SavingSeaFood - Feds to visit Seabrook fishermen's cooperative

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Feds to visit Seabrook fishermen's cooperative

"I hope this isn't the Commerce Department paying lip service to the (federal) legislators who are pressuring them," Campbell said. "But we'll be cooperating with them in every way we can. We're going to try to explain to them that it's not just the fishermen who will suffer. It's the guys who sell the ice, the guys who sell the fuel and the boat electronics; it's the welders and all those who service the industry who suffer. The negative economic effect of all these boats going out of businesses is amazing. The trickle-down effect is going to really have a tremendous negative impact."

In February, New Hampshire First District Congressman Frank Guinta, R-Manchester, met with fishermen in Seabrook to hear their concerns. Guinta believes too much government regulation has resulted in a crisis for the state's fishermen, and time is running out to make repairs.

Although still skeptical, the leadership at Yankee Fisherman's Cooperative was pleased to hear that federal officials will visit to identify the economic challenges facing local fishermen.

Seabrook is one of six Northeastern commercial fishing ports — along with Gloucester; New Bedford; Portland, Maine; Point Judith, R.I.; and Montauk, N.Y. — to be singled out for visits. Seabrook's co-op is the only remaining commercial fishing cooperative in the state, and manager Bob Campbell said the list of ports indicates Seabrook was most likely chosen because it lands the most commercial fish in the Granite State.

No money has been pledged at this time to help the beleaguered small commercial fishermen so hard hit by the new federal catch-share fishing limits imposed about a year ago, nor has there been the promise of fishing regulatory relief. But the hope is that with federal economic development experts — and not federal fishing regulators — looking into the issue at fishing ports from the bottom up, the result could benefit the region's 400-year-old commercial fishing industry.

Read the complete story from The Daily News of Newburyport.

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May 22, 2012 - Listening to the New England Council's Groundfish Advisory Panel talk about how that industry is going to pay for monitoring costs is kind of like trying to figure out how to pay your bills when you've just lost your job. Though monitoring is important keeping costs down is critical. As Panel Member Gary Libby pointed out, "If we had 100 percent monitoring we probably wouldn't have an industry."

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