Troll Lawsuit
Dear Editor: Well, what goes around, comes around. I am a seiner and I have to say seiners and gillnetters are not the same as trollers.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s there was a big push by the fishing industry to stop the timber industry. The executive directors of all three groups were big environmentalists and they did their best to try to convince fishermen that loggers were terrible people.
In 1989 I met my wife and she worked for ALP. I would occasionally fly out to logging camps and meet some really good people. I started to wonder why the fishing executive directors were trying so hard to convince us fishermen that loggers and pulp mill workers were all bad people.
I started talking to some other fishermen about and the seiners and gillnetters started getting new executive directors and stopped going down that path. Then, to my surprise, a troller here in town says they were big allies of environmental groups and now they’re coming after them.
And it’s not fair because they were supposed to be friends. Well, 35 years ago loggers and the big guys at the mill, Frank Roppel and George Woodbury, said to me that fishermen would be next. I always wondered about that and all of a sudden, this troller says it was like a plan that went wrong in the end.
You know, a lot of really good people had to leave town. The trollers and environmental groups brought so many lawsuits against the mill that they closed, and the trollers were happy. So, what goes around comes around. Maybe the trollers can pull this through the courts, but there will be more. Maybe we will be next, but at least we were never tricked by the environmentalists so we might find some friends in other industries.
Mike Svenson, Sitka
Thank You, CGS&WA
Dear Editor: Brave Heart Volunteers would like thank the Coast Guard Spouses’ and Women’s Association for awarding a grant to Brave Heart Volunteers for $753.75. We are so grateful for these funds, which will help with updating our volunteer records.
Thank you again to the CGS&WA and all their members. We appreciate everything you do for BHV and our community.
Angie DelMoral, Executive Director
Brave Heart Volunteers
