June 28, 2016 — New England fishermen got a piece of good news last week when the federal government agreed to pay for a large portion of the cost of its at-sea monitoring of the actions of the industry fleet.
But let us be clear — it is only a bit of good news. There is much more work to be done before the monitoring efforts can be considered fair to cash-strapped fishermen and successful from an information-gathering standpoint.
The at-sea monitoring program, run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, places observers on fishing vessels to record details of their catch and make sure government regulations are being strictly followed.
The program is far from perfect. The regulations are at worst byzantine and contradictory, and at best merely confusing. The quality and experience of observers varies greatly, and extra people on the deck of a fishing vessel can add to safety concerns in what is already a dangerous profession. And then there’s the cost — about $710 a trip, by some estimates.
For months, NOAA was insisting fishermen pay the cost of monitoring, which surely would have bankrupted some of the vessel owners. It would be like paying to have a state trooper sit in the back of your car to make sure you weren’t speeding.
Fishermen and their elected officials lobbied for months to get the federal government to pick up the costs, and last week NOAA capitulated. The agency will reimburse fishermen for up to 85 percent of monitoring costs.