July 9, 2018 — Anne Jardin-Maynard is an accountant. She doesn’t own a commercial fishing vessel. The New Bedford native works within an office on Centre Street.
Yet for more than seven months, a groundfishing ban implemented by NOAA has prevented Jardin-Maynard from receiving a paycheck. That doesn’t mean the owner of Jardin & Dawson, a settlement house, which handles payroll and accounting for fishing boats, has stopped working.
“If the boats aren’t fishing, how are we going to get paid,” Jardin-Maynard said.
NOAA announced the groundfishing ban at the end of last November as a result of Carlos Rafael falsifying fishing quota. It was also meant to delay operations for Sector IX, the fishing division where Rafael’s boats were associated, so it could draft provisions to prevent repeat offenses.
Since that time, though, the sector has assigned new board members multiple times, provisions have been drafted, and quota has been gathered as potential repayment, but the ban remains.
“I think they need to move it along,” said Jardin-Maynard, who is a new board member of Sector IX as well. “This has been a long time coming. The person that was involved in it (is penalized). It’s not fair for the other people to be involved in this. He’s paying his price.”
Rafael is serving a 46-month prison term in part for falsifying fishing records. While he serves his time in federal prison in Fort Devens, about 80 fishermen have been out of work sending a ripple effect throughout shoreside businesses from ice houses to processors to settlement houses.