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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 32 Number 10
June 2005
Coast Guard floats dockside exam pilot
WASHINGTON, DC - The Coast Guard has proposed a pilot program for dockside “crew survivability” exams as part of its appropriations request for 2006.
Under the proposed program, Coast Guard representatives would be authorized to conduct examinations of uninspected fishing vessels and their crews at the dock or pier twice over a five-year period.
The exam would cover not only safety and survival equipment required by law, but also vessel stability standards applicable by law to specific vessels.
And, Coast Guard representatives would be authorized to “identify and observe proper crew training on the vessel’s safety and survival equipment and the crew’s familiarity with vessel stability and emergency procedures designed to save life at sea and avoid loss or damage to the vessel.”
The proposal is a very tentative attempt by the Coast Guard to test the waters on expanding its authority in this direction. As written, the pilot program would last for five years and would only apply to two geographic areas – the portion of the 13th Coast Guard District that covers the waters off of Oregon and Washington and the portion of the 8th District that covers waters off Louisiana.
There has been talk that some US senators are interested in expanding the geographic scope of the pilot program from two districts to four, including New England, but, at press time, there was no clear indication that would happen.
“We have no idea if the provision will be in the bill,” said a staffer with the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries, and Coast Guard in mid-May. “Everything is being negotiated.”
The House already had axed the entire idea out of its version of the Coast Guard appropriations bill.
US Rep. Don Young (R-AK) was quoted in a May US News and World Report article as saying he was skeptical of the need to give the Coast Guard any additional authority in this area, commenting, “Why should some snot-nosed lieutenant say you can’t go fishing because of this or that?”
However, a section-by-section congressional analysis offered these sobering statistics on commercial fishing industry vessel safety.
In 2002, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that fishermen working aboard uninspected fishing vessels died at a rate of 71.1 per 100,000 workers compared to the rate for all American workers of four deaths per 100,000.
By comparison, deaths in the towing vessel industry, another uninspected segment of the marine industry, were 19.5 per 100,000 workers.
Between 1999 and 2003, for the US, a total of 528 uninspected commercial fishing vessels were lost and 291 fishermen died.
“These figures clearly demonstrate that the death rate for the uninspected commercial fishing vessel industry is unacceptable in comparison to other segments of the maritime industry and the American workforce in general,” the analysis stated.
Furthermore, data compiled from voluntary dockside examinations “show conclusively” that increased survival rates of both fishermen and vessels are directly proportional to the proper equipping and maintenance of safety gear on vessels, “particularly when the crew has been properly trained to use these systems effectively in emergency response scenarios.”
Yet the Coast Guard estimates that only six percent of the approximately 90,000 uninspected commercial fishing vessels in the US today have had the voluntary dockside examination.
Said Cmdr. Mike Lodge of the Coast Guard legislative affairs office, “We don’t think we’re getting the voluntary compliance we should.”
Lorelei Stevens
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