Led by the cities of New Bedford and Gloucester — and including industry groups and fishermen as far away as North Carolina — the plaintiffs filed suit immediately after the catch share system took effect, arguing the approach, pushed by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, met the statutory definition of a limited-access program with individual fishing quota.

The 2006 re-authorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act included a provision insuring that industries not be drawn unwillingly into so-called LAPPS or IFQs, which use formulas to distribute catching rights — or catch shares — among fishermen and fishing companies who trade, lease, buy and sell among themselves while the dispossessed or marginalized in the allocation of the fishery disappear.

NOAA insists in its response that what it created for New England was a system that allowed fishermen to continue working the old way, if they wished, obviating the need for referendum.

Magnuson-Stevens requires a two-thirds majority vote of permit-holders within the existing fishery to unlock the gears that can transform traditional fisheries into catch share formats.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times.