Contents:
In last month’s newspaper I included the schedule for both of these meetings which will be held in Baltimore, December 12, 14. Because of the early press date, information from these meetings is not available. There will be an update at the JCAA meeting on December 18th and we will post the report on the webpage. To review JCAA’s position on menhaden, go to last month’s newspaper on the webpage. The comment period has passed. By the time you read this newspaper, the vote will be completed.
As a personal note, this holiday season will be different from many others. The last time I had so many concerns about everyone’s welfare was the holiday I spent in Vietnam. I know many of you are still not in your homes and are struggling with the clean-up. Since I am located on the mainland side but at the foot of the Route 37 bridge, I see the long lines of cars waiting every morning headed to the barrier island. It makes me think of all of you who are not in your homes. I am always an optimist and know better days are ahead. I am hopeful that the bipartisan effort at both the state and federal level will continue. It is up to us to make sure our elected officials continue to put their focus on the welfare of the Jersey Shore rather than their political lives. This is also an opportunity for all of us who are concerned about the Jersey Shore to put aside our differences and focus on the big picture.
Next month I will write the year in review for JCAA. Please let me know your thoughts about rebuilding the shore with the issues of marine environment problems and fisheries issues. I would also like to have your thoughts on access, particularly as the rebuilding begins. I am hoping you share your thoughts with your club members and forward a letter to me summarizing your discussion. Have a happy holiday.
Brand name drug makers and their generic counterparts rarely find themselves on the same side of an issue, but now they are making an exception. They have teamed up to fight a local law in California, the first in the nation, that makes them responsible for running — and paying for — a program that would allow consumers to turn in unused medicines for proper disposal.
United Pharmacy in Berkeley, Calif., already has a bin on site to dispose of expired drugs.
Such so-called drug take-back programs are gaining in popularity because of a growing realization that those leftover pills in your medicine cabinet are a potential threat to public health and the environment.
Small children might accidentally swallow them and teenagers will experiment with them, advocates of the laws say. Prescription drug abusers can, and are, breaking into homes in search of them. Unused pills are sometimes flushed down the toilet, so pharmaceuticals are now polluting waterways and even drinking water. One study found the antidepressant Prozac in the brains of fish.
Most such take-back programs are run by local or other government agencies. But increasingly there are calls to make the pharmaceutical industry pay.
“We feel the industry that profits from the sales of these products should have the financial responsibility for proper management and disposal,” said Miriam Gordon, California director of Clean Water Action, an advocacy group.
In July, Alameda County, Calif., which includes Oakland and Berkeley, became the first locality to enact such a requirement. Drug companies have to submit plans for accomplishing it by July 1, 2013.
But the industry plans to file a lawsuit in United States District Court in Oakland on Friday, hoping to have the law struck down. The suit is being filed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which represents brand-name drug companies, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association and the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
James M. Spears, general counsel of PhRMA, said the Alameda ordinance violated the Constitution in that a local government was interfering with interstate commerce, a right reserved for Congress.
“They are telling a company in New Jersey that you have to come in and design and implement and pay for a municipal service in California,” he said in an interview.
“This program is one where the cost is shifted to companies and individuals who are not located in Alameda County and who won’t be served by it.”
Mr. Spears, who is known as Mit, said that the program would cost millions of dollars a year to run and that pharmaceutical companies were “not in the waste disposal business.” He said it would be best left to sanitation departments and law enforcement agencies, which must be involved if narcotics, like pain pills, were to be transported.
Nathan A. Miley, the president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the champion of the legislation, said late Thursday, “It’s just unfortunate that PhRMA would fight this because it would be pennies for them.”
“We will win legally and will win in the court of public opinion as well,” Mr. Miley said.
The battle in Alameda could set the direction for other states and localities. Legislators in seven states have introduced bills to require drug companies to pay for take-back programs in the last few years, said Scott Cassel, founder and chief executive of the Product Stewardship Institute, a nonprofit group that advocates such programs. But none of the bills have passed.
Mr. Cassel said about 70 similar “extended producer responsibility” laws have been enacted in 32 states for other products, like electronic devices, mercury-containing thermometers, fluorescent lamps, paint and batteries. He said he was not aware that any had been struck down on constitutional grounds.
The pharmaceutical industry already pays for take-back programs in some other countries. The law in Alameda is modeled partly on the system in British Columbia and two other Canadian provinces. There, the industry formed the Post-Consumer Pharmaceutical Stewardship Association, which runs the programs.
Consumers can take unused drugs back to pharmacies, from which they are periodically collected. Drug companies pay for the program in proportion to their market share, said Ginette Vanasse, executive director of the association. The program for British Columbia, with a population over four million, costs about $500,000 a year, she said.
The extent of the problem of unused pills and how best to handle them are matters of debate.
The United States Geological Survey has found various drugs, including antidepressants, antibiotics, heart medicines and hormones, in waterways it has sampled. Sewage treatment plants and drinking water treatment plants are not meant to remove pharmaceuticals.
Still, it is not known what effect the chemicals might have. “It’s a hard-to-pin-down problem,” said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group. It is thought that trace amounts in drinking water are probably not harmful. But larger amounts found in wastewater could be having an impact on wildlife.
It is also unclear whether take-back programs will help. Experts generally agree that the bigger source of pollution is urine and feces containing the remnants of drugs that are ingested, not the unused pills flushed down the toilet.
PhRMA also argues that take-back programs will not help much with the problem of drug abuse either. Mr. Spears said that it was better to have consumers tie up unused pills in a plastic bag and throw them in the trash. That is more effective, he said, because people would not have to travel to a collection point. Such collection points could become targets for thieves and drug abusers.
Years ago I bobbed in a friend’s fishing boat in New Jersey’s waters and watched the little creature I would later label “the most important fish in the sea,” the Atlantic menhaden. I watched the water boil as voracious bluefish tore into a large school of menhaden at the surface. A cloud of seabirds dove into them from above, while far beneath, striped bass swallowed whatever scraps drifted their way.
This is what the menhaden do best: they get eaten. Game fish and seabirds, sharks and whales all seek out these oily fish as a favorite meal, making menhaden a crucial link in the ocean food chain. These little filter feeders scoop up algae, acting as the kidneys of our coastal waters, then convert that energy into fat and protein to feed the rest of the sea.
But all that is threatened by one company’s industrial fishing fleet and its unrestricted overfishing. Menhaden populations have been in free fall for the past 30 years, a 90 percent decline that’s left them at historically low levels. The collapse of menhaden threatens not only our ocean ecosystem but also our coastal economy. Recreational fishing is a multibillion-dollar business, and without menhaden to eat, game fish and the businesses they support are in jeopardy.
Now menhaden might be getting their moment. An alliance of recreational fishermen, scientists and conservationists has pushed the 15-state body that’s supposed to regulate the menhaden fishery to the cusp of meaningful action. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will vote next Friday on what could be the first coast-wide limit on the menhaden catch. Leading scientists are asking for a 50 percent cut in the catch to rebuild the menhaden population.
One company is working to stop this step toward sanity: Omega Protein. Omega takes 80 percent of the Atlantic menhaden catch. By tonnage, it’s the largest fishery on the Atlantic coast. But no one eats these fish — not directly, at least. Menhaden are cooked and crushed into fertilizer, industrial and nutritional oils, and feed for livestock and fish farms.
Omega operates the only remaining menhaden processing facility on the East Coast. Executives have threatened to lay off workers there if the catch is restricted because the company says it can’t afford to fish sustainably.
Omega’s investors, however, get a different story. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Omega recorded the highest revenues in company history, nearly $78 million. SEC filings on Omega’s executive pay show that over the last two years Omega’s top executives raked in more than $15 million.
Records also show the company was fined for 21 serious workplace safety violations following the April death of an Omega worker.
On Dec. 14, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will choose between allowing Omega Protein to continue devastating our coastal environment or rescuing the fish that can help restore our coastal waters and New Jersey’s economy.
When the fisheries commission asked for public comment on these choices, 594 were in favor of the status quo, which is no limit whatsoever on the allowable catch of menhaden, while 114,795 voted for major reductions in the annual catch of menhaden. So we have good reason to hope for the salvation of New Jersey’s most important fish.
