6
CapitalPress.com
Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
Friday, December 13, 2019
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Opinion
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com | CapitalPress.com/opinion
Our View
Skirting meetings law erode’s public trust
the act. Unlike regular meetings, commit-
tee meetings are not recorded and posted
online for people unable to attend in per-
son. The department does not keep writ-
ten minutes.
Here the state’s open meetings law is
weak. Most states extend open meeting
requirements to committees.
Most of the commission’s committee
meetings are open to the public. Except,
of course, when they are closed.
Where the law provides that public
meetings can be closed only for a specific
set of reasons, committee meetings can
be closed on a whim. Commissioners dis-
cussing a particularly controversial pro-
posal can keep the public out. This allows
a more robust, albeit private, conversation
out of earshot of anyone.
Where things really go off the rails is
when other commissioners who are not
part of the committee decide to attend the
meeting. Such as a recent meeting of the
A
lot of people in government these
days make a real show about the
need to be transparent, then turn
around and do everything they can to
conduct their most controversial business
behind closed doors.
We’ve been reporting on the Washing-
ton Fish and Wildlife Commission’s skirt-
ing of the state’s open meetings law.
The commission is the supervising
authority for the Department of Fish and
Wildlife. The commission is made up
of nine Washingtonians — three mem-
bers from west of the Cascade Mountains,
three members from east of the Cascade
Mountains and three “at-large” members
who may reside anywhere in the state.
The commission meets as a body
each month. The time and place of those
meetings are posted, minutes are kept
and in many cases the meetings are live
streamed and recorded for viewing on the
internet.
Washington State Capitol
These regular meetings are governed
by the Washington Open Public Meet-
ings Act.
In addition to meeting as a body, the
commission has several committees, each
made up of four commissioners.
The Washington Open Public Meeting
Act defines a “meeting” as any gathering
of a majority of commissioners assem-
bled to deal in any way with official busi-
ness. The committees discuss official
business, but because there are only four
commissioners they aren’t governed by
It’s time for NW to embrace
the ‘Blue Revolution’
Our View
he United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organi-
zation (FAO) notes that
90% of the world’s fisheries are
at capacity or have been over-
fished. By the year 2030 — a
mere decade away — the world
population will reach 8.3 billion.
That’s 8.3 billion mouths to feed
with a decreasing amount of ara-
ble land for agriculture.
Meet the solution: The Blue
Revolution.
Around the world, countries
like Norway, Scotland, New
Zealand, Ecuador, Brazil, India,
Thailand and China — to name
a few — have embraced aqua-
culture for decades. In the case
of Asia, aquaculture has been
around for thousands of years
producing locally farmed protein
and, more recently, robust eco-
nomic development.
Unfortunately, the U.S. has
fallen behind many countries,
currently ranking No. 16 in
aquaculture production.
The Northwest Aquacul-
ture Alliance (NWAA) believes
it is time for the U.S., specifi-
cally our West Coast region, to
embrace aquaculture as a public
health, economic development,
and food security strategy.
Research demonstrates the
correlation between regular sea-
food consumption and human
health. Diets low in seafood
result in chronic health issues
such as cardiovascular disease,
contributing to 84,000 prevent-
able deaths in the U.S. annually.
Consumers need to eat more
seafood; aquaculture makes sea-
food accessible and affordable.
Farming fish, shellfish, and
seaweed also supports commu-
nity economic development.
According to the National Oce-
anic and Atmospheric Adminis-
tration (NOAA), fish harvested
from aquaculture around the
globe had an estimated first-sale
value of $160.2 billion, divided
among finfish, shellfish, and
crustaceans — using less than
4% of the ocean.
In the debate over global
warming and ocean acidifica-
tion, most reasonable people
say we should listen to NOAA
scientists and give credence
to NOAA data. Yet, regard-
ing aquaculture, many of these
same people don’t listen to
NOAA scientists or give cre-
dence to their data. This double
standard sets back aquaculture,
hurts our rural communities,
and harms the overall health of
consumers.
Now we are, once again,
at a crossroads in Washing-
ton as Cooke Aquaculture
Pacific seeks to gain the state’s
approval to raise all-female
sterile rainbow trout and, in a
joint venture with the James-
town S’Klallam Tribe, rear
native black cod and sterile
rainbow trout.
We support these efforts.
In the U.S., most people do
not consume the amount of sea-
food needed for good health. A
significant benefit of aquacul-
ture is that it delivers a nutri-
tious product that consumers
T
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
The FFRobotics robotic apple picker mounted on an Automated Ag Bandit Xpress picking platform.
S
Robotic era
approaches
ome day in the not-too-distant future,
an orchardist will push a button and a
fleet of robots will deploy and harvest
the apples. Working day and night and in any
weather, they will choose only the apples that
are perfectly colored and send them into bins.
They will also note apples that are not quite
ready and return when they are.
From there, robotic transports will take the
bins to the packing plants, where automated
sorters and packers will choose which apples
to pack and which to send to controlled atmo-
sphere storage.
When a sales manager makes a sale, the
order will be fulfilled automatically and loaded
onto a driverless truck, which will deliver them
to the customer. Every step will be tracked by
blockchain, allowing the company to track
every step, from the exact tree that an apple
came off to its placement in the store to the
consumer’s home.
Science fiction? For now, yes. But in the
near future, the tree fruit industry will see
a revolution unlike any other. Robots will
replace people at nearly every step of apple
production and distribution.
Automated and computerized sorters
and packing lines are already in use, allow-
ing greater volumes of fruit to be handled at
greater speed. Eventually, other steps will also
be automated and computerized, if they hav-
en’t already.
A key step toward this new era is robotic
apple pickers. Once seen as a combination of
Buck Rogers and pie in the sky, robotic pickers
are getting closer to commercialization.
The advantages are obvious. Apple growers
wolf committee.
Chairwoman Kim Thorburn told the
full commission on Oct. 18 that every
committee member was there, plus other
commissioners.
“We had a robust discussion among
the committee members and other com-
missioners about our concerns that it has
not been recognized in this current sort
of upheaval that recovery of wolves in
Washington has been highly successful.”
No minutes or recordings were kept.
We give commissioners the benefit
of the doubt that they are working in the
best interest of Washingtonians. But this
approach is wrong-headed.
The law says that if there are five or
more commissioners discussing public
business the meeting is public. By not fol-
lowing the rules the commission is help-
ing to erode the public’s trust in govern-
ment — the exact opposite of what the
law was intended to do.
have for years been struggling to find adequate
numbers of pickers. Many are forced to pay
exorbitant costs to bring in pickers from Mex-
ico and other countries and put them up in free
housing. They receive government-set wages
— and so do any domestic pickers that work
alongside them.
To simplify the system using robots would
represent a leap forward for the industry.
Added computerization and automation will
further reduce labor costs.
Currently, two companies are racing to per-
fect their robotic pickers. Abundant Robotics
of Hayward, Calif., and FFRobotics, an Israeli
company, both have working prototypes. They
have been field testing their machines this year
in New Zealand, Europe and Washington state.
While they develop and commercialize their
robots, other companies such as DBR Con-
veyor Concepts in Conklin, Mich., and Auto-
mated Ag Systems of Moses Lake, Wash., are
developing hybrid systems that help human
pickers do their jobs quicker and without hav-
ing to clamber up and down ladders.
Apple growers will not be alone in the
robotic era to come. Other fruits — oranges,
grapefruit and pears — plus crops such as let-
tuce, asparagus and even strawberries will be
picked, packed and transported to market.
Not long ago, the idea of picking berries
by machine was a game changer. Then came
grape harvesters. Then came other ideas —
including modifying berry harvesters to handle
apples for cider.
These innovations will not stop. As long
as the economics dictate, the robotic era will
continue.
GUEST
VIEW
John Dentler
Jeanne McKnight
want at a price they can afford.
We cannot harvest more wild
seafood. We must import our
seafood or, conversely, produce
more of it here in the U.S.
We believe Cooke’s proposal
and the Jamestown Tribe’s pro-
posal is in the best overall inter-
ests not just of the state but also
the rural communities where
family-wage jobs are desper-
ately needed.
That is not to say that aqua-
culture, like any human activity,
doesn’t have an environmen-
tal footprint, but we work hard
and must continue to work hard
to control, mitigate and reduce
that footprint. In fact, fish farm-
ing has the lowest environ-
mental footprint of any animal
production.
Aquaculture is also highly
regulated at the local, state and
federal level. Here are just a
few federal laws governing
“water farming:”
• Animal Health Protection
Act.
• Animal Medicinal Use
Drug Clarification Act.
• Clean Water Act.
• Coastal Zone Management
Act.
• Endangered Species Act.
• Federal Food Drug and
Cosmetic Act.
• Federal Insecticide, Fungi-
cide, and Rodenticide Act.
• Federal Water Pollution
Control Act (Clean Water Act).
• Lacey Act.
• Magnuson-Stevens Fish-
ery Conservation and Manage-
ment Act.
• Marine Mammal Protec-
tion Act.
• Migratory Bird Protection
Act.
• National Environmental
Policy Act.
• Outer Continental Shelf
Lands Act.
• Rivers and Harbors Act.
We invite those who are
interested in aquaculture, pro
or con, to contact us to identify
areas of mutual interest and to
discuss solutions that will ben-
efit the region, help its people,
including Tribal members, and
benefit from our shared marine
and aquatic environment.
It’s time for Washington and
the Northwest region to join the
Blue Revolution. Let’s work
together to make it happen.
John Dentler earned his JD
from Seattle University and
is president of the Northwest
Aquaculture Alliance www.
nwaquaculturealliance.org.
He is also a senior adviser to
Troutlodge, the world’s larg-
est producer of eyed trout eggs.
Jeanne McKnight, Ph.D., has
been involved in strategic com-
munications and public affairs
for 25 years, specializing in
fisheries and aquaculture, both
regionally and globally. She
currently serves as the execu-
tive director of NWAA.