I MONDAY, April 9, 2001
Though
commercial
The annual average for
fishing fatalities in Alaska
is at about 17.
By Peggy Andersen
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SEATTLE Commercial fishermen know
theirs is one of the most dangerous profes
sions, especially in the winter off Alaska
but they go to sea anyway.
"It's in the blood," Steve Custodio said
with a shrug at Fisherman's Terminal in
Salmon Bay before heading out to fish for
black cod in the Bering Sea. "You cuss your
self out but you keep going back"
"There's an excitement that you can't
understand till you're out there," said David
W. Rundall, whose son David, 34, was skipper
of the fishing boat Arctic Rose.
The 92-foot vessel vanished in the Bering
Sea off Alaska on April 2.
Of 15 people on board, Rundall's son is the
only one whose body was recovered.
He had pulled on his survival suit, but it
wasn't fully zipped against water that is
around 34 degrees this time of year.
"I think people either fall in love with it or
they're scared to death and never want to set
foot in one of those boats again," said the
senior Rundall, of West Seattle.
"People will tell you hair-raising stories
and they'll be smiling," he said.
His son spared the family his stories, "but
I heard from his friends. The close calls and
things."
According to the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, commercial
fishermen are 30 times more likely to die on
the job than the average American worker.
Although the annual average for fishing
fatalities in Alaska is around 17 down from
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a dangerous job,
fisherman love it
a high of 33 in 1992 the sinking of the Arc
tic Rose earlier this month has already
brought this year's total to 17, said Coast
Guard Lt. Cmdr. Ernie Morton, a marine
safety official in Juneau, Alaska.
"A lot of people come up here ... to test
themselves against the sea. There is always
going to be an element of danger," he said
about the job.
Winter on the Bering Sea can produce 50-
foot seas, 100-knot wind and wind chill of 40
below zero. Waves crashing on deck can fill a
boat or short out vital electrical gear.
Ice forming on a boat's superstructure and
gear can make ships so top-heavy they cap
size. And the weather can combine with
mechanical problems, such as failed bilge
pumps.
"One little failing is not going to cause a
boat to sink, but it could cause a cascade of
failures that could ultimately be catastroph
ic," said Jonathan Parrott, director of engi
neering for Jensen Maritime, a Seattle
marine engineering company.
"If a little leak springs up in the hull, if
your bilge pumps are working, it's no big
deal but if they're not, then heaven help
you."
In addition to all that, fishermen can be
maimed or killed by big hooks, heavy deck
gear or the equipment used to process the
catch.
"It's relentless," said Bernie Fernandez,
42, of Bellingham, who was paying his
respects to the crew of the Arctic Rose at the
Fishermen's Memorial, a wall bearing the
names of the hundreds of Seattle fishermen
lost at sea since 1900.
Fernandez fished in the 1980 s and '9os out
of Petersburg, Alaska, until his family had
enough.
"When you went out on the Bering Sea,
you knew you were among the elite," he said.
"You had to be the best or you didn't come
home."
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Stevan Morgain/Associated Press
Fisherman Marcos Carmona lights three candles at the foot of the Fisherman's Memorial at
Fisherman's Terminal in honor of his friends aboard the missing vessel, Arctic Rose.
The cause of the Arctic Rose's sinking isn't
known. Its automatic emergency locator bea
con began broadcasting at 3:30 a.m., when
the weather was relatively calm for the
Bering Sea: 6- to 8-foot seas and wind blow
ing at 25 knots.
"It had to have happened very quickly,"
and the crew members likely were asleep
below decks, the elder Rundall said.
Rescuers found David Rundall, a few
empty survival suits, an empty raft and an oil
sheen. Another body was spotted but lost.
"This was his last trip," the father said.
"Being away from his family it got to be
too much for him. ... His wife found him a
tanker job, traveling on a big safe ship."
Oversight of the industry is slim.
Fishing vessels under 5,000 tons "are what
we call uninspected vessels," Morton said.
The industry is exempt from minimum
wage requirements and gets only spotty
attention from the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration.
Standards set by the Fishing Vessel Safety
Act of 1991 only apply to boats built since
then, but "we don't see many of those," Mor-
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ton said about those fishing boats.
"We get a lot of exemption requests," he
said, which sometimes come with political
pressure.
Most vessels submit to voluntary dockside
inspections for safety gear and training. The
Coast Guard wants such inspections to be
mandatory.
"No amount of regulation can eliminate
the risk," said Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash.,
who worries about the adequacy of the Coast
Guard budget this year, especially with
recent fuel price increases.
People in the industry said the owner of
the Arctic Rose, Dave Olney of Arctic Sole
Seafoods, treated his crews well and worked
in the off season to maintain the company's
two boats, the Arctic Rose and its sister ship,
the Alaskan Rose.
His brother, Mike, was engineer on the
Arctic Rose when it vanished, and Dave
Olney himself skippered the vessel until
three weeks ago.
"I figure if the owner's going out there,
they've got to have confidence in the boat,"
the elder Rundall said.
THE DAILY COLLEGIAN
Congress
to receive
full budget
By Martin Crutsinger
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON, D.C. With President
Bush preparing to release the point-by
point details of how his $1.96 trillion budg
et would rein in government spending,
Vice President Dick Cheney said yester
day that Bush will not hesitate to veto
spending bills he considers that are too
excessive.
Democrats, still celebrating an initial
victory in trimming Bush's tax cut, await
ed today's release of the full budget so
they could see which government pro
grams were targeted for some deep
reductions.
They said opposition to those proposed
cuts will help as they seek to hold the line
on the administration's $1.6 trillion, 10-
year tax cut.
In Bush's first major defeat, the Senate
last week voted to reduce the tax cut by
one-quarter, to $1.2 trillion, an action that
must now be reconciled with a House res
olution endorsing the president's original
request.
"When people see the budget, they're
going to say, 'Oh, my God, I wanted a tax
cut, but I didn't know what you were going
to do to health care and to Medicare and
national defense,' " Sen. John Breaux, D-
La., said on ABC's This Week.
Cheney defended the administration's
budget decisions, arguing that spending
has gotten out of control since 1998 when
the first of a series of budget surpluses
began.
"This president is eager to veto appro
priations that come in over budget,"
Cheney said.