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SALEM, Oregon (AP) – Commercial crabbers from Oregon and California have filed lawsuits against 30 fossil fuel companies, claiming that they were at the root of climate change, which had harmed their sector.
The Federation of Pacific Coast Fishermen's Associations filed a lawsuit last week in the California State Superior Court in San Francisco against companies such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil, media reports said.
"The scientific link between the burning of fossil fuels and the warming of the oceans, which causes domoic acid effects on our fisheries, is clear," said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Federation of Pacific Fishermen's Associations. at the San Francisco Chronicle. "We know it and it's time to hold the industry accountable for the damage done."
Crabbers on the west coast experienced significant losses starting in the 2015-2016 season, when the proliferation of algae caused by warm temperatures in the ocean caused an epidemic of domoic acid that reduced the length of the crab season.
The season was interrupted again in 2016-17 for the same reason.
In California, Dungeness crab has raised more than $ 47 million in 2017 and $ 83 million in 2016; the amount had dropped to $ 17 million in 2015, during the first major problem of the domoic acid of the industry.
Crab is the most valuable species commercial fishery in Oregon, with an average harvest of 16 million pounds per season, reported the Statesman Journal of Salem, Oregon.
There are nearly 1,000 sleeping crab license holders in California and Oregon.
Scott J. Silvestri, head of corporate media relations at Exxon Mobil Corp., said in an email to the Chronicle that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global problem that requires participation and global stocks.
"The lawsuits of this type – brought by litigators against an industry that provides products that we all rely on to fuel the economy and allow our domestic life – just do not do it," he said. declared.
In California, the cities of San Francisco and Oakland also filed lawsuits against five oil companies earlier this year, seeking to recover the cost of building dikes anti-elevation. A federal judge threw these lawsuits in June, saying the courts could not decide who should be held accountable for an issue as important as climate change.
In October, the Federation of Pacific Coast Fishermen's Associations filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Association to protect salmon and rainbow trout populations in the Columbia Basin from warm temperatures water caused by dams and climate change.
– The Associated Press
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