> For The Dutch Harbor Fisherman

> Do you realize that the recent requirement for fishermen to pay for any line they want to throw away is resulting in many of them throwing the line overboard?

> How can they afford to pay for it after all the other taxes imposed on them already?

> This notice is regarding a large pile of tangled line – 300 pounds of 3/4-inch – that I had planned to deposit at City Hall but didn’t.

> But therein lies a tale. On one of the four boats I fished on this year, the skipper told us to throw this pile of tangled line in the water. Instead, I thought I should take it to City Hall and dump it on the doorstep as a protest to show what we typically throw over in one three-day trip on our boat.

> I have saved this line for months and now want to use the space it was taking up. I quit the boat, but since then, all line they didn’t need anymore has been tossed overboard, according to the skipper’s instructions.

> He said he hated to do it but felt he had no other choice due to the expense of paying for disposal.

> I wanted to dump the line at City Hall as a protest. This is the only way to make the City Council take notice of this problem, I guess.

> Do you realize that many of the fishermen who used to take their trash line and nets to the docks to be disposed of properly are now dumping literally millions of tons of line and nets into the sea now because of the new laws you passed?

> A typical drag boat throws away one or two dragnets every few years, not to mention how many get lost. Longliners and crabbers replace thousands of pounds and many miles of old line every year also.

> I’ve seen illegal dumping on many boats over the years, but since the new law was passed it has increased greatly.

> Do you realize what that is doing to the environment?

> While the city of Unalaska votes in new improvements for our town and takes expensive trips around the state and country, what about the fishermen who are trying to keep their heads above water?

> Three percent of all the money all the boats in Dutch Harbor make – millions and millions of dollars a year – is taken by the city for landing taxes.

> Please use some of this money to make a way for the fishermen to be able to dispose of this line properly before beaches all over the world are filled with trash and people all over the world get their lives endangered when the floating line and nets gets caught in the propellers of ships.

> Also think of all the animals that will be trapped in the nets and lines and all of the animals that die from ingesting the plastics.

> All this plastic should be recycled anyway, and we have the resources to take it to Seattle to do so. It might cost more than the recycling profit to do this, but what other logical choice to we have?

> We could designate a huge barge to take it all once or twice a year. And there are plenty of places to store the line with all the empty space we have on this island. The Ounalashka Corp. needs to step up to the plate and donate a spot to put the line if the city doesn’t have one.

> So much line is thrown away here in the world’s largest fishing port that they should build a recycling plant right in Unalaska.

> Before the city builds more docks and boat harbors for even more ships, officials need to address the situation of how to dispose of the trash line, metal, oil, oil filters, etc.

The way it’s set up now, many of the fishermen and other mariners just dump it instead of the huge hassle and expense of disposing of it properly.

> As to the metal disposal requirement that also was recently passed, now everyone is just dumping metal all over the island and at sea, which isn’t as bad as plastic. At least not until we snag our lines and nets in the metal piles and lose our gear.

> At least City Council could meet the fishermen halfway and pay for half of the disposal fee. After all, where would this town be with out the fishermen and what are we doing to our environment?

> Please use some of the millions of dollars we fishermen give to the town to help us dispose of our trash line and nets. Otherwise, you’ll be contributing to the endangerment of boats trying to navigate and you’ll be helping pollute the world.

Also, please pass a law to have a substantial reward given to people who film the action of illegal dumping and turn in the perpetrators.

> Anyway, I was going to dump the line at 4 o’clock in the morning in a snowstorm, but a police officer happened to drive by as I was getting ready to go down the hill to City Hall. I thought better of it and decided to send this letter out instead of breaking the law.

> Fishermen, U.S. Coast Guard, Navy and other mariners – you guys know who you are – are dumping oil filters and depositing other nasty waste products into our beautiful ocean.

> And now are you throwing your trash line and nets overboard, too? Or have you already been doing that for years anyway? How do you feel about that? Guilty?

If you don’t feel guilty you have no common sense and no heart, for you are helping destroy the very thing your livelihood depends on.

> Over the years, plastic breaks down to highly toxic compounds and pollutes the area around it. Then those toxins – dioxins and other toxic compounds – enter the food chain, and we end up eating it in our seafood or it can enter the systems of plants and animals on land also.

> If you don’t believe that do a little research about it. Isn’t there anyway we can figure out a way to "do the right thing?"

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