NEW BEDFORD — March 14, 2011 – After 10 months of filing cross-motions and writing memoranda, attorneys in the city's lawsuit against the U.S. commerce secretary over fishing regulations will go into a Boston courtroom Tuesday.
U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel will hear arguments from both sides asking for summary judgment in the case, with the U.S. government asking that the case be thrown out, and the cities of New Bedford and Gloucester asking that Amendment 16 to the Magnuson-Stevens Act be compelled to comply with the requirements of the law.
That would include a proper analysis of the effects of management changes on port communities, along with a better system of allocating fish.
"'The repercussions would be severe.' That's no analysis at all," said Pamela Lafreniere, who represents New Bedford in the case. Gloucester attorney Stephen Ouellette will make the actual presentation on Tuesday.
There is also a question of whether the fishery should have voted in a referendum before Amendment 16 was put into place.
Amendment 16, imposed as of May 1, radically changed the way groundfishing is regulated in the Northeast. Gone was the "days at sea" system of restricting fishing effort (with the exception of a handful of boats). New was the "sector management" system and catch shares — along with allocations so low that half the fleet had to stop fishing.
Catch shares and sectors, as predicted, delivered a body blow to the fishing ports, with some boats (the top 10 percent) doing well at the expense of the rest, according to data examined by UMass Dartmouth.
Months of political pressure and appeals for relief have been met with total rejection by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and everyone in his department. Gov. Deval Patrick appealed to President Obama for his intervention, but after six weeks, there has been no response — at least, none that has been made public. Patrick did not return calls seeking comment for this report.
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