APHIS REVERSES COURSE ON IMPLEMENTING NEW VHS RULES
Announce Indefinite Delay
By: Lynn W. Burry
On September 9, 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service (APHIS) published new interim rules that would
have serious impacts on the interstate movement and importation of certain
live fish within the eight Great Lakes states. The rules were to take effect
on November 10, 2008. These rules mandated additional and significant costly
testing and permitting requirements. The intent was to prevent the further
spread of Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia or VHS, as it is commonly known.
Sadly the new rules lacked scientific merit, failed to acknowledge the root
cause of the disease’s origin in the Great Lakes and did nothing to address
Point of Source (POS) pollution. Discharged ballast water from commercial
shipping is a prime example of POS pollution and can easily spread this
water-borne disease.
All Great Lakes basin DNR game fish hatcheries and rearing stations and
stocking programs, along with the private game fish rearing and stocking
programs, aquiculture farms and the live bait industry would have been
adversely impacted by this unfunded federal mandate.
On January 2, 2009, in what seems like an all too rare decision by any
federal agency, APHIS reversed itself and published this comment in the
Federal Register. “We are now delaying the effective date of the interim
rule indefinitely to provide APHIS with time to make some adjustments to the
interim rule that are necessary for the rule to be successfully
implemented.”
A spokesman for the Northeastern Indiana Trout Association welcomed the news
stating, “This is great news. We can now move forward with our plans to
release Brown Trout in the Pigeon River and northeast Indiana lakes. Had
this rule gone into effect as written, the additional costs would have
seriously impacted our continuing efforts to provide Brown Trout for Indiana
anglers.” He further stated, “We all agree the spread of VHS is a serious
threat to bait and game fish. However, reasonable rules based on science
that identify and regulate all the possible ways this disease can be spread
are what the resource needs. Anything less than that will not work.”
