September 2, 2015 — BOSTON — Steering a course opposite from the recommendations that came out of Gloucester for spending the last pot of federal fishing disaster funds, elected officials from Cape Cod are urging Gov. Charlie Baker to recast the landings criteria so the approximately $6.5 million will be spread among all 200 boats in the state’s groundfish fleet.
That position most certainly will not be embraced by the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition and the city of Gloucester, whose separate recommendations to the state Division of Marine Fisheries call for landing criteria that would send the disaster aid money to Massachusetts-based groundfishermen who landed at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 — levels that could exclude fishermen on Cape Cod who have scaled back from catching groundfish.
The Cape Cod effort comes just as the process for determining how to distribute the so-called Bin 3 money is about to close, with the public hearings completed, the period for public comment elapsed, and the advisory group established by the state to help draft a distribution plan set to meet for the final time on Friday in New Bedford.
Why the change?
The last-minute attempt to recast the criteria flows from the decisions by many Cape Cod fishermen, operating under shrunken quotas for cod, to shift their focus to catching other species such as dogfish, skate and monkfish.
But that business decision, some lawmakers worry, could be jeopardizing the fishermen’s ability to qualify for the last pot of federal disaster relief funding being dispersed by the Baker administration to help offset the hit to their livelihoods from declining fish populations.