Fish Management Chemicals Committee
The (FMCC) Fish Management Chemicals Committee is a special AFS committee that serves at the pleasure of the society’s President. Its duties include overseeing and providing instruction for the Rotenone Training Course and maintaining and updating the Rotenone SOP Manual and the Rotenone Stewardship Program website. The origin of the FMCC can be traced back to the 1980s when the use of rotenone for fish control became controversial. Fish control projects, especially those involving chemicals, have and continue to be a hard sell to the public due to perceived human health and environmental concerns associated with putting chemicals in water and the killing of fish. The public received little information from the responsible agencies on the treatments and many agencies were blind-sighted by the public’s growing interest and discontent with fish control chemicals. Water quality control agencies began to restrict rotenone treatments and the public began challenging these projects during the permitting process and in state and federal court, and sometimes sought legislative relief.
In an attempt to address this disturbing trend, AFS held two symposia at the Western Division Meeting and the Annual Meeting in 1991. The message from these meetings was that if these concerns were not addressed, it was likely that these fish management chemicals would be lost. The common thread tying these controversial projects together was their lack of standardized methods for planning and executing projects. AFS responded by creating the FMCC and its members from various federal and state fish and wildlife agencies began compiling and revising administrative and technical procedures for rotenone in 1998. The FMCC received a Federal Aid grant which funded the publication of the Rotenone Use Manual in 2000. In 2007 following the reregistration process for rotenone, the USEPA developed new label restrictions and risk mitigation measures for the applicator, the public and the environment. With the assistance of another Federal Aid grant and biologists from over 2 dozen agencies the Rotenone Use Manual was rewritten and reformatted to the AFS Rotenone SOP Manual in 2010. That manual was recently updated in 2018 with new information and procedures. The manual is considered pesticide labeling and is used as a textbook for the AFS Rotenone Training Course.
To facilitate better communication among fishery professionals, the FMCC since 2000 has organized symposia at AFS National Meetings beginning with St. Louis (2000). This was followed by symposia in Baltimore (2002), Anchorage (2005), San Francisco (2007), Seattle (2011), Portland (2015), and most recently Atlantic City (2018). Discussion themes have included assessing impacts from piscicides, new techniques, environmental regulations, interaction with the public, and environmental tradeoffs. The FMCC has written editorials and articles on various rotenone and piscicide topics that are published periodically in Fisheries. The FMCC developed the Rotenone Training Class in 2003, providing training to over 400 fishery professionals, which is taught annually in mid-May at Utah State University, Logan. In an effort to provide real time communication among those who use rotenone, the FMCC in cooperation with Central Life Sciences developed the Rotenone Stewardship Website. We hope you find it useful.
Current Members of the Fish Management Chemicals Committee
Brian Finlayson, Co-Chair
California Department of Fish and Game (retired)
2271 Los Trampas
Camino, CA 95709
(530) 957-0333 (c)
briankarefinlayson@att.net
Don Skaar, Co-Chair
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (retired)
1420 East 6th Ave
Helena, MT 59620
(406) 444-7409
(406) 465-6135 (c)
Julie Carter
Arizona Game and Fish Department
5000 West Carefree Hwy
Phoenix, AZ 85086
(623) 236-7576
jcarter@azgfd.gov
Dan Duffield
USDA Forest Service (retired)
3605 East 3300 West
Liberty, UT 84310
(801) 710-5821 (c)
djduffield@gmail.com
Mark Flammang
Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Rathbun Fish Hatchery
15053 Hatchery Pl
Moravia, IA 52571
(641) 647-2406
(641) 895-2327 (c)
mark.flammang@dnr.iowa.gov
Chad Jackson
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
1550 Alder Street NW
Ephrata, WA 98837
(509) 754-4624 ext. 250
(425) 231-0134 (c)
Chad.Jackson@dfw.wa.gov
Matt Kulp
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
107 Park Headquarters Rd
Gatlinburg, TN 37738
Attn: Fisheries
(865) 436-1254
matt_kulp@nps.gov
Robert Massengill
Alaska Department of Fish and Game
43961 Kalifornsky Beach Road, Suite B
Soldotna, AK
(907) 260-2928
robert.massengill@alaska.gov
Joe Overlock
Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife
284 State St, SHS 41
Augusta ME 04333
(207) 287-5022
Joe.Overlock@maine.gov
Jarle Steinkjer
Norwegian Environment Agency
P.O. Box 5672 Sluppen
NO-7485 Trondheim, Norway
+47 934 54 195 (c)
jarle.steinkjer@miljodir.no
Roger Wilson
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (retired)
1347 So. Hoytsville Rd
Coalville, UT 84017
(435) 503-1086 (c)
rogerbwilson1@gmail.com