[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 111 (Friday, August 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1602-E1603]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ZEKE GRADER--ENVIRONMENTAL HERO

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. NANCY PELOSI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 6, 1998

  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, Vice President Gore recently honored William 
F. Grader, Jr.--Zeke to his many friends--with the presentation of an 
Environmental Hero Award. This award, by the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is particularly meaningful as we 
celebrate the International Year of the Ocean.
  Zeke Grader has been an environmental leader in the San Francisco Bay 
Area community for many years and has always stood firm in his 
conviction that sustainable fisheries could be an achievable goal on 
the Pacific Coast. His efforts on behalf of fishery restoration and 
sustainable fishing practices set an example for our government and for 
coastal communities throughout America.
  Zeke was responsible for creating the Pacific Coast Federation of 
Fishermen in 1976 and he has served as its Executive Director since 
that time. His leadership at the Federation has resulted in the 
implementation of federal safeguards to bring greater protection to our 
marine resources and to restore weakened fisheries.
  The human hand on the environment has been anything but gentle. By 
1997, one third of U.S. marine fisheries were overfished, costing the 
U.S. economy $25 billion and coastal communities thousands of jobs. In 
managing our U.S. fisheries, the effect has been evident in the loss of 
salmon in the Pacific Northwest,

[[Page E1603]]

including northern California, lake trout in the Great Lakes, oysters 
in the Chesapeake Bay, cod in the Georges Bank; and these are only a 
few examples of the great loss worldwide in fisheries depletion.
  At a time when the reports about ``scorched earth fishing'' are so 
alarming, it is heartening to know that individuals like Zeke are 
making such an important contribution to preserve fishing stocks and to 
seek solutions to reverse this aspect of our planet's deterioration. 
For the 22 years Zeke has been head of the Pacific Coast Federation of 
Fishermen, he has been responsible for sounding the alarm on 
overfishing along the north Coast and for striving to bring about 
improvements to sustain our marine resources.
  These concerns are very important to the San Francisco Bay Area where 
healthy fisheries depend on healthy habitats in the wetlands and waters 
of our great delta and estuary that feed into the Pacific Ocean. Zeke 
has been an extraordinary leader and we are grateful for his dedication 
to the environment, and particularly to its marine resources. We are 
all beneficiaries of his great efforts in support of a strong and 
sustainable environment. Zeke is one of those rare leaders who we will 
look to for guidance on our troubled waters in the next century.

                          ____________________