16 Texas as the only one to advertise alcohol in
17 its game and fish regulations.
18 During the period when our fish and game
19 laws were being signed away, Mr. Sansom was
20 lamenting the lack of written guidelines to
21 control sponsorship activities as he told a
22 reporter, "We're flying by the seat of our
23 pants." Another observer said the sponsorship
24 experience had been "a free for all." The
25 meeting that gave rise to these comments
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1 documents Anheuser-Busch's unusual level of
2 influence at the Department. Anheuser-Busch
3 executives came to Austin to express their
4 disapproval of a new safe boating campaign that
5 addressed drinking and boating. As I
6 understand it, Anheuser-Busch took over our
7 state's safe boating campaign and came up with
8 a giveaway floating boating key chain that
9 advertised their beer.
10 The Houston Chronicle said that meeting
11 underscored the serious need for written
12 guidelines to control the Department's
13 sponsorships. Commissioner Heath and
14 Mr. Sansom also expressed the need for
15 guidelines. The same special influence seen
16 above may have a lot to do with the fact that
17 no such guidelines were ever written and that
18 the "free for all" continues today, four years
19 later. (Ironically these same guidelines are
20 another of the Sunset Recommendations.)
21 An example of the continuing "free for
22 all" is a letter from the Department prior to
23 the last Expo stating their policy against
24 advertising at the Expo. But here's a
25 photograph of beer being advertised to the kids
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1 at the Expo with the caption, "You've caught a
2 great fish, now catch a great feeling." The
3 beer advertising even included a Budweiser
4 Clydesdale.
5 Researchers and even Anheuser-Busch say
6 that alcohol advertising is a factor in
7 underage drinking. And underage drinking is
8 the number one cause of death and injury to
9 young people. Therefore, we respectfully ask
10 the Commission to repurchase, renegotiate or
11 otherwise regain control of the ads in our game
12 and fish laws as recommended by Sunset.
13 Thanks very much.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. Esther
15 Dieckmann. And Richard Chapman, if you'd be
16 prepared to speak next.
17 MS. DIECKMANN: Ladies and gentlemen,
18 my name is Esther Perales-Dieckmann and I'm
19 member of the Presa Coalition for Legislative
20 Advocacy in San Antonio, Texas. Our member
21 organizations are located throughout Central
22 and South Texas and I'm here today to provide a
23 glimpse into an issue we've been looking at for
24 the past two years.
25 First of all, I would like to say that our
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1 organization highly recommends that the
2 legislature increase the funding for Texas
3 Parks and Wildlife and we are prepared to
4 support that in any way, shape, or form;
5 however, we want to voice a serious concern
6 about the advertising of alcohol in your
7 publications and in your activities,
8 specifically Budweiser beer.
9 Hundreds of millions of dollars in
10 advertising and public relations efforts are
11 spent annually in the promotion of alcoholic
12 beverages. Texas is the second largest beer
13 market in the country generating an estimated
14 $6 billion in revenue for the alcohol
15 industry. It's big business. However, it's
16 important to note that there are -- that there
17 are serious costs for alcohol misuse in terms
18 of violent crime, injuries, sexual assault,
19 fatalities on highways and waterways, damage to
20 property, and loss of human life.
21 Who is actually paying these costs? We
22 know that from research 97 percent of alcohol
23 consumed in Texas is beer, and research also
24 shows that 81 percent of beer consumed is done
25 so hazardously. The total cost to Texans
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1 according to a recent survey is an estimated
2 $4.3 billion annually. The people of the state
3 of Texas are incurring that cost.
4 Texas Parks and Wildlife has been involved
5 in a relationship with Anheuser-Busch. This is
6 unacceptable in our opinion because the agency
7 is actually being put in a position where they
8 are helping promote beer sales to the public
9 through its events and the Official Hunting and
10 Fishing Guide, which is required reading for
11 all the hunters and anglers, including the
12 young people that we're hearing about today.
13 Keep in mind that the American Sport Fishing
14 Association says that over 90 percent of
15 today's anglers start fishing before they even
16 turn 18.
17 Regardless of the current arrangement for
18 publication of this booklet, the Department had
19 the influence and resources to recover these
20 rights, and we urge you to do so and stop the
21 advertising of alcohol.
22 You have -- The alcohol industry has a key
23 responsibility. Let's make that real clear.
24 And that responsibility is to its
25 stockholders. Texas Parks and Wildlife also
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1 has a key responsibility and that is to the
2 people of the state of Texas.
3 You've received a clear message from the
4 Sunset Commission. We're urging you to help us
5 preserve the health and safety of our
6 communities and our young people. We're asking
7 you to reacquire the rights to stop advertising
8 of alcohol in the Official Hunting and Fishing
9 Guide as well as all the related events to
10 Texas Parks and Wildlife. Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. Richard
12 Chapman and --
13 MR. CHAPMAN: I'd like to relinquish
14 my time. My item has just been addressed. No
15 use wasting any more time. Pray for rain.
16 Thank you.
17 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. I hope
18 someone other than myself hears your prayer.
19 Mary Hill. And let's see. George Foshee, be
20 prepared to speak next.
21 MS. HILL: I am Mary Hill, a retired
22 professor of recreation from West Texas A&M
23 University and now a citizen in Comal County.
24 Of 30 years of my life I spent training and
25 developing college students to become
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1 professionals in the area of recreation. Our
2 philosophy and mission of recreation is to
3 promote through organized activities
4 constructive use of leisure time. I commend
5 your agency and the Commissioners for all the
6 he wonderful recreational opportunities you
7 have provided the youth of Texas.
8 I am coming to you today, though, as a
9 concerned professional, parent, and grandparent
10 that we have allowed alcohol to sponsor our
11 children's recreational activities. Alcohol is
12 if most abused drug in America. It does not
13 contribute to the philosophy of recreation.
14 The alcohol and tobacco industry indicate they
15 no longer target our children. The present
16 recreational booklet of the Texas Parks and
17 Wildlife does not support this statement.
18 Our young people are the most valuable
19 resource we have in Texas and we need to keep
20 it that way. Thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
22 Ms. Hill. George Foshee. And Paul Craig I
23 believe it is, if you'd be prepared to speak
24 next.
25 MR. FOSHEE: Chairman Bass,
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1 Commissioners, Andy, I'm the president of
2 Friends of Garner. I'm also a guide that takes
3 you over 4 1/2 miles over the mountains, the
4 beautiful mountains of Garner, so we hear lots
5 of complaints. We have over a thousand people
6 every summer that goes through Garner. Their
7 number 1 complaint, or number 2 complaint,
8 rather, is the lack of adequate restrooms. The
9 4th of July, we have over 10,000 people in that
10 area. We have 30 commodes in the men's
11 restrooms. We do have a new one that will be
12 built starting in January, but that is just
13 three more to add.
14 The other thing that tied right along with
15 that is we were shut down one week this year
16 because we only have one well, one water well.
17 We do need a backup water system there.
18 We also need funding to have enough summer
19 help to keep the park in good condition. We
20 have a wonderful park host program going, but
21 these people are putting in probably ten hours
22 a day, seven days a week. Some of them have
23 already told us they will not be back next
24 year, we probably need ten additional seasonal
25 people during the summertime to help load this
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1 extra load that we have.
2 It is not funding, but the chief complaint
3 that we have is our reservation system. We're
4 discriminating against telephones. If you do
5 not have a home computer, then you cannot get a
6 reservation in the park. We need to limit
7 reservations. We have people getting anywhere
8 to 10 to 40 campsites with one reservation.
9 If you limited that to two campsites per
10 reservation, then you would have a lot more
11 people satisfied. The 333 days in advance is
12 really too long a time. Most people do not
13 know when they can have a vacation the next
14 year. Thank you for your time.
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you very much.
16 I'm told that former Commissioner Bob Armstrong
17 snuck in the room here when I wasn't looking
18 there you are. Greetings, Bob.
19 (Applause.)
20 CHAIRMAN BASS: I'm -- I'm sure we
21 can arrange an extra chair at the -- at the
22 dais here if you'd -- if you'd like to relive
23 some old times.
24 MR. ARMSTRONG: I just came to get a
25 hunting license for next year. But I wanted to
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1 see you in action and you're doing good.
2 CHAIRMAN BASS: Well, appreciate you
3 stopping by.
4 MR. ARMSTRONG: Thanks a lot.
5 CHAIRMAN BASS: Have a good hunt.
6 MR. ARMSTRONG: You bet.
7 CHAIRMAN BASS: Okay. Paul Craig.
8 Okay. Suzy Marek. Marek. And Jim Ellison, if
9 you'd be prepared to speak next.
10 MS. MAREK: Commissioner Bass,
11 Commissioners, Mr. Sansom, this is my third
12 year to proudly stand before you representing
13 Texans for State Parks. My name is Suzy Marek
14 and I'm the executive director of the Friends
15 of Inks Lake State Park, as well as the
16 treasurer for Texans for State Parks.
17 One of the things that I would like to let
18 you know about is that the Texans for State
19 Parks has become a -- a very viable voice now
20 for our state park system and we are continuing
21 to grow at a very rapid pace. Some of our
22 accomplishments over the past year that you may
23 or may not be aware of is we have been able to
24 express our voice before the Governor's Task
25 Force on Conservation before the Sunset
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1 Commission relating to state park issues, and
2 we have also been the very proud provider of
3 dinner and dessert for our state park interns
4 and their superintendents this past June.
5 We look forward to looking with the State
6 Parks Division in support of their annual
7 meeting in January where we will be working as
8 volunteers as well as helping out in some of
9 the financial areas. Then we plan to jump
10 right into the next legislative session
11 providing a voice for the outstanding state
12 park system that we have here in the state of
13 Texas.
14 We plan for our annual meeting in October,
15 October 27th and 28th, to be the springboard
16 for communications network to provide our
17 legislators with the desires of their
18 constituents regarding adequate and stable
19 funding for our state park system during the
20 upcoming legislative session.
21 I wanted to just let you know that there
22 are a lot of people throughout the state of
23 Texas who are not necessarily associated with
24 Texas Parks and Wildlife who are very avid
25 supporters of this Department. We've seen very
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1 professional partnership capabilities between
2 lowly little friends groups out there in the
3 state parks with the three, four, ten people
4 and hundreds of people in other state parks and
5 the TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION. And
6 we're very, very proud to be associated with
7 this organization. Thank you very much for
8 your time.
9 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
10 Jim Ellison. And Beth McDonald, if you could
11 prepare to speak next.
12 MR. ELLISON: Mr. Chairman,
13 Commissioners, Andy, I'm here representing --
14 My name is Jim Ellison and I'm representing
15 Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park
16 Association. And I wanted to thank you for
17 your help and cooperation and I wanted to ask
18 you for one thing. But what I wanted to thank
19 you for is your help in our new facilities. We
20 have a brand new Barrington living history farm
21 at the park with animals that are associated
22 with the period of Anson Jones 1850. Very,
23 very interesting, and the -- the visitor --
24 visitors count has been terrific. We also have
25 a new visitors' center, a new conference
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1 center, and all of that, and I want to say
2 thank you for your help on that. We have done
3 a great job.
4 The other thing that we've done, now that
5 we have the facilities, we have this past April
6 had a vision committee meeting of all of the
7 past presidents, the present board, and all
8 that's associated with our association. We
9 came up with seven strategic bullets that we
10 are and putting together to help the park and
11 the museum. The museum is under construction
12 right now, a revitalizing a whole new exhibit
13 center. They have the downstairs which will be
14 finished in the next month, and then the next
15 year we'll complete it all.
16 I just want to say we would like to, and
17 what I wanted to ask you is to please accept an
18 invitation to come and see this beautiful park,
19 which is a crown jewel in your park system.
20 Thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
22 Beth McDonald. And Dana Dean, if you could be
23 prepared to speak next.
24 MS. MCDONALD: Hello, Mr. Bass,
25 Commissioners, Andy --
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1 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good afternoon.
2 MS. MCDONALD: -- and all our friends
3 here at the Parks Department, or Parks and
4 Wildlife. I'm Beth McDonald. I'm the
5 secretary of Texans for State Parks. I'm also
6 a member of our what we consider local Park of
7 the Lost Pines of Bastrop and Buescher. I have
8 several concerns that I'd like to address.
9 My number one concern is our parks
10 department salaries. I realize you can't do
11 everything for everybody, but I also realize
12 and you realize that we're losing key people in
13 our park system to better-paying jobs. This is
14 just a sign of our times and we're in the
15 high-tech area now with the growth here, the
16 population explosion that we have, the job
17 opportunities that we have. I would like to
18 see the park salaries at a level that would
19 reward those people who are long term and have
20 stayed with us and those people that are
21 qualified that we could attract. You realize
22 that many, many, many people are working for
23 the Parks Department because that's what they
24 want to do. They love the outdoors and they
25 love what they're doing. That's the reason
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1 they're there.
2 My second concern is land acquisition.
3 I've just returned from ten days in Alaska.
4 Of course, I was reminded many times that
5 Alaska is the largest state and Texas is
6 second. I reminded them that Texas is the
7 largest state without a glacier. But do you
8 realize that we have more people in Austin than
9 there is the population of Alaska. It's
10 frightening when you think of the comparison.
11 With their land acquisition, I think we're
12 going to see our wilderness and our wildness of
13 this state and a heritage of being what we are
14 taken away from us if we don't get on a land
15 acquisition program so that we get some of this
16 land under our thumb more or less to keep it
17 for your grandchildren, my great grandchildren,
18 so please consider that and put the land
19 acquisition back as the number one thing.
20 Two -- or three, rather, our outreach
21 program. You've heard several people speaking
22 on what we need to do for our youth. We have
23 such a potential for our youth of this state.
24 With our outreach programs, we hear of -- from
25 San Angelo and what they have just done with
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1 the grant from Texas Parks and Wildlife and
2 it's been grand and I would like to see it
3 expanded and continued to its utmost. Thank
4 you.
5 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. Maybe a
6 little global warming will bring Alaska down
7 to -- down to size.
8 MS. MCDONALD: We saw that, too.
9 CHAIRMAN BASS: Give them a little
10 humility there. Dana Dean.
11 MS. DEAN: Good afternoon. I'm Dana
12 Dean. I represent an informal group that's
13 called the Onion Creek Riders. We are horse
14 owners and trail riding enthusiasts that's
15 primarily in Austin, but we do travel the state
16 with horse and trailer behind us. I also in my
17 real life work to bring individuals, families,
18 and businesses to Texas and primarily
19 Central Texas and Austin. There is nothing
20 more emblematic to these folks, these newcomers
21 and those of us who've lived here all our lives
22 than the sight of a man on horseback, or in our
23 case, women on horseback.
24 But the fact of the matter is the public
25 lands available for horseback riding in Texas
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1 is among the smallest amount in any state in
2 the United States and that's not adjusted for
3 size of the states. It really is a travesty
4 that of the 117 parks that are labeled in your
5 brochure, less than a dozen or those allow
6 equestrian activities, and in looking over
7 those, less than seven of those have more than
8 five miles of equestrian trails.
9 I think it's very important for those of
10 us who enjoy horses and those of us who love
11 Texas to open more of the state parks to
12 equestrian activities, to horseback riding.
13 It's safe, it's ecological, it's beautiful, and
14 it's one of the symbols of our state.
15 Currently we ride in a neighborhood
16 greenbelt and a city park. We are the ones
17 that blazed the trails that are now used by
18 hikers and people walking their dogs and people
19 on bicycles and even the dreaded dirt bikers.
20 We all coexist very peacefully on these
21 trails. We can do that in other parks.
22 There are several parks here that are, in
23 essence, in excess of 5,000 acres that are not
24 available to equestrians and we would -- I
25 don't know. Of course, I'm fairly naive, don't
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1 know what it would take to open these up, but
2 it doesn't take much since we blaze our own
3 trails. All we really need is your permission
4 and we'd really like for to you consider our
5 request. Thanks.
6 (Applause.)
7 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. Jerry
8 Bennick. And Will Kirkpatrick, if you'd be
9 prepared to speak next. Mr. Bennick.
10 Good afternoon.
11 MR. BENNICK: My name is Jerry
12 Bennick. I'm here basically representing
13 myself and I have a written communication from
14 Dr. Van Gelder who was unable to be here
15 because of family problems. Quick -- or just
16 quickly, I would like to see on Rayburn the
17 limit raised so that the -- so that we have a
18 larger -- a larger fish to catch than we do
19 now, what, I think it's 14 inches now raised to
20 16, and I know a slot would be impossible
21 because of the politics, but I would like to
22 see the size limit raised.
23 And also, I'd like to see a little bit
24 more control over some of these tournaments and
25 tournaments being held in weather like we're
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1 having right now, I think, is a very
2 unacceptable thing to do, and I think there
3 needs to be some control with this.
4 Gary's thoughts on this today, he has two
5 thoughts. The first concerns a continuing need
6 for the knowledge-based management of the
7 fisheries resources and second concerns the
8 decision making in incorporating public
9 inputs. Even a cursory review of the past 120
10 years of fresh and saltwater fisheries issues
11 in the U.S. reveals a repeated pattern of
12 failed opportunities to prevent destruction of
13 a resource. In many cases experts knew early
14 on that corrective interventions were needed to
15 protect and sustain the resource but commercial
16 and recreational users effectively blocked the
17 timely implementation of corrective measures.
18 I'm not very similar with salt water resource
19 or with the saltwater resource issued in Texas,
20 but the freshwater side Texas Parks and
21 Wildlife has been quite effective in managing
22 the resource and is often a national leader.
23 On the saltwater side, the recent concerns over
24 shrimp resource may be an example of where the
25 experts know a resource is in trouble. It
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1 remains to be seen how the balance of interest
2 play out on this issue. Clearly, leadership
3 sufficiently free of undue political forces and
4 leadership able to balance decision making
5 using science, knowledge, and greater public
6 interest is needed to continue to manage these
7 resources.
8 I have a continuing -- I have continued
9 concerns about the --
10 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, sir.
11 MR. BENNICK: Andy, I'll give this
12 here for --
13 MR. SANSOM: Thank you very much.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
15 Mr. Bennick. Will Kirkpatrick and L.W.
16 Ramirez, I believe, from Dallas if you'd be
17 prepared to speak next.
18 MR. KIRKPATRICK: Commissioner Bass,
19 Commissioners, I'd like to thank you for having
20 time to take out and listen to us. First, I'd
21 like to congratulate Commissioner Dinkins. She
22 got another award. I don't know how many -- I
23 know the Commissioners know, but I don't know
24 how many of the rest of you know that she's
25 just been elected to the Texas Women's Hall of
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1 Fame and it seems like every time we have a
2 Commissioners' meeting, Commissioner Dinkins,
3 you're getting another award. You deserve them
4 all. Thank you for the help.
5 What I'd like to talk about today is the
6 freshwater fishing regulations and human
7 population trends in Texas. While the
8 regulations I will cite relate to bass, the
9 fundamental concept applies to all freshwater
10 game fisheries.
11 In 1972 out of a state -- we had a
12 statewide limit of 15 bass a day and they only
13 had to be seven inches long. You know, most of
14 us are fishing with lures longer than that
15 now. Only ten of these fish could be over 11
16 inches long, and if you look at some of the old
17 pictures, there was a lot of bass in some of
18 these tournaments that were way over 10, over
19 11 inches long. At that time, we had
20 approximately a 1,600,000 and we had a state
21 population of 11,620,000.
22 In 1975, our statewide limits were raised
23 to ten bass a day and they went up to a whole
24 ten inches long. We had 1,550,000 anglers and
25 we only had a population of 12,568,000 people.
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1 In 1986, we went to a statewide limit of
2 five bass over 14 inches. At this time, we had
3 1,750,000 anglers and a population of
4 16,500,000 people in Texas. We've had no
5 changes for the last 14 years.
6 In July of 1999, we had a state population
7 of 20 million people, and according to
8 Ms. Trecote of the Texas -- Texas State Data
9 Center at College Station who I recently talked
10 to in the year 2025, they're expecting
11 32 million people in the state of Texas. And
12 if the trends continue, that's a whole lot of
13 people fishing, and it looks like we're not
14 going to have much more water in Texas.
15 They're not going to build many more reservoirs
16 and the ones they are building, if we can get
17 them, are going to be awfully small.
18 Anglers and much more efficient today.
19 We've done a lot of continued improvement not
20 only in equipment, but also in our ability to
21 use the equipment and we're going to see a lot
22 more pressure on the fishery. With this in
23 mind, I would suggest that we start looking at
24 decreasing the daily limits and increasing the
25 minimum length limits.
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1 You know, we used to -- When you think
2 about seven-inch bass that we kept three,
3 16-inch bass have way more meat if you want to
4 keep them and they weigh a lot more than those
5 old bass we had. So I would like to see Parks
6 and Wildlife start looking at it before we
7 start getting close to these 52 -- or
8 32 million people that they're talking about.
9 It's just hard to believe the many people on
10 the water today with 21 million what it would
11 be like with 32 million. Thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
13 L.W. Ramirez from Dallas. Ed Banton (sic) from
14 Houston?
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: I'm trying.
16 MR. PARTEN: It's not your fault,
17 sir. It's mine. It's Ed Parten. Mr. Lee
18 Bass --
19 CHAIRMAN BASS: All right. I'll go
20 with that.
21 MR. PARTEN: -- distinguished
22 Commission, Andy, my friend, it's a pleasure to
23 be here. I didn't call or come by to ask for
24 anything. Don't send money. I'm here to
25 compliment what I feel is the greatest Parks
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1 Fish and Wildlife Commission and division in
2 the entire nation, in the world.
3 And for several years it's been an honor
4 and a pleasure for Texas Black Bass Unlimited
5 to work with such a distinguished group of
6 people. I feel that our field biologists, our
7 leaders in the inland fishery, our executive
8 director are head and shoulders above any that
9 exist anywhere. It's been a pleasure for TBBU
10 to work and help build the fishing center in
11 Athens, to raise almost $100,000 for habitat
12 enhancement on our various lakes throughout the
13 state of Texas, to mark the river channel on
14 Lake Livingston, build fishing piers on Lake
15 Nacogdoches, and quick as our friend and great
16 regional biologist, Mr. Mark Webb, gets all the
17 paperwork done, Texas Black Bass will build
18 another fishing pier for the physically
19 challenged, for the elderly and underprivileged
20 youth at Lake Raven, Huntsville State Park.
21 We're excited about this. We've had money in
22 an account to do this for some time, as quick
23 as all the red tape is snipped through, we're
24 going to start construction on a first class
25 fishing pier on one of the most utilized parks
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1 in the park system and state of Texas.
2 And I just wanted to come by once a year
3 to tell you people what an honor it's been for
4 the Board of Directors in Texas Black Bass
5 Unlimited since 1985 to work with one of the
6 greatest groups and organizations that exists,
7 and it's been a real pleasure for me and all of
8 the people and our members to continue, and we
9 look forward to continue working with this
10 organization in many projects to come. Thank
11 every one of you individually, especially you.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you, Ed. We
13 appreciate the partnership. Jack Tatum. If
14 you'd come forward, please. And Jim Adams, if
15 you'd be prepared to speak next.
16 MR. TATUM: Mr. Chairman,
17 Commissioners, Mr. Sansom. I'm Jack Tatum
18 Sabine River Authority of Texas. I provide you
19 with some comments. The Sabine River Authority
20 of Texas has had a long and successful history
21 of working with Parks and Wildlife: The Lake
22 Fork fishery, boat ramps, wildlife management
23 areas, investigation of fish kills. There's a
24 whole long list. I wanted to mention today
25 that I'm going to talk about aquatic vegetation
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1 and just briefly summarize for you what --
2 what's in -- in the letter that's being handed
3 out to you.
4 Aquatic vegetation management, we've been
5 working with the Parks and Wildlife on the
6 rules and on the guidance document. We're
7 still very much concerned that we need funding
8 for aquatic vegetation management in Texas, and
9 also, that we need the liability cap.
10 The Sabine River Authority has three river
11 reservoirs in the Sabine Basin of Texas.
12 Toledo Bend is operated jointly with Sabine
13 River Authority of Louisiana, Lake Tawakoni,
14 and Lake Fork. There's no federal projects in
15 the Sabine Basin. There's 15 reservoirs, two
16 of which are in Texas. So there's a lot of
17 waters to manage. We're having problems with
18 salvinia and water hyacinths. We provided
19 $20,000 to Parks and Wildlife this past year to
20 spray 200 acres of salvinia on Toledo Bend.
21 There was 1400 acres or 1200 acres or so of
22 water hyacinths that went unsprayed.
23 We don't have the staff. We want to work
24 with you. Parks and Wildlife has the
25 expertise, and we'd like to help you seek the
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1 funding that's necessary. There's many other
2 surface waters.
3 The new tourist bureau as you come into
4 Texas in Blue Elbow Swamp, which is a Parks and
5 Wildlife management area is covered with
6 salvinia. It's not the giant, it's the common
7 salvinia, but it's still covering the water
8 surface, so there's a lot of areas that this
9 plant is showing up in. It's being spread
10 and -- and we need Parks and Wildlife's help to
11 try to get this under control, as well as water
12 hyacinths and other nuisance vegetation. And
13 I'll just let my remarks stand. Thank you.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
15 Mr. Tatum. Mr. Adams. And John Wagner, if
16 you'd be prepared to speak next, please.
17 MR. ADAMS: Mr. Chairman,
18 Commissioners, Mr. Sansom, I recall what Bill
19 West and Jack Tatum said. San Jacinto River
20 Authority owns and operates Lake Conroe and we
21 do a monthly helicopter search looking for
22 aquatic vegetation that's bad stuff. In March,
23 there was none. In April, there were 40
24 acres. We've spent $46,000 in cash to fight
25 giant salvinia in Lake Conroe just this year.
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1 We've spent $50,000 fighting water hyacinths
2 mechanically last year. We need some
3 additional sources of -- of revenue. We have
4 an organization on Lake Conroe that the local
5 residents participate in, but during the
6 enabling legislation for this aquatic manage --
7 management plan, there is a mechanism in there
8 where the water development board could have
9 some funding for grants and for studies to
10 combat this stuff, and we would appreciate it
11 if the Parks and Wildlife would request that
12 from the Water Development Board.
13 We need the water development board to
14 become more active. They helped us initially
15 when we -- when we started treating the
16 salvinia, but your manpower is sorely limited,
17 and what our concern is is that there are very
18 few lakes that are controlled by river
19 authorities. There are a lot of lakes that
20 don't have an agency specifically to control
21 them, and when the first flush comes, if this
22 drought ever breaks, we're going to be fighting
23 it again. And there are going to be a lot of
24 reservoirs that don't have some means to be
25 able to combat this aquatic vegetation, and I'm
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1 afraid Parks and Wildlife is going to be left
2 behind the curve.
3 And with that I'll stop. Thank you, sir.
4 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you for
5 coming. John Wagner. And Blake Kellum, if
6 you'd be prepared to speak next.
7 MR. WAGNER: I'm John Wagner. I
8 represent the Lake Conroe Association.
9 Chairman Bass, Commissioners, Mr. Sansom, thank
10 you for the opportunity to be here this
11 afternoon.
12 The Lake Conroe Association wants to thank
13 the San Jacinto River Authority and the Texas
14 Parks and Wildlife for their excellent response
15 and efforts to control giant salvinia on Lake
16 Conroe. On April 5th, 40 acres of giant
17 salvinia was discovered growing in our lake.
18 Thanks to the efforts of the San Jacinto River
19 Authority and Texas Parks and Wildlife, there's
20 less than four acres of giant salvinia growing
21 in Lake Conroe today. Lake Conroe consists of
22 21,000 surface acres. Only 40 acres were
23 contaminated or 0.2 percent of the surface area
24 of our lake. $46,000 were spent to bring this
25 under control where it is today. The fear that
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1 most of us residents on Lake Conroe have, what
2 if that had been 2 percent? That would have
3 meant $460,000 would have needed to be spent
4 just to get where we are today.
5 The Lake Conroe Association asks Texas
6 Parks and Wildlife to request sufficient funds
7 from the Texas Water Development Board in House
8 Bill 3079 to fund quality research and the
9 control of giant salvinia not only on
10 Lake Conroe, but in all surface waters in the
11 state of Texas. Thank you.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
13 Mr. Kellum, did you wish to speak?
14 MR. KELLUM: Actually, sir, I was
15 signed up as an observer, so -- and John just
16 covered what I needed to say, so thank you very
17 much.
18 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
19 Appreciate you coming. Patrick Burchfield.
20 And Joe O'Brien, if you'd be prepared to speak
21 next.
22 MR. BURCHFIELD: Chairman Bass,
23 Commissioners, Mr. Sansom, thank you for the
24 opportunity to be here today. I'm here
25 speaking on my own behalf. I do, however, do
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1 contract work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
2 Service, but I'm, again, speaking for myself.
3 I have in that capacity for the past 19 years
4 headed up the U.S. field group in Mexico at the
5 Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle Recovery Program.
6 In the 1978, Mexico met with elements from
7 Texas Parks and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and
8 Wildlife, the National Park Service, National
9 Marine Fishery Service, and other conservation
10 groups and it was decided that something
11 dramatic had to be done if Kemp's Ridley sea
12 turtle was to be saved from imminent
13 extinction. At that time, the Binational
14 Mexico-U.S. Program was born.
15 The first year of the Binational Program,
16 the production of eggs and hatchlings from the
17 nesting beach essentially doubled because of
18 the increase in effort. However, between 1978
19 and 1985, things were not all that great
20 because the population continued a precipitous
21 decline, and in 1985, we reached the all-time
22 low of 702 nests for an entire nesting season
23 as opposed to the massive nesting aggregations
24 of forty or more thousand turtles in a single
25 day which in Mexico are called arrivaras.
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1 We had reached a point where we clearly
2 had probably less than 600 nesting females left
3 in the entire next population. This turtle
4 nests every other year typically, so the
5 turtles we see this year we won't see for two
6 more years.
7 However, all of the agencies involved
8 hung in there and in some years, I do not
9 exaggerate, the biologists ate beans and cactus
10 and we didn't have enough gasoline to operate
11 the ATVs to do the beach patrols.
12 It's not that bad now, fortunately, but it
13 requires a collaborative effort, the
14 cooperation between state, federal, MGOs, and
15 industry if we're going to be successful in
16 this recovery effort because everyone involved,
17 all the stakeholders, need to be committed to
18 trying to bring back a healthy Gulf of Mexico
19 ecology and the Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle is a
20 big part of that process.
21 This year, 19 -- or Year 2000, I'm
22 standing here, and these are preliminary data,
23 they're not final yet, so far in Mexi -- in
24 Tamaulipas and Veracruz, we have protected
25 6,272 nests and we've released right at 391,578
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1 baby Ridley turtles into the Gulf of Mexico. I
2 would point out that it's only because of a
3 cooperative effort between --
4 MR. SANSOM: Thank you,
5 Mr. Burchfield.
6 MR. BURCHFIELD: -- federal
7 government, state, and industry which this year
8 put in over one third of the resources for the
9 project.
10 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you.
11 Father Joseph O'Brien? Left. Okay. Well, I
12 think I have more sign-up cards left here than
13 I have left in the room, but we'll go through
14 them.
15 Leo Munoz? And George Deshotelt, if you'd
16 be prepared to speak next.
17 MR. MUNOZ: Mr. Chairman, members,
18 thank you. My name is Leo Munoz. I'm the
19 legislative assistant for Representative Jim
20 Solis who represents Cameron County, the
21 Harlingen-Brownsville area, Port Isabel, and I
22 am -- excuse me -- here to read a letter from
23 representative Solis as well as Representative
24 Oliveira.
25 Dear Mr. Osburn and members of the
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1 Commission, as State Representatives of the
2 thousands of South Texas shrimpers who earn
3 their living -- excuse me -- along the Texas
4 coast, we felt compelled to make a statement
5 against changing the rules regulating the
6 shrimping industry along our coast and in our
7 bays.
8 Proposals such as decreasing the areas
9 shrimpers are allowed to shrimp in our bay and
10 extending the winter gulf closure by 30 days
11 will be detrimental to our shrimpers and have
12 dire consequences for our local economies.
13 We expressly feel that while Parks and
14 Wildlife has made good faith efforts to
15 communicate and bring many from the shrimping
16 industry to the table, to penalize our
17 shrimpers without sufficient data could have
18 perilous consequences for many shrimpers.
19 We respectfully ask that Texas Parks and
20 Wildlife refrain from making a decision on this
21 matter until more scientific data can be
22 reviewed and considered. We believe this will
23 enable Parks and Wildlife -- excuse me -- to
24 make a better decision as to how to address the
25 sustaining and supporting shrimp as a species
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1 and shrimping as an industry.
2 Sincerely, Jim Solis and -- excuse me --
3 Representative Rene Oliveira. Thank you.
4 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. I believe
5 we all received a copy of that letter earlier
6 today.
7 MR. MUNOZ: Okay. Thank you.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. George
9 Deshotelt. And Robert McFarlane, if you'd be
10 prepared to speak next.
11 MR. DESHOTELT: Thank you,
12 Chairman Bass. There's not many people that
13 pronounce my name correctly, but -- especially
14 if you're not from Louisiana, so --
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: I got lucky.
16 MR. DESHOTELT: My name is
17 George Deshotelt. I'm county commissioner out
18 of Matagorda County. We have roughly 68 miles
19 of coastline. We have East Matagorda Bay,
20 West Matagorda Bay, and I represent the towns
21 of Matagorda and Sargent in my precinct.
22 I want to thank Director Sansom and his
23 staff for taking so much input on our shrimp
24 regulations; however, in our area, we would
25 like to tweak them a little bit if we could.
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1 And the first item we'd like to address is the
2 seabob net size. Right now it's proposed at 34
3 feet. Our shrimpers in our area use that as a
4 wintertime resource to earn some money for
5 during the wintertime. To make it economically
6 feasible, they need to drag about a 42- or
7 45-foot net with the fuel prices as it is
8 today. If they're not seabobbing in the
9 wintertime, they're trot lining or oystering,
10 and that's a year-around resource for us,
11 and -- as far as our recreational areas.
12 And the other item I'd like to address is
13 the proposed changes on the nursery area in the
14 eastern end of West Matagorda Bay. I'd like to
15 try to move it further to the west. Where it's
16 proposed right now is in some deep water which
17 is -- which is an area that is shrimped quite a
18 bit. It is not a nursery area. I know the map
19 show it as a nursery area. I think the local
20 biologists will confirm that. I've talked to
21 Dr. McKinney about it and they're reviewing
22 that, but this is something that as far as our
23 economic impact has a direct economic impact to
24 our shrimpers in that area. Because as we
25 speak right now, that's where they're
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1 shrimping. And like I said, it's not a nursery
2 area.
3 And with that, I want to -- if that blond
4 with the Onion Creek Riding Club is still here,
5 we allow horseback riding on Matagorda and
6 assorted beaches. I wanted her to know that,
7 so thank you very much.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: I've got her address
9 here somewhere. Robert McFarlane, are you
10 here?
11 MR. MCFARLANE: Yes.
12 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good. Thank you.
13 And Les Hodgson, if you'd be prepared to speak
14 next.
15 MR. MCFARLANE: Good afternoon,
16 ladies and gentlemen. My name is Robert
17 McFarlane. I'm a consultant hired by the
18 Calhoun County Texas Shrimpers. I am certified
19 as a fishery scientist by the American Fishery
20 Society, a qualification that is lacking among
21 your staff.
22 I bring you good news today. I am wearing
23 the battle tartan of the clan McFarlane today
24 because I am here to fight for what is right.
25 The proposed regulatory changes are based
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1 upon an utterly false premise, and therefore,
2 are clearly wrong. I have three minutes to
3 convince you not to make a major mistake. Your
4 staff are scampering around like Chicken Little
5 claiming that the sky is falling and shrimp
6 fisheries are about to collapse. Balderdash.
7 Shrimpers are enjoying the best shrimp harvest
8 in years, but your staff have closed in their
9 minds to this inconvenient fact.
10 If I can convince you of only one thing
11 this afternoon it must be the fact that your
12 staff are deceiving you and perhaps
13 themselves. You pay for a very expensive
14 coastal fisheries monitoring program, but your
15 staff have ignored all of its data.
16 Please examine the table I have provided.
17 Only two of the 20 cells with data in that
18 table indicate there is a problem in any of the
19 three shrimp fisheries that we have. The bag
20 seining data show that there are more small
21 juvenile brown and pink shrimps in our bays
22 than ever, but those shrimp do not show up in
23 the trawl data. Were they eaten by the 330
24 million red fish that you have stocked in the
25 bays?
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1 Instead of investigating the cause of this
2 anomaly, your staff have blamed the victim, the
3 commercial shrimpers. Because it is difficult
4 to manage environmental influences, your staff
5 have chosen instead to reduce the efficiency of
6 commercial shrimpers.
7 Your decision should be based on
8 verifiable science. Nothing in your briefing
9 book qualifies as science. It is all smoke and
10 mirrors. Neither you nor anyone else can
11 decipher those squiggly lines and arrows.
12 Science operates in the open where the data and
13 statistics are available to all who are
14 interested, not hidden from view in a folder
15 labeled, Trust Me.
16 Science must be replicable. This is not.
17 Science must consider all of the available
18 information, not pick and choose those pieces
19 that you happen to like. Species must be
20 analyzed independently, not lumped together
21 where one bad apple spoils the lot. Until you
22 are certain that scientific consensus has been
23 achieved, and it has not at this moment --
24 MR. SANSOM: Thank you,
25 Dr. McFarlane, your time is up.
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1 MR. MCFARLANE: Okay.
2 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you, sir. I
3 didn't know to wear my clan Buchanan tartan
4 today, which I'm a descendant of.
5 Les Hodgson. And Pat Suter or Surfer, if
6 you'd be prepared to speak next.
7 MR. HODGSON: Mr. Chairman, members
8 of the Commission, members of the Parks and
9 Wildlife staff, good afternoon. My name is
10 Les Hodgson. I am in the commercial seafood
11 industry out of Brownsville, Texas. I'm the
12 past president and chairman of the board of the
13 National Fisheries Institute, the largest
14 seafood trade organization in the United
15 States, and I'm here with great concern over
16 your shrimp rule.
17 As you just heard from Dr. McFarlane there
18 are still questions on the science. I attended
19 three of the public hearings that Parks and
20 Wildlife had -- held along the Texas coast. At
21 those three hearings, the biggest support for
22 the -- the shrimp rule came from the
23 environmental community that is interested in
24 protecting the Kemp's Ridley sea turtle.
25 A number of years ago, the seafood
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1 industry, the National Fisheries Institute,
2 Texas Shrimp Association, and private companies
3 decided rather than to put their money into
4 litigation and ads and -- and fights, that we
5 were better off to support the Binational
6 Kemp's Ridley Restoration Project in Mexico.
7 We have done that. We've given them
8 money, we've given them support, we've given
9 our time. We're very, very proud to tell you
10 that the turtle is coming back. It's still an
11 endangered species. We can't quit now. But
12 it's coming back, and the seafood industry has
13 been very, very responsible at taking care of
14 its -- its duties and the health of the Gulf of
15 Mexico.
16 If Texas Parks and Wildlife staff sees
17 problems with the -- the shrimp situation, we'd
18 like to be given the opportunity to be just as
19 responsible in that regard. We have not
20 been -- We've not been given the opportunity to
21 sit at the table as a partner. We're told
22 to -- to come and assist and trust and what
23 have you. That's impossible to do unless we're
24 treated properly, and we have been treated
25 improperly all the way along through this
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1 process.
2 The seafood industry of this country is
3 responsible. We're doing our part. Please
4 give us the opportunity to do it justly. Thank
5 you.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: Pat Surfer. And Mira
7 Williams, if you'd be prepared to speak next.
8 MS. SUTER: The name is Pat Suter.
9 CHAIRMAN BASS: Suter. I'm sorry.
10 MS. SUTER: I'm sorry. I don't write
11 better than that. I'm from Corpus Christi,
12 Texas.
13 CHAIRMAN BASS: I was giving you the
14 benefit of being a surfer.
15 MS. SUTER: Well, why not. I'm from
16 Corpus Christi, Texas, and will be speaking
17 tomorrow again on the shrimping issue. I guess
18 we're going to be speaking tomorrow. I don't
19 know.
20 I heard all that went on this morning, and
21 I also listened to one lady who'd been to
22 Alaska and she says Alaska's bigger than Texas,
23 well, that's true, but Texas is number one in
24 what? Pollution. Number one in pollution.
25 And we're number 49th in spending on the
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1 environment.
2 And so I would like to offer Parks and
3 Wildlife any help that we can give you from the
4 coastal zone to help get more money for Parks
5 and Wildlife, the land acquisition or
6 whatever.
7 But right now I was just going to say that
8 in contrast to the two people who spoke ahead
9 of me, I do support the Parks and Wildlife
10 staff in their data. I support NMFS in their
11 data. I think that data is scientifically
12 correct. I happen to be a scientist myself,
13 and I believe that we should go for the
14 restrictions or new regulations as they have
15 been proposed prior to the modifications last
16 Friday. I'm very much for the five-mile
17 closure zone from May Fish Pass to the Mexican
18 border. Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. Mira
20 Williams, and if you think -- Ms. Suter if you
21 think I got your bad, I'd like you to hear what
22 I --
23 MS. WILLIAMS: Well, that's just
24 okay. My name's Mina Williams --
25 CHAIRMAN BASS: Mina.
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1 MS. WILLIAMS: -- and I have written
2 to you numerous times --
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: Okay.
4 MS. WILLIAMS: -- but that's not
5 verbal.
6 Chairman Bass, Commissioners, Andy Sansom,
7 thank you. I have had to revise my whole
8 speech in the last 15 minutes, so I'm kind of
9 punchy. Here it goes.
10 I'm here from Corpus Christi because I'm
11 vitally interested in your final judgments
12 regarding the shrimping regulations. Thank you
13 for bring Drs. Gracia, Zimmerman, and Nance to
14 help us and to reassure us that the science is,
15 indeed, accurate and to warn us of future
16 trouble in the shrimping industry. I know that
17 you're struggling with complexities because
18 it's a complex issue; however, I encourage you
19 to consider very seriously adopting your
20 scientists' original recommendations.
21 This summer I have attended TPWD hearings
22 and served as a member of the shrimp working
23 group. I have watched as your biologists have
24 deleted or liberalized over 75 percent of their
25 original proposals. Whatever the future of the
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1 Texas shrimp industry is, I am primarily
2 concerned today with the present impact of that
3 industry on endangered species in the Gulf and
4 I'm proud to say it.
5 The stranding data concerning the
6 endangered Kemp's Ridley turtles make clear the
7 fact that shrimp trawls are, indeed, the chief
8 cause of sea turtle stranding. I don't have
9 time to tell you why, but I will tomorrow if
10 you want to know. A partial closure, though
11 better than none, will leave endangered animals
12 exposed to intense concentration of shrimp
13 boats in a newly opened area. Ironically,
14 opening in mid-July the area which has been
15 closed for the previous 7 1/2 months may well
16 result in a killing field for all living
17 creatures in shrimpers' paths. A southern
18 closure year around out to at least five
19 nautical miles would help the Kemp's Ridleys
20 whose secondary nesting site is our own Padre
21 Island -- we need to pay attention to that's
22 Texas -- while their primary nesting site is in
23 Mexico obviously. We know that.
24 Well, since less than 1 1/2 percent of the
25 dollar value of shrimp catch comes from the
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1 waters which would comprise the southern
2 closure, I appeal to you to consider it in its
3 original form. If you cannot see your way to
4 do that, at the very at least, expend the
5 summer opening to sometime in August and start
6 work immediately on a limited entry program to
7 limit the number of shrimp boats allowed to
8 fish in these waters during the open period.
9 As you're keenly aware, it is even yet
10 within your power to adopt your scientists'
11 original proposals. If you would do so, you
12 would reassure your many constituents that you
13 value their comments. Thank you.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you, ma'am.
15 As long as I'm butchering names, I'm going
16 to go ahead and try this one. Reverend Joseph
17 Phamdustrinh?
18 Get that?
19 Yes, Ms. Vu.
20 MS. VU: He's not here now and he
21 asked me if I can have your permission to give
22 his speech.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: Yes, I would allow
24 you to do that.
25 MS. VU: Oh, thank you. Thank you,
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1 Mr. Chairman and --
2 CHAIRMAN BASS: I might allow you
3 later to help me with some other names that I
4 can see they're from Palacios --
5 MS. VU: Yes, sir.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: -- but I'm not sure I
7 can -- I can understand the writing.
8 MS. VU: His title is Experiences
9 Sharing. I am Joseph Phamdustrinh, a
10 Vietnamese priest. For the last 25 years I
11 have been living among the Vietnamese fishermen
12 in Palacios, Texas. During that time I have
13 gather -- gathered some personal experience
14 concerning the harvesting of shrimp and crab
15 from the Gulf of Mexico, which I wish to share
16 with you today.
17 First, I want to tell you, that the
18 Vietnamese fishermen are ready to abide
19 dutifully to the regulations set up by the
20 Parks and Wildlife Agency, and ask latecomers
21 they are grateful to local fishermen who are
22 willing to share with them the bounty from the
23 sea.
24 That bounty has gone up and down.
25 Pollution mostly from factories along waterways
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1 may have disastrous consequences. TED and crab
2 traps specification may hinder. But in the
3 long run, crops vary mostly with current
4 temperatures, rain, wind and so on. In other
5 terms, tantamount is the role of nature.
6 Weather can be fickle. El Nino can
7 influence profoundly atmospheric conditions.
8 So do hurricanes and other forms of air
9 currents. For example, if during the shrimping
10 season the wind blows mostly from the
11 southeast, the harvest may be plentiful; on the
12 contrary, if the southwest wind prevails, the
13 harvest may be meager. Rain that dilutes the
14 salinity of the sea and helps to keep the
15 waters in motion is decidedly a favorable
16 factor for shrimp growing in size. But who
17 can -- who on Earth can command weather?
18 So if the harvest from the sea is poor
19 this year, let us be patient. It may be
20 plentiful the next year. Don't hold the poor
21 fishermen who operate modest boats responsible
22 overfishing. Don't harass these people who
23 labor hardest among workers, who contribute a
24 sizable share to the Texas economy, and are
25 most liable to accidents often fatal. Perhaps
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1 fishing with better return may bring in more
2 sportsmen and tourists, but local people who
3 are supported by local banks, business-related,
4 and sell their products to local consumers may
5 have priority.
6 If one insists on putting a finger on the
7 culprit of overfishing, I dare say that the
8 mammoth enterprises who deplete natural
9 resources in massive proportions on the high
10 sea is the villain. If their greed is
11 effectively curbed, the Gulf of Mexico is in
12 its generosity can feed many fishermen for
13 centuries to come. Thank you.
14 And I also due to the time and your
15 valuable time, these 88 signatures here that
16 signed a petition, I'd like to go ahead and
17 read the petition that they signed.
18 We people of the Texas Shrimp Industry
19 hereby request that the Commission does not
20 adopt any of the proposed regulations that
21 appear in the Texas Register. We ask you to
22 propose these proposed regulations until
23 science -- sound science can be done to prove
24 TPW's 18-month study, as well as the need for
25 further regulations. We feel this study is
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1 unjust and based on unsound science.
2 Thank you.
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you, Ms. Vu.
4 If you'd give that to Ms. Estrada, we'd
5 appreciate it. Pam Baker. And Richard
6 Morrison, if you'd prepared to speak next.
7 MS. BAKER: Thank you, Commissioner,
8 Chairman, and other Commissioners. My name is
9 Pam Baker. I represent Environmental Defense.
10 I'm a fisheries biologist. We have about
11 12,000 members here in Texas. We work to find
12 economic solutions to environmental problems.
13 We appreciate the Department and the
14 Commission's effort to reduce the shrimp in --
15 shrimp industries' overfishing and bycatch
16 damage.
17 Although implementing precautionary
18 measures is controversial, the Department's
19 mandate under the shrimp fishery management
20 plan is to prevent overfishing while achieving
21 the optimum yield of shrimp stocks. My three
22 comments are aimed to the final staff
23 recommendations presented in Mr. Sansom's
24 August 25th letter.
25 One, new rules may reduce overfishing and
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1 bycatch overfishing. Overfishing of small
2 shrimp may be reduced with -- with new nursery
3 areas designations and by shortening the fall
4 bay shrimping season. Shrimp spawning success
5 may be improved by establishing closed
6 shrimping areas south of Corpus Christi and by
7 lengthening the winter Gulf closure. And
8 bycatch reduction devices together with area
9 and seasonal closures will reduce unwanted
10 shrimpers' unwanted catches of flounder
11 croakers and crabs. We are in favor or those
12 regulations.
13 Two proposed rules will have unintended
14 consequences. The proposal to restrict vessels
15 to two trawls in 130 feet of head rope is
16 near-shore waters is designed to reduce
17 shrimping effort. However, while certain
18 near-shore vessels will be displaced, bay and
19 gulf boats will quickly replace them. The
20 likely result will be steady or increasing
21 effort and little or no benefit to shrimper
22 bycatch.
23 The proposal to establish a closed
24 shrimping area south of Corpus Christi should
25 help reduce bycatch of sea turtles in the
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1 spring and summer months. However, we are
2 concerned that intense shrimping effort exerted
3 when the season opens will result -- result in
4 high strandings and increased chances for
5 federal intervention under the Endangered
6 Species Act. We strongly recommend that the
7 closed shrimping area be extended year around
8 to prevent a spike in sea turtle strandings.
9 Lastly, important problems still need to
10 be addressed. New rules and an expanded
11 license buyback problem can result in benefits,
12 but only temporarily because the rules do not
13 alter the basic incentive to shrimp as
14 intensively as possible before someone else
15 catches the available shrimp. To combat this
16 incentive, we urge alternative form of
17 management to allocate the harvest through
18 individual transferrable quotas.
19 We believe Texas Parks and Wildlife should
20 take the lead toward building a healthy shrimp
21 fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.
22 Thank you for considering our comments.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
24 Ms. Baker. Richard Morrison. And Teri Shore.
25 Actually, I believe you spoke earlier,
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1 Mr. Shore. No? I'm sorry if I'm confusing.
2 MR. MORRISON: Mr. Chairman --
3 CHAIRMAN BASS: Be prepared to speak
4 next. And Richard Morrison.
5 MR. MORRISON: Thank you,
6 Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Mr. Executive
7 Director. My name is Richard Morrison and I'm
8 here speaking on behalf of the Calhoun County
9 Shrimpers. My comments today are really based
10 upon the things that we've heard today from
11 kind of the independent scientists that were
12 invited to speak, specifically Dr. Gracia,
13 Dr. Nance, and Dr. Zimmerman. I want to first
14 speak about what Dr. Gracia said about the near
15 collapse of the shrimp fishery in Mexico and --
16 and really analyze what he said there, why did
17 it happen and why is Texas different and why --
18 why it's not going to happen in Texas.
19 First of all, the artisanal effort. The
20 bay shrimpers there were totally unregulated.
21 Texas is so different. The bay shrimpers in
22 Texas are already regulated by the regulations
23 that are currently in place. Dr. Gracia
24 explained that the shrimp were fully exploited
25 since 1970. Texas shrimp have not been fully
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1 exploited since the early 1960s when the first
2 regulations were passed to begin to regulate
3 the shrimpers. And the last thing he said, or
4 another thing he said was that artisanal
5 fishing has full access. Well, once again,
6 Texas has limited access that we passed in 1995
7 that limits access to the bay shrimping
8 industry.
9 The second thing I want to talk about is
10 some things that Dr. Nance and Dr. Zimmerman
11 said. If you listen to their comments, what
12 they suggest to the Parks and Wildlife and to
13 you commissioners is that your current
14 regulations that you-all have been proposing,
15 and specifically that started in the early '90s
16 are a success. The CPU since the early '90s
17 has begun to rise. An effort has come down
18 some.
19 Now -- Now, think about that. In the
20 early '90s, the CPU started to rise. The early
21 '90s is when the current regulations that the
22 shrimpers have to deal with and that they do
23 deal with, that's when those went into effect.
24 Effort has come down some. We've had a
25 15 percent success in the buyback. That has
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1 reduced effort. More buyback will reduce
2 effort further.
3 Give the regulations that are currently
4 present, give that a chance to work. They're
5 working already. We just heard Dr. Nance and
6 Dr. Zimmerman say that CPU is rising and effort
7 is down and that's what we're trying to get to
8 here. We're trying to get CPU to come up,
9 effort to go down. It's already happening.
10 The last thing I want to address is the
11 cost to the bay. Vice Chairman Dinkins brought
12 that up. The cost to the bay shrimpers. If
13 you'll read Dr. Nance's article about the
14 feasible of improving the economic return of
15 the Gulf of Mexico brown shrimp industry,
16 you'll see what Dr. Nance says in there, which
17 is if you postpone catching the shrimp in the
18 bay which allows those shrimp to grow and
19 get -- and escape to the Gulf, that's going to
20 allow the larger boats in the Gulf to catch
21 larger shrimp. That's going to be a big
22 economic benefit to the people in the Gulf and
23 it's going to be a huge economic detriment to
24 the bay shrimpers. It's in that peer-reviewed
25 article that Dr. Nance authored.
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1 MR. SANSOM: Thank you,
2 Mr. Morrison, your time is up.
3 MR. MORRISON: Thank you.
4 COMMISSIONER AVILA: Mr. Martin
5 (sic)? Mr. Martin?
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: Morrison.
7 COMMISSIONER AVILA: I have a
8 question. Do you have -- Do you have a number
9 for the economic impact to the bay shrimper on
10 that?
11 MR. MORRISON: I was going to get my
12 office to -- to fax me a copy of that article
13 so I could quote the numbers to you,
14 Commissioner, but it was -- I would -- I would
15 hate -- hate to quote and it be the wrong
16 number, sir --
17 COMMISSIONER AVILA: Okay.
18 MR. MORRISON: -- but I can sure send
19 you a copy of that article.
20 COMMISSIONER AVILA: Okay. Thank
21 you.
22 MR. MORRISSON: Thank you.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: Teri Shore. And
24 Janie Blevins, if you'd be prepared to speak
25 next.
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1 MS. SHORE: Good afternoon. My name
2 is Teri shore. I'm with the Sea Turtle
3 Restoration Project. We'll an international
4 conservation and advocacy group for sea turtles
5 and marine biodiversity in the United States
6 and around the world.
7 Good afternoon, Chairman Bass,
8 Commissioners, and Director Sansom. Appreciate
9 the time and effort that has gone into the
10 review of the shrimp regulations, and in
11 particular, I urge the Commission to vote
12 tomorrow to support the original proposals that
13 were made by Texas Parks and Wildlife
14 Department, in particular, the no shrimping
15 zone along the South Texas coast out to five
16 nautical miles. You have the science that
17 they've -- backs up these proposals. There's
18 little doubt about that. You have the public
19 support and Texas can also prove to be a leader
20 in protecting the biodiversity of their state
21 by adopting these measures tomorrow and not
22 waiting. In particular I would like to thank
23 Hal Osburn for his bold vision in these matters
24 and putting these issues on the table.
25 I would also like to show the Commission
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1 an ad that we did, in fact, publish. For the
2 past two years, we have been asking
3 Governor Bush to intervene on behalf of the
4 endangered sea turtles and to create a marine
5 reserve, and we believe that these efforts have
6 resulted in the Department's proposal for a
7 no-shrimping zone. And this ad says, Will
8 Governor Bush save the sea turtles dying on
9 Texas beaches? And I'd just like to read a
10 little bit from this ad. It says, more
11 critically endangered adult Kemp's Ridley sea
12 turtles are killed on the Texas Coast than
13 anywhere else on Earth mainly because 2,000
14 shrimp boats are dragging their nets just off
15 Gulf coast beaches.
16 After careful study, the Texas Parks and
17 Wildlife Department has proposing -- has
18 proposed closing South Texas to shrimping near
19 shore.
20 And that's very important. And we hope
21 that if you do adopt these measures that we
22 will be able to announce this good news to the
23 press and to give Governor Bush his due,
24 because I do believe he's been involved in this
25 process as we go along.
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1 I also would like to invite you to stop by
2 the state capitol. We have on display more
3 than 100 pieces of artwork from children around
4 Texas and the United States who would really
5 like to see you do the right thing for the
6 Kemp's Ridley sea turtle and protect their
7 nesting area along the South Texas coast. And
8 I would like to distribute a press release and
9 information about the art contest for your
10 review. Thank you very much.
11 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
12 Ms. Shore. Janie Blevins, I see that you're
13 marked as wishing to observe only, but Wesley
14 Blevins would like to speak. So if that's
15 still the case, would Wesley please come
16 forward. And Pete Aparicio, please be prepared
17 to speak next.
18 MR. BLEVINS: Mr. Commissioner and
19 Chairman, my name is Wesley Blevins and I
20 represent the Calhoun County Texas Shrimpers.
21 In our area, which is San Antonio Bay,
22 Matagorda Bay, and Aransas Bay System, we have
23 probably the largest amount of closed waters in
24 the state in the bays. We already have our
25 areas in Heinzer's Bay, Mission Bay, Shoal
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1 Waters St. Charles, Copano, Powderhorn Lake,
2 Turtle Bay, Chocolate Bay, Keller's, Cox's,
3 Barroom, Pat's Bay, Pringle Lake, Twin Lakes,
4 Tyler Lake, Cedar Lake, Panther Point Lake,
5 Sundown, McMullen, Large Boggy, and Carancahua
6 Bay, 30 miles of Victoria Barge Canal, and all
7 the waters of Lavaca Bay north of Highway 35
8 and the freshwater inflow in our bays is real
9 important, and we need to get some of that
10 changed. Parks and Wildlife can help us.
11 And I'll go on. Areas closed by Texas
12 motr and Wildlife are all imaginary boundaries,
13 and in San Antonio Bay, the line would be five
14 miles long. How would this be enforced?
15 Industry knows problems with nonenforcement
16 laws that pertain to the shrimp limited entry
17 program. If enforced, shrimp production would
18 go down, and the problem is industry knows what
19 if problem is. TPWD knows what the problem is
20 for the last four years. All the paper-sliding
21 and everything else that's gone on on the
22 boats. Illegal upgrades and get down to the
23 bycatch reduction devices are nothing but
24 porpoise-feeding devices is all they are. And
25 why punish one side of the industry and let the
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1 other side of the industry target to buy a
2 catch, which is the Atlantic croaker?
3 And see I still got some time left. And
4 also, we feel that that $300 increase on our
5 license is totally unfair. Gulf shrimpers is
6 only going to have one increase, which is $100
7 on Gulf licenses, but the bay shrimpers, they
8 buy all three license: They bait, bay, and
9 Gulf, and we already spend over about
10 1300-and-something dollars a year on licenses,
11 and we feel like that you-all should look at a
12 lot of that.
13 And we're totally against all of these
14 proposals. And we had a talk with some of the
15 TSA members outside and there was a remark
16 made earlier that TSA supports all of the
17 regulations that's against the bay. That's not
18 so.
19 And anyhow, we would appreciate it if
20 you-all would really look into all of this
21 stuff. And that's all about I got right now.
22 Thank you.
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you
24 Mr. Blevins. Pete Aparicio. And Thomas
25 Lambright if you'd be prepared to speak next.
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1 MR. APARICIO: Thank you,
2 Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I
3 want to thank you for allowing me to address
4 the Commission. My name is Pete Aparicio. I
5 live I Victoria, Texas, and for 28 years I've
6 been involved in the commercial shrimp business
7 operating in the Gulf waters only. I'm also
8 chairman of the Shrimp Management Committee of
9 the Gulf of Mexico Fishery and Management
10 Council. Members of that committee include all
11 but one of the five state's fishery directors
12 and including our friend, Hal Osburn, from our
13 own state. It also includes the -- the
14 executive director of the -- or the director of
15 the south -- southeast region of the National
16 Marine Fishery Service.
17 I will repeat once again that the health
18 of the shrimp stocks is excellent throughout
19 the Gulf and in Texas contrary to the false
20 premise upon which the proposed regulations are
21 based.
22 I want to direct my remarks at an area
23 that has not been visited, at least to the
24 extent that it should have, and that is the
25 economic impact on these changes, that these
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1 changes will have on our coastal community.
2 I remind -- I want to direct -- I begin by
3 reminding all that the Texas Parks and Wildlife
4 Department was created, empowered, and is
5 funded by the taxpayers of the state of Texas
6 and not by any of the proponents and/or
7 supporters of any of the proposals; not by the
8 Sierra Club, not by the Gulf Restoration
9 Network, not by HEART, not by Earth Island
10 Institute, nor by any other environmental
11 organization and not by the CCA. It then
12 follows in my opinion that the management of
13 the -- of the fishery resources should be for
14 the benefit of these taxpayers and not the
15 organizations based in San Francisco and
16 elsewhere that contribute zero, but want to
17 be -- benefit from our coastal areas and from
18 public money to establish their pet projects.
19 These regulations will impact only the
20 commercial shrimp fishing industry. If
21 shrimp -- shrimping areas are closed or reduced
22 it will negatively affect the industry's
23 ability to provide the tax dollars needed to
24 sustain the communities in which they live.
25 The commercial shrimp boats are, with very
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1 exceptions, the only vessels in Texas which pay
2 property taxes. This can be as high as $10,000
3 per vessel per year. These taxes are paid the
4 city, county, navigation districts and school
5 and hospital districts. As I speak, the only
6 hospital west of the Colorado River in
7 Matagorda County in Palacios is about to
8 close. Probably tomorrow will be the end of
9 it. And I wonder if there's anything in the
10 proposals that might help these taxpayers in
11 that community. Do the proponents of these
12 changes even care? The city of Palacios
13 receives of 25 percent of its total tax
14 revenues from the ship boat and port
15 operations. Without this revenue, the future
16 looks bleak for this and other fishing
17 communities. It is also noteworthy --
18 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, Mr. Aparicio.
19 MR. APARICIO: I'm sorry?
20 MR. SANSOM: Thank you very much.
21 MR. APARICIO: Okay.
22 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you,
23 Mr. Aparicio.
24 MR. APARICIO: I'd like to give you
25 this.
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1 CHAIRMAN BASS: Yes. Please do.
2 Thomas Lambright. And James Davenport, if
3 you'd be prepared to speak next.
4 MR. LAMBRIGHT: Commission, I'm
5 Thomas Lambright. I'm a bay and gulf shrimper
6 from Port O'Connor and I'm here representing
7 the -- representing the shrimpers from Calhoun
8 County, and I was a little bit upset wherever
9 we -- we found out that we wouldn't get to
10 speak before the Regulations Committee this
11 morning. Calhoun County had no one
12 representing us at that commission meeting this
13 morning, we're part of the system whether
14 you-all realize it or not, and not -- I was a
15 little upset and so was some of my people from
16 down there.
17 My main point that I want to make is we're
18 against all these regulations, which I think
19 you already know that, Mr. Osburn and
20 Mr. Sansom and them do. And my main point that
21 I want to make is on these bycatch reduction
22 devices. You've got a deletion in there for
23 bait boats, that they don't have to pull the
24 bycatch reduction device.
25 And under federal law, they don't have to
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1 pull a turtle shooter providing they don't have
2 over 32 pounds of shrimp, dead shrimp on the
3 boat. As long as they kind of keep everything
4 alive, in a live condition in live bait boxes.
5 They don't have to pull a turtle shooter,
6 and now the state is going to give them the
7 opportunity not to pull a bycatch reduction
8 device. Now, what's the difference bycatch
9 reductions -- a bycatch if I catch it and
10 bycatch if they catch it?
11 You're going to -- You're going to let the
12 bait shrimpers not pull a bycatch reduction
13 device so that they can target the Atlantic
14 croaker to sell to the tourists, but you're
15 going to make me as a commercial shrimper pull
16 one so that I can release this Atlantic
17 croakers and the bycatch, you know, so that
18 they can target it.
19 I mean, that makes a -- I think
20 Mr. Collins with the TSA said this at the --
21 our April meeting and it makes a lot of sense.
22 You know, we got turn these fish loose so the
23 other people can catch them and sell them to
24 the tourists. Now, where's the justification
25 in that? And it makes no sense to me at all.
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1 You know, if I got to call a bycatch
2 reduction device and release a bycatch -- And I
3 don't want the bycatch. That creates my -- my
4 labor. It creates more work on my boat. It
5 creates more strain on my equipment and all
6 this kind of stuff.
7 I have a bycatch reduction device and I
8 can put it in in five minutes. You know, if I
9 get in fish where they're so bad that I can't
10 handle them, I'll put the bycatch reduction
11 device in. And they work. Yeah, I lose
12 shrimp, but the thing is don't be telling me
13 that I got to pull a bycatch reduction device
14 and the bait shrimper doesn't have to pull
15 one. I'm going to release these croakers and
16 bait fish so that he can go target them.
17 You know, where's the -- where's the
18 quality, or, you know, the justification for
19 this law? There is none. You know, if we've
20 got to all reduce bycatch and -- and try to
21 conserve this stuff, we need to all pull them,
22 you know, and not just -- Don't -- Don't pick
23 on one sanction -- faction of the industry.
24 You know, let's -- let's do it equally for
25 everybody.
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1 And the other thing is, like Mr. Blevins
2 said, we have the largest amount of sanctuaries
3 in Calhoun County, in Matagorda County, and
4 neighboring Aransas County. And whenever this
5 was put in, I can't remember normal the year
6 that it was put in, I was instrumental in
7 getting this done. I was instrumental in
8 getting Powderhorn Lake, Lavaca Bay,
9 Carancahua, Keller's Bay, Cox Bay, Chocolate
10 Bay, and all of them closed --
11 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, sir.
12 MR. LAMBRIGHT: -- because I felt
13 like -- Thank you.
14 CHAIRMAN BASS: James Davenport. And
15 Sinclair Oubre, if you'd be prepared to speak
16 next.
17 MR. DAVENPORT: Thank you,
18 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and gentlemen of the
19 Commission, Mr. Sansom, I'm James Davenport and
20 I come here representing the Calhoun County
21 Texas Shrimpers. Commissioners, Chairman, I
22 worry about this bycatch. We listen to motr
23 and Wildlife. We're catching they say four
24 pounds of bycatch to one pound of shrimp.
25 Well, generally, we as an industry, we are
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1 concerned. You-all told us years ago we need
2 to be worried about bycatch. Well, we got
3 worried about it. We've been working on it.
4 We have an ongoing of John O'Connor from
5 Texas A&M. It's been going on for -- since
6 1997, '98. He comes up -- to take it, short he
7 comes with the spring and fall season with the
8 total of -- of 1.5 bycatch. The total of it
9 is .98 bycatch to one pound of shrimp and .47
10 of other inverts. So there is a difference.
11 One -- one point in here I'm trying to
12 make you is the study that motr and Wildlife
13 done, that's not so all the time. Things
14 change. Things change. It's not -- It's not
15 every day that we catch four pounds. This is
16 two-year study here, and it's ongoing now still
17 today. We plan on keeping it going. We praise
18 John O'Connor for his time and Texas A&M.
19 Okay. I would like to say that we are --
20 you already heard -- we are against every --
21 everything on this proposal.
22 I'd like to say something about the -- the
23 license increase. I was up there at the
24 meetings in Lake Jackson and I did bring this
25 up. Why -- Why -- Why make us, as Mr. Blevins
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1 said, you know, we're paying -- we're paying
2 already 1300-something dollars and you're going
3 to add $100 in the next five years. That's
4 quite a bit of difference, you know. We got a
5 burden now in the bay we're so restricted.
6 But the federal government has money back
7 there for -- for buyback programs and in
8 New England, they gave $130 million. And in
9 Washington state, they gave $12.8 million. In
10 Alaska -- I'm sorry. Yeah, it's Alaska
11 $130 million and $24 million in New England.
12 So there -- There is -- The government supports
13 buyback program. They go as far as say the
14 buyback program does not work unless it
15 prohibits boat -- prohibits boats from entering
16 the -- the fishery. Well, that's what our
17 buyback program does. It is working, ladies
18 and gentlemen. It is working.
19 I feel like we're doing our share as the
20 industry. I really believe we do. I would
21 like -- I would like to sit here and say, point
22 to somebody and say, Hey, you're the problem of
23 this -- of this issue. It's not that way.
24 Everybody causes a problem. When you get in
25 your car, crank it up, you cause a problem.
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1 When we go out and vote, sure, we cause a
2 problem.
3 Okay. I'm out of time. I look forward in
4 speaking to you-all tomorrow. Thank you for
5 your time.
6 CHAIRMAN BASS: Thank you. Sinclair
7 Oubre, Port Arthur? I'm know I'm getting this
8 name wrong.
9 C.L. Standley. I got that one right. And
10 let's see. If Benny Gallaway would be prepared
11 to speak next.
12 MR. STANDLEY: Thank you,
13 Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, my
14 name is C.L. Standley. I'm chairman of the
15 Shrimp Advisory Committee. I've got the blue
16 book and a stack of cards and I'm not going to
17 speak from either one. Something that's been
18 discussed and batted around and I want to point
19 out from a different perspective and that's
20 the -- regarding the sea turtle issue.
21 The Texas Gulf Shrimp Fishery is estimated
22 it's costing that industry approximately
23 $35 million per year to pull turtle excluder
24 devices. In the bay we don't have a figure
25 that we've arrived at, but it's probably
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1 percentage-wise somewhat comparable in relation
2 to the catch. But the industry is pay he price
3 for it. Other user groups are not.
4 Nation Marine Fisheries has on file -- I
5 was told this by a National Marine Scientist
6 ten years ago and is verified within the last
7 few weeks by other agency personnel -- they
8 have on file information buried very deep, but
9 it's there that the Recreational Fishery is
10 responsible for more strandings of turtles
11 along the Texas coast than all other stranding
12 sources, including shrimp trawls combined, and
13 that number may be twice the standings. That's
14 National Marine Fisheries' figures. It's not
15 something I'm pulling out of the air. Now,
16 laying your hands on it might not be that easy,
17 but it's there. I don't know if I'd know how
18 to find it, but there are people that are.
19 But that's one of the things that is being
20 ignored by a number of people. And a statement
21 this morning that every -- every group that
22 contribute to a problem should bear some
23 responsibility for it, well, if this -- this is
24 the case, then we're closing waters to protect
25 the sea turtle, then should it not be closed to
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1 all the user groups that contribute to the
2 problem?
3 And I would say the same thing to nursery
4 areas, that nursery areas in the bay are just
5 that, and they're not nursery areas for just
6 shrimp, they're nursery areas for other things,
7 also, and should it not be considered as a
8 reason to shut those areas down to other
9 activities that are impacting them, also.
10 Thank you.
11 CHAIRMAN BASS: Mr. Standley, could
12 you clarify something for me? You reference
13 that -- that NMFS has data relating to
14 recreational strandings of -- of --
15 MR. STANDLEY: Yes, sir. That's --
16 That --
17 CHAIRMAN BASS: -- turtles. Can you
18 tell me --
19 MR. STANDLEY: That's what I -- what
20 I've been told. I have not seen the data.
21 That's what I've been told by their
22 scientists --
23 CHAIRMAN BASS: Okay. So --
24 MR. STANDLEY: -- that it is
25 available.
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1 CHAIRMAN BASS: And can you tell me
2 who in NMFS has told you this?
3 MR. STANDLEY: Well -- Oh, ten years
4 ago? No, sir. I couldn't for sure.
5 CHAIRMAN BASS: Okay. Thank you.
6 MR. STANDLEY: Thank you.
7 CHAIRMAN BASS: Benny Gallaway. And
8 Joseph Vu -- Vu, if you'd be prepared to speak
9 next.
10 MR. GALLAWAY: Mr. Chairman, members
11 of the Commission, I thank you for allowing me
12 to speak. I'm Benny Gallaway. I have a Ph.D.
13 from Texas A&M University. For the last
14 26 years, I've been president of a private
15 ecological consult -- consulting company. I
16 have some 99 publications in the peer-reviewed
17 literature. For the last six years I've worked
18 on bycatch, sea turtle and red snapper in
19 particular issues in the Gulf of Mexico. My
20 paper on bycatch reduction device is published
21 in the Journal of North American Fisheries
22 Management was voted best paper in the Journal
23 for 1999.
24 I advise Texas Shrimp Association on
25 biological issues. I do not make policy or
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1 recommend policy to them. I consult with
2 them. I came to this meeting as an observer,
3 but after hearing the presentations this
4 morning, felt like I might say a few words, and
5 you give me the opportunity so I'll do it.
6 You heard the -- It appears that there is
7 consensus that there is growth overfishing on
8 Gulf of Mexico shrimp stocks, and as yet, there
9 is no recruit overfishing that -- I heard
10 agreement between both the state and the
11 federal government on that issue.
12 There's a couple of things you need to
13 consider and questions you should be asking, in
14 my opinion. First of all, you have to consider
15 the shrimp stocks in the Gulf of Mexico as a
16 single stock. You can't index the status of
17 that stock with fisheries' independent data
18 from one part of the range. You have to look
19 at the whole -- the whole stock, as does
20 National Marine Fishery Service in its stock
21 assessment.
22 The questions I think you should be asking
23 is, Okay, we've got growth overfishing. Where
24 are we relative to recruit overfishing and
25 which direction are we headed? It seems a
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1 reasonable question. That question is answered
2 in the NMFS stock assessment. The -- Your --
3 When I asked Dr. Nance, How far are you away
4 from that, he said, Far.
5 I said, How far?
6 And he said, Well, look at the
7 numbers in the stock assessment.
8 The numbers in the stock assessment
9 show that by a factor of two to 2 1/2 below the
10 level that would be considered the recruit
11 overfishing threshold. There's not an
12 urgency. The stock is not in imminent danger
13 and collapse. Which direction are we headed?
14 Growth overfishing is signified by a
15 combination of two things usually: One is
16 declining size in the catch and declining
17 catch per unit of effort, those two things
18 declining. Catch per unit effort over the past
19 ten years has been increasing, as you heard,
20 and is reflected in the stock as a whole in
21 those data. Size has stabilized. So we're not
22 moving towards recruit overfishing based upon
23 those data and that definition of overfishing.
24 The next thing I'd like to share with you
25 I don't think I'll have time, but I'm do it
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1 anyway. In 1994, I propose a gear restriction
2 proposal for near-shore zone for Texas as a
3 solution to the sea turtle stranding problem.
4 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, sir. Your
5 time is up.
6 MR. GALLAWAY: And we'll talk about
7 it tomorrow afternoon. Thanks.
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: We'll be here.
9 Joseph Vu? Not -- Not going to speak?
10 Okay. Thank you.
11 Charles Burnell, Brownsville? Russell
12 Knight (sic), Port Aransas.
13 MR. MIGET: Here. No Charles? No
14 Charles?
15 CHAIRMAN BASS: No Charles. Russell
16 Knight. And if Jose Ramirez will be prepared
17 to speak next.
18 The floor is yours.
19 MR. MIGET: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
20 My name is Russell Miget. I won't spell --
21 CHAIRMAN BASS: I'm sorry.
22 MR. MIGET: -- write very well
23 either.
24 I, for the last 25 years, have worked for
25 Texas A&M as a -- marine advisory program as a
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1 fishery specialist, environmental quality
2 specialist, but I want to make it clear today
3 that I'm here speaking for myself, certainly
4 not for Texas A&M or the extension service or
5 advisory service, but I feel those experience
6 perhaps gives me some insight.
7 I guess we should have done a thing in
8 tandem here. You know, because this has been a
9 work in progress, what I was going say because
10 about the time you're prepared to say
11 something, somebody else already said it.
12 So basically what I want to do is, you
13 know, first of all reemphasize that -- that I
14 was delighted to hear the National Marine
15 Fishery Service people say what we've said in
16 public testimony, which by the way, you have my
17 public written testimony from the Bay City
18 Public Hearing, what we've been saying all
19 along and that is that -- that there is not a
20 recruitment overfishing problem in shrimp.
21 Now, what came up today was is -- is
22 there -- First of all, in my mind is there
23 growth overfishing? A colleague of mine
24 just -- just said there's a consensus on that,
25 and that's kind of what I want to address here
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1 today. And -- And if there is, does that, in
2 fact, lead on sort of a continuum into
3 recruitment overfishing and I think there's
4 certainly biological question there as well.
5 Now, if you listen to the -- our colleague
6 from Mexico, certainly if we allow small mesh
7 nets to be stretched across every inlet and
8 pass in the state of Texas, we're going to have
9 a growth overfishing problem that leads to a
10 recruitment overfishing problem. That's not
11 the case.
12 What I would like to -- to talk about just
13 briefly and start out and just, if I could,
14 with your indulgence read you a quick
15 definition out of a fishery book here on growth
16 overfishing: A level of fishing in which young
17 recruits entering the fishery are caught before
18 they grow to an optimum marketable size; a
19 level beyond that required to maximize yield in
20 (our value per recruit).
21 And I read this to you because it's very
22 important because, you know, we've -- we've
23 heard comparisons of the shrimp fishery, you
24 know, being compared with the cod, collapse of
25 the cod fishery. Well, shrimp are very
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1 different. There's one-year life cycle and so
2 forth.
3 And I'm running out of time, and what I
4 really wanted to tell you, aside from the fact
5 that you need to sort out that kind of growth
6 overfishing is that a study that we've just
7 initiated a year ago with about 50 vessels from
8 the Valley where they've actually turned over
9 their financial records to us where we're
10 looking at the cost of producing shrimp
11 indicates that in the Gulf of Mexico over a
12 12-year period, it costs about 90 to 95 cents
13 to produce a dollar's worth of shrimp.
14 That's -- Those are the numbers we have.
15 We've moving up the coast. We're going to move
16 around the coast. The point is, you know, I --
17 I -- I beg you-all to -- to look at these
18 proposed regulations based on the facts, not on
19 hearsay, not on sound bites, not on too many
20 shrimp.
21 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, sir. Your
22 time is up.
23 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Excuse me. Was
24 that 95 cents to catch a dollar's worth?
25 MR. MIGET: Yes, sir, that's
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1 correct. Yes, sir. Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN BASS: A 5 percent margin.
3 Jose Ramirez. And Caroline Beltran, if you'd
4 be prepared to speak next.
5 MR. RAMIREZ: Mr. Chairman, members
6 of the Committee, my name is Jose Antonio
7 Ramirez. I live in Tampico, Mexico, having
8 been involved in the shrimp industry for ten --
9 thirteen years as a second generation
10 shrimper. My father was president of the
11 Shrimp Association of the Americas,
12 participated in the business since 1950. I've
13 had the honor twice to preside the National
14 Industrial Fisheries Chamber of Mexico and have
15 been a local congressman.
16 Back in 1992, following the passage of a
17 new federal fishing law by congress in Mexico
18 private capital reentered the exploitation of
19 shrimp. Along with our preoccupation to invest
20 in new technologies in fishing vessels came our
21 great concern for proper management of
22 commercial shrimp fishing.
23 It was evident at the time that there were
24 serious threats to shrimp fisheries both along
25 the gulf and Pacific coast mostly emanating
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1 from a very lax approach by the Mexican
2 government to resource management and an almost
3 nonexistent law enforcement. For example,
4 successful shrimp fishing grounds in the state
5 of Campeche were nearly depleted due to illegal
6 fishing by thousands of small boats using very
7 aggressive drift nets. Mr. Adolfo Gracia, a
8 good friend of mine, had done extensive
9 research in the area at the time and can attest
10 to this.
11 As an example of the poor management and
12 low -- and poor law enforcement procedures by
13 our government, 700 permits were issued at the
14 time for these small boats and nearly 5,000
15 were operating. Landings are down to about
16 500,000 pounds year and that's mostly due to
17 poaching.
18 We knew in 1993 that if our investment was
19 to have any chance for long-term success,
20 strict management and law enforcement measures
21 needed to be imposed. Closures had been in
22 practice on the Pacific Coast and we also saw
23 the experience of the Texas closures at the
24 time.
25 Therefore, in 1993, we requested the
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1 Mexican federal government to establish three
2 resource management measures. One was the
3 two-month closure on commercial fishing along
4 the Veracruz and Tamaulipas to coincide as much
5 as possible with the Texas closure on brown
6 shrimp. The second one is a permanent closure
7 from zero to five fathoms along the whole coast
8 of Mexico. And the third one is the closure of
9 a 50-mile strip along the Yucatan Peninsula to
10 prevent the small boats from catching juvenile
11 shrimp.
12 Due to our insistence on strict law
13 enforcement the initial results of these
14 closures were very evident with a recognizable
15 increase in landings of brown shrimp. However,
16 do you to political considerations, law
17 enforcement was purposely lax on illegal
18 fishing from small boats and it remains so
19 until today.
20 During the past five years, law
21 enforcement has been poor, and in some cases,
22 nonexistent. In general, the production of
23 shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico for our fleet is
24 steadily dropping. In the lagunas and along
25 zero and five fathoms zone thousands of small
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1 boats continue to practice illegal fishing. As
2 an example, to date there are 2500 permits
3 allowed Laguna Madre for charangas, which is a
4 fixed net -- a fixed net device. There are
5 more than 5,000 operating along with dragging
6 in the Laguna and the use of butterfly-type
7 nets at the mouth of the channels.
8 Importantly, the quality of data collected
9 is very poor. What I'm trying to say is that
10 the collapse of the fisheries in Mexico is due
11 to a nonexistent law enforcement effort. In my
12 opinion, although on paper the conservation and
13 law enforcement measures in Mexico look very
14 much in line with responsible fishing
15 technol -- philosophy, in practice, the story
16 is different.
17 I recommend that the Mexican experience
18 not be used as any sort of benchmark for the
19 implementation of --
20 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That light has
21 been on --
22 MR. RAMIREZ: -- shrimp management
23 measures.
24 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- over a
25 minute.
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1 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, Dr. Ramirez.
2 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: I'd like to
3 hear --
4 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Everybody
5 should have the same amount of time.
6 MR. RAMIREZ: In essence, what we
7 have done by insisting on the implementation of
8 such conservation measures is to create
9 exclusive fishing areas for poachers, placing
10 the commercial shrimp fishing fleet at a
11 tremendous disadvantage and near the point of
12 collapse. Thank you.
13 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you,
14 Mr. Ramirez. Caroline Beltran from
15 Port Isabel? Maria Delgado from Port Isabel?
16 Philip Lara? Guadalupe Lopez from Port
17 Isabel?
18 MR. LARA: I'd like to talk to you
19 guys about --
20 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Would you
21 introduce yourself, please.
22 MR. LARA: I'm Philip Lara out of
23 Corpus Christi --
24 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you.
25 MR. LARA: -- and the owner of Bay
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1 King Seafood. I'm a commercial shrimper,
2 commercial fishermen, I'm a wholesaler, I'm a
3 retailer. I'm 38 years old. I've got a wife,
4 I've got three kids, and I'm knee deep in this
5 business. I made the comment jokingly to my
6 wife today, should I wear a suit or come as I
7 am, come to you as I am?
8 We talk about endangered species and I
9 want you guys to take a good look at me. I'm
10 the endangered species. I'm the man that's on
11 the way out.
12 Mr. Watson, I've had the honor of having
13 you on my boat before. You and Hal Osburn were
14 on my boat before. We looked at bycatch that
15 was on my boat the day I came in. Our nets
16 fish clean. If you set your net to fish right,
17 you have no bycatch. In sampling of you guys
18 to get the data, you use no tickler chain. We
19 shrimp with the tickler chain. It's very
20 important where a tickler chain is at. I run
21 my tickler chain maybe three times a day
22 because it stretches, but the data that you
23 have has been told many a times that it's not
24 the actual data that we have. The truth of the
25 matter is is that we're in the best shrimp year
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1 that we have. The Gulf is doing great, and it
2 seems like, you know, we're pinpointing one
3 single user group. If we want to close down
4 the beach during a season let's close it down
5 to seismographic, let's close it down to
6 traveling on the high -- on the beach with the
7 vehicles, let's close it down to the tourists,
8 let's close it down to the construction, let's
9 close it down to everything, you know?
10 If you want a bycatch device on my big
11 net, why are we allowing a croaker run or a
12 golden croaker season to be expanded? We
13 talked about that already.
14 I did my own experiment. I don't know if
15 you-all believe it or not, but I tied a bag
16 onto my -- my fish shooter. I have a fish
17 shooter on my net prepared for when we finally
18 get into fish. I get nothing but shrimp inside
19 that every single time.
20 You talk about license increase. Your
21 license increase is going to kill me. I'm
22 proud to say I'm the first man that just
23 transferred a finfish license into my name and
24 I've worked with the legislation and they have
25 common sense, and you do, too, you guys
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1 understand. But the point that I'm saying here
2 is we talk about an increase in license fees,
3 okay? As many licenses as I hold, I'm not
4 going to be -- I won't say afford it. I won't
5 be able to simply buy health insurance. Right
6 now my wife is sick. I have no health
7 insurance. I'm stuck. I make too much for
8 Medicaid. I don't make enough for health
9 insurance. I'm stuck. I'm stuck in a Catch-22
10 situation and I ask you guys to do what the
11 Shrimp Advisory said, let the system work the
12 way it did. It said, Let's take a break, let's
13 look back at it. Caught us at our busiest
14 season. God know how much money I'm losing
15 today just being here.
16 But you know what? I believe it works
17 because I believe that the finfish bill changed
18 in a way that was made workable. When we first
19 started this program, Hal Osburn told us
20 five-gallon bucket of dead bait will all you'll
21 be allowed on the boat. Then we went to, well,
22 you can keep them all dead and ice them down.
23 Now we're back to half live, half dead. That's
24 more work on motr and Wildlife to enforce that
25 law. We don't have the problem that Mexico
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1 has. We don't have people going out there
2 overfishing --
3 MR. SANSOM: Thank you,
4 Mr. Lara --
5 MR. LARA: -- we have limited
6 place --
7 MR. SANSOM: -- your time is up.
8 MR. LARA: Any questions?
9 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you,
10 Mr. Lara.
11 Guadalupe Lopez? Iva (sic) Go from
12 Brownsville? Ellis Gilleland? I'm sorry. Did
13 I skip past you?
14 MR. GO: Am I next? I'm Ivo Gogo.
15 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Ivo. Sorry I
16 mispronounced --
17 MR. GOGO: That's all right.
18 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: -- that. Thank
19 you.
20 MR. GOGO: Good afternoon. Thank you
21 for letting me speak before this Commission.
22 My name is Ivo, president of Campeche Seafood
23 products based in Brownsville, Texas. For more
24 than 30 years our company has purchased and
25 marketed and Gulf shrimp from Texas and
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1 Mexico. We sell to restaurant chains, grocery
2 chains, food service distributors located in
3 this state and throughout the nation.
4 I would like to address the economic and
5 shrimp marketing impact of the Southern Zone
6 proposals. Specifically I would like to take
7 issue with the deferred harvest of small shrimp
8 to a larger more valuable shrimp size which is
9 stated in the Texas Register. The consequences
10 of this theory will be very disruptive.
11 The deferred harvest theory of shrimp
12 statement fails to consider what the market
13 demands. By eliminating much of the volume of
14 medium- and small-sized shrimp, you would be
15 depriving the majority of the consumers the
16 opportunity to purchase Texas Gulf shrimp.
17 I heard several car analogies today. I
18 heard one this morning. I'd like to offer one
19 as well regarding the deferred harvest theory.
20 It would be like telling General Motors to stop
21 producing Oldsmobiles and switch the production
22 lines to larger more valuable cars. The only
23 problem is the majority of consumers cannot
24 afford to buy Cadillacs.
25 Grocery store chains buy approximately
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1 40 percent of all shrimp in the United States
2 market. Sixty to eighty percent of what they
3 buy are concentrated in the medium- and
4 small-sized categories. A substantial amount
5 of these sizes are harvested in the proposed
6 Southern Zone -- Excuse me. There is a
7 substantial of these sizes that are harvested
8 in the proposed southern zone, not just
9 2 percent as indicated by NMFS. That
10 information tells me that the data is grossly
11 understating the situation. It needs to be
12 better researched.
13 Our five gulf boats and many others that I
14 buy from traditionally fish that lower zone.
15 Without adequate volume of these sizes, many
16 customers will have to look to expensive
17 imports that do not offer the distinctive Gulf
18 flavor of Texas Gulf shrimp. This will -- this
19 will create the potential for many grocery
20 store chains and food service distributors to
21 realign themselves with foreign producers that
22 adequately supply all of the market sizes.
23 Customer resistance begins when the sizes
24 run larger than a medium-size shrimp. The sale
25 of shrimp must compete effectively against
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1 other proteins, such as beef, chicken, and pork
2 which all retail for or substantially less.
3 Only medium- and small-sized shrimp categories
4 will achieve the necessary price points that
5 customers can afford. Let's not implement this
6 proposal that only markets to the select few.
7 It is important to have the whole mix of sizes,
8 otherwise market corrections will occur much
9 sooner, thus reducing any net gain realized.
10 Medium- and small-sized shrimp have played an
11 important role in providing a stabilizing
12 presence with X -- presence with X vessel
13 prices because it maintains stronger buyer
14 interest since there is much more of a size
15 spectrum.
16 Other problems associated with these seven
17 zone proposals are the failure not to consider
18 the loss of cash due to privation inside the --
19 MR. SANSOM: Thank you, sir. Your
20 time is up.
21 MR. GOGO: -- proposed zone.
22 And I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.
23 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you.
24 Ellis Gilleland. And next up is Kristin
25 Miller.
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1 MR. GILLELAND: My name is Ellis
2 Gilleland. I'm speaking for Texas Animals,
3 which is an Internet animal rights
4 organization. The first comment I'd like to
5 make is taken from the Sunset Commission 2000
6 for Texas Parks and Wildlife. The Sunset
7 Commission Issue 3 says -- it says, The Texas
8 Parks and Wildlife Commission uses an unusual
9 committee structure that inadvertently limits
10 public input to its decision. Well, it's not
11 inadvertent. You do it deliberately. I asked
12 to speak at the committee meetings. I've asked
13 as far as five or six years ago to speak at
14 your committee meeting. I've been turned
15 down.
16 The part of the Sunset Commission says in
17 their summary -- and this is their
18 recommendation -- require the Texas Parks and
19 Wildlife Commission to accept public input
20 before voting on major decisions, whether in
21 committee or as a full commission. So I ask
22 you to do that by rule and no need to wait for
23 legislation. Let the public have input before
24 you make your decisions.
25 And your committee meetings, the second
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1 comments have to do with the shrimp pro --
2 proclamation, and in answer partly to the man
3 that had been -- testified here had been
4 shrimping for 40 years and the lady that had
5 the article in the newspaper this morning,
6 Austin American Statesman, I'd like to say to
7 the shrimpers and to that lady there's no
8 God-given right for them to extract their
9 livelihood from the Gulf of Mexico and kill
10 turtles. There is no God-given right for them
11 to do that, so they can't come here and demand
12 that the state give them that right.
13 The state has no right by law or any other
14 obligation to support these people by giving
15 them a livelihood by dragging turtles, killing
16 turtles, and by way of catching shrimp. That
17 is not true and you have no obligation, there's
18 no monkey on your back to give these people the
19 livelihood that allows them to continue to kill
20 turtles.
21 They all want to take. Where is the
22 person that wants to give? Not one of these
23 people, every one of them, they're no skinniest
24 people. They're all big and fat. They're
25 living high on the hog. Why? Because shrimp
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1 are $11 a pound. I can't afford them. $11 a
2 pound. Your recreational guy gets 100 pounds a
3 day. That means your recreational guy can go
4 out and make $1100 a day. And he's not
5 supposed to sell them. That's $300,000 a
6 year. That's a lot more than I make. Maybe
7 not as much as Mark as Bass make, but the
8 Vietnamese people, there's no discrimination --
9 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Mr. Gilleland,
10 please not make personal remarks.
11 MR. GILLELAND: -- against Vietnamese
12 people. I spent --
13 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: We'll ask you to
14 be removed. Please do not make personal
15 remarks.
16 MR. SANSOM: Thank you very much.
17 MR. GILLELAND: I'm sorry. Don't
18 make --
19 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you.
20 Continue.
21 MR. GILLELAND: Wait. I made a
22 personal remark?
23 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Yes. You've
24 made several. Please restrict your comments.
25 Continue -- Your time is up. Thank you
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1 Mr. Gilleland.
2 MR. GILLELAND: Well -- Well -- I --
3 MR. SANSOM: Thank you,
4 Mr. Gilleland.
5 MR. GILLELAND: I have -- I just --
6 MR. SANSOM: Thank you,
7 Mr. Gilleland. Your time is up.
8 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Next is Kristin
9 Miller from Austin, Texas. After that, Linda
10 Gutierrez from Laguna Vista. Is Ms. Miller
11 here? Next is Linda Gutierrez. Kevin Cullen
12 from Port Isabel? Isaac Cantu from Port
13 Isabel? Mr. and Ms. Cantu from Port Isabel?
14 Rosa Boggen from Port Isabel? Imelda De Los
15 Santos from Laguna Vista? Carlette Boudreaux
16 from Brownsville? Well, I'm certainly moving
17 quickly through the list. Howard Hebert or
18 Hebert from Port Isabel? Mike Boudreaux from
19 Brownsville? Everett Saynes from Port Isabel?
20 Jose Carlos Flores from South Padre Island?
21 Joe Nguyen from Port Lavaca? I apologize if I
22 mispronounced that. N-g-u-y-e-n.
23 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Nguyen.
24 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you.
25 Ronald Hornbeck from Port Bolivar.
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1 MR. HORNBECK: I -- I decline at this
2 time. I'll speak tomorrow.
3 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: All right. You
4 are the last one who's card I have.
5 Are there others? Did I overlook
6 someone?
7 MR. RANNE: Maybe at the front up
8 there Mr. Bass talked about Ramirez and it was
9 Leonard Ranne. Anyhow, my name is Leonard
10 Ranne. I'm honored to be here before the
11 Commission. I'd like to thank Mr. Bass, the
12 Commissioners, Andy Sansom for the honor of
13 being here.
14 I've got a couple of comments I'd like to
15 make and one of them was some 25 years ago, I
16 started working with Texas motr and Wildlife.
17 We've covered a lot of areas. We've had a lot
18 of projects. We've done youth outreach
19 programs, getting kids hooked on fishing
20 instead of drugs. As president of Texas Black
21 Bass we raised $129,000 for the hatchery at
22 Athens. We built fishing piers at White Rock
23 for the handicapped, the underprivileged. It
24 seems like it just goes on and on and on.
25 And here a while back, I was honored by
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1 being a Texas Legend and placed in the Texas
2 Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. And for that,
3 I would like to thank the Commission and Andy
4 and the Department. That was a tremendous
5 honor.
6 I guess my main concern here, one of the
7 issues I want to bring up is I support Mr. Bill
8 West and Jack Tatum in their requests. They're
9 asking the Department to be involved in the
10 vegetation management plan.
11 We've got a tremendous resource here and
12 as our population continuously grows, we've got
13 to make plans and manage that resource for
14 30,000 people, 35 or 36,000 people instead of
15 just 20,000 we've got today. The river
16 authorities need to be able to address issues
17 as they immediately arise instead of having a
18 vegetation problem that they wait two to three
19 to four years on and they could have took care
20 of it with a small application and now it takes
21 act of Congress and thousands and thousand of
22 dollars.
23 I think good science, good management
24 programs is the only way that we can provide
25 the resource we have today for the future
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1 generations coming. And the system works, the
2 way the governors appoint commissioners, the
3 way the commissioners hires people like Andy.
4 They go out and find some of the best
5 scientists biologists that we have available.
6 We need to let those people to do their job.
7 We need to be here to support them. We need to
8 be here to help them find better ways to manage
9 that resource.
10 And I want again to thank you for the
11 25 years of working with you-all. Thank you
12 very much.
13 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you,
14 Mr. Ranne.
15 Is there anyone else who signed up to
16 testify? Yes.
17 MR. HODGSON: Yes, ma'am. If I may,
18 I'd signed up. In fact, I believe I was the
19 first person to sign up outside and if I
20 could --
21 MR. SANSOM: Please come forward.
22 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Please come
23 forward and identify yourself for the record.
24 That's why we asked to make sure.
25 MR. HODGSON: I appreciate that.
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1 Commissioners, Mr. Sansom, my name is Larry
2 Hodgson. Along with my brother, Les, we're
3 co-owners of a small business in business in
4 Texas that markets and processes shrimp. I'd
5 like to begin with, as best I can recollect, a
6 short quote from -- from a poem by Robert
7 Burns, a famous Scotch poet. He said, Would
8 that God the gift to give us give ourself --
9 give -- give ourselves the opportunity to see
10 ourselves and others see us. Something to that
11 effect.
12 And I think what's -- what's really
13 critical is that we have the opportunity to see
14 ourselves as others see us. There are -- There
15 are many who see the shrimpers as radicals, and
16 I'm here to tell you today why we see a
17 horribly flawed process that is taking place
18 and I'm going to -- to reach my conclusion
19 first because so many of our speakers today in
20 an effort to reach than conclusions have been
21 shut off before they reached that point. And
22 my conclusion is that there is -- that this
23 Commission will have an opportunity tomorrow to
24 consider all of the testimony, much of it
25 partial testimony, but you'll have an
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1 opportunity to consider it before you make the
2 mistake of rushing to judgment as your motr and
3 Wildlife staff did. And now I'm going to tell
4 you what was wrong with that process. We're
5 consistently told that there would be no new
6 shrimp regulations. In April of this year, all
7 of a sudden there had been an 18-month study in
8 which our shrimp advisory committee had never
9 been included and where they were asked -- they
10 were given five days from the time that they
11 received their briefing books to comment on
12 that -- on those regulations. I'm going to
13 tell you that you -- you -- you dreamed up
14 eight public hearings along the Texas coast and
15 then made sure that four of them took place
16 after your Department opened our season and
17 sent our captains and crews to sea and put our
18 processing facilities to work, at the height of
19 our season, you did what the agricultural
20 department in this state would never dream of
21 doing at the height of cotton harvest in
22 calling cotton farmers in for onerous new
23 regulations on cotton farming.
24 I'm here to tell you that we have no right
25 to be here today. We -- we manage our small
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1 business, and our entire corporate management
2 is here. We're harvesting several aquaculture
3 ponds this week, all of them permitted by your
4 Department. We're receiving record landings
5 from the shrimp boats from the fleets. We have
6 more money invested in shrimp at this time this
7 year than we have ever had.
8 You ask about economic impact studies, and
9 I'm here to tell you that your Department has
10 not done the economic impact studies. I'm here
11 to tell you that the onerous new regulations on
12 gear restrictions now on the Texas coast are
13 going to cause a complete redirections of the
14 fishery in much of that zone. It's going cost
15 the offshore vessels at least $3,000 per vessel
16 to put new nets on there. It will take them at
17 least four hours to change those nets out each
18 time. And they don't have room on the vessels
19 to carry those nets. So you're redirecting the
20 fishery, and what the economic impact is going
21 to be, I can't tell you, but neither can your
22 own Department.
23 MR. SANSOM: Thank you,
24 Mr. Hodgson.
25 MR. HODGSON: That haven't studied
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1 it.
2 MR. SANSOM: Your time is up.
3 MR. HODGSON: Thank you.
4 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Thank you.
5 We have several statements that are to be
6 included in the record and I wanted to make
7 sure that we acknowledged that. First of
8 all is a letter from Dr. Delores Munoz,
9 superintendent of schools for the Port Isabel
10 Independent School District. And we have as
11 well a letter from Tom Uher, member of the
12 Texas House of Representatives. And this will
13 be placed in the record as well. And a letter
14 from Raymond Mathews, Jr., Conservation
15 Liaison, Threatened or Endangered Species
16 Section of the Texas Academy of Science. And
17 all of those will be included in the record of
18 the public meeting this afternoon.
19 Let me ask again whether anyone had signed
20 up to testify that we have missed calling on.
21 Thank you.
22 With that, I believe that we have come to
23 the conclusion of the business for this public
24 meeting. Turn the chair back over to
25 Chairman Bass.
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1 CHAIRMAN BASS: Sorry. I was out of
2 the room. Have we gone through all of the --
3 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Yes. These --
4 CHAIRMAN BASS: -- statements and
5 quite a number of people who left us?
6 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Yes, these are
7 the people who did not respond when I --
8 CHAIRMAN BASS: Okay.
9 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: -- called their
10 names.
11 CHAIRMAN BASS: Okay. And there's no
12 one in the audience, I gather, that wishes to
13 speak who has not had an opportunity; is that
14 correct?
15 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: I believe not.
16 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good. That being the
17 case, I think there's no further business for
18 the Commission this afternoon and we would
19 stand adjourned until tomorrow morning unless
20 the executive director has something that he
21 wishes to bring to our attention.
22 MR. SANSOM: No further business,
23 Mr. Chairman.
24 CHAIRMAN BASS: Good. I thank all of
25 you ladies and gentlemen for coming today
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1 and -- and sharing your thoughts with us and --
2 and we do appreciate it. Thank you very much.
3 We stand adjourned.
4 (SESSION ENDS.)
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1 THE STATE OF TEXAS )
COUNTY OF BEXAR )
2
3 I, TONYA R. THOMPSON, a Certified
4 Court Reporter in and for the State of Texas,
5 do hereby certify that the above and foregoing
6 143 pages constitute a full, true, and correct
7 transcript of the minutes of the Texas Parks
8 and Wildlife Commission on AUGUST 30, 2000, in
9 the Commission hearing room of the Texas Parks
10 and Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin,
11 Travis County, Texas.
12 I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic
13 record was made by me at the time of the public
14 meeting and said stenographic notes were
15 thereafter reduced to computerized
16 transcription under my supervision and control.
17 WITNESS MY HAND this the day of
18 , 2000.
19
20
TONYA R. THOMPSON, Texas CSR 5476
21 Expiration Date: 12/2000
7800 IH-10 West, Suite 100
22 San Antonio, Texas 78230
(210) 377-3027
23
EBS NO.:
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3 LEE M. BASS, CHAIRMAN
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5 CAROL E. DINKINS, VICE-CHAIR
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7 DICK W. HEATH
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9 NOLAN RYAN
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11 ERNEST ANGELO, JR.
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13 JOHN AVILA, JR.
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15 ALVIN L. HENRY
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17 KATHARINE ARMSTRONG IDSAL
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