Wake up call for fishpen operators

By Eva C. Visperas

Anda Mayor Nestor Pulido issued a memorandum circular Friday to bangus producers in his town calling for a moratorium on the operation of their fish pens and fishcages for at least one month following a  massive fishkill affecting their produce since Wednesday with an estimated P100 million in losses.

Pulido, in a phone interview with this corner, said he also reiterated in his memorandum, previous guidelines that must be strictly observed by the operators “otherwise their permits to operate shall be cancelled”.

Some of these guidelines, he said, involve proper stocking, like for an 18 meters by 18 meters fish cage, it should be stocked only with 30,000 bangus fingerlings, proper feeding system, proper distance like 25 meters apart from each other, among others.

After one month or more depending on the recommendation of fishery experts, restocking can be made if operators have the necessary permit from him, the mayor, otherwise their fish pens and fish cages shall be dismantled.

Tons of decaying bangus were collected and buried in a lot in barangay Ma-long, Pulido said. He thanked Governor-elect Amado Espino Jr. for lending him his loaders and trucks to haul the dead bangus.

Meanwhile, Mayor Alfonso Celeste of the nearby Bolinao town also told this corner in a separate interview, that it’s high time local officials of the coastal areas of Anda, Bolinao, Bani and Alaminos City sit down together and discuss measures to be adopted to prevent the occurrence of another fishkill.

In 2002, Bolinao also suffered massive fishkill in its bangus industry with losses amounting to P300 million.

However, Celeste said that experience gave them a wake up call to observe proper regulations in operating fish cages and fish pens. Since then, no similar incident has occurred again and bangus producers have been doing good business.

“This is the right time to discuss together this threat to our bangus industry,” he said.

He added that he talked the other day to representatives from the Sagip Lingayen Gulf regarding the fishkill problem and both agreed to act together on the problem.

Celeste added that he would like to adopt the knowledge and technologies shared by Norwegian fishery experts who came to his town earlier this year for a study, together with aquaculture experts from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute, regarding fishkill.

“I hope we could adopt together what we learned because we share common coastal waters, especially with our neighbor Anda town,” Celeste said.

Bolinao also suffered fishkill Wednesday but only a small part near the boundary of Anda was affected.

He said that because of their 2002 massive fishkill experience, they drastically reduced their fish pens and fish cages from more than 2,000 units to more than 500 only.

He said it is also important that waterways must not be obstructed.

Pulido who learned about Celeste’s move through The PUNCH said he welcomes this idea to make the bangus industry thrive and become sustainable for the long-term.

It’s encouraging to note that Dr. Westly Rosario, BFAR center chief in Dagupan City and interim executive director of the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute, wasted no time in sending a team to do water sampling in the fishkill affected areas to determine what precisely caused it.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/business-log/)

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