Patrick's letter, dated Friday, marked the first reach to the president himself since Patrick and Massachusetts' congressional delegation last year began negotiations and lobbying efforts to recognize and respond to the economic hardships, including a "poorly planned transition to the 'catch shares' system," that the new regulatory regimen has wrought.

"That the governor is redoubling his effort on behalf of our fishing communities gives us a glimmer of hope that something might change yet," said Mayor Carolybn Kirk. "The circumstances require intervention by President Obama, and I applaud Governor Patrick for making good on the promise he made to Gloucester fishermen when he visited us this past fall." 

In his appeal, Patrick noted that the industry based in Gloucester and New Bedford employs 80,000 people in fisheries and shoreside businesses and generates $4.4 billion into the economy.

Patrick and the ports were rebuffed by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke earlier this month. The secretary swept aside as insufficient an economic and regulatory analysis of the impact of the catch share system linked to fishing cooperatives that found direct losses of approximately $20 million due to super-conservative allocations into the commodities market created for the groundfishery by the New England Fishery Management Council.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.