AUGUSTA, Maine — April 29, 2013 — Having been denied permission to land lobsters, members of Maine’s groundfish industry are saying they may have to consider moving or expanding their businesses further south.
South Portland resident Marty Odlin, whose family owns and operates three groundfish boats, said the bill’s defeat in committee was not unexpected, given the influence that the lobster trap fishery has in Augusta and throughout the state.
“No one is surprised,” he said last week in an email.
Odlin had said before the vote that his family and all the crew members on their boats live in Maine but, if LD 1097 were defeated, they likely would pick up and move their lives to Gloucester. He argued, unsuccessfully, that dragged lobsters caught offshore tend to be good quality, hard-shell lobsters that sell on the live lobster market for a higher per-pound price than softshell lobsters that are caught in traps closer to shore.
With the bill’s defeat, Odlin said it makes no sense to continue living in Maine when his livelihood in more viable in Massachusetts.
“Looks like we are moving the company down to Gloucester,” Odlin said.
Ray Swenton, board president of the Portland Fish Exchange, on Monday said that the committee’s vote was “short-sighted” and “narrow-minded.” While stressing that he was speaking only for himself and not the board, Swenton said the bill was supported by Gov. Paul LePage, the Maine Department of Marine Resources, and some members of the Legislature because it made economic sense.
The amount of lobster caught as bycatch by groundfish boats is only one-tenth of one percent of Maine’s trap fishery, which caught a record volume of 126 million pounds in 2012, Swenton said. Allowing those lobsters to be landed in Maine would not make a dent in the state’s $339 million lobster trap fishery.
“It will further devastate [groundfish landings] in the state of Maine,” Swenton said of the bill’s defeat. “It’s protectionism at its worst.”
Swenton, who co-owns and operates the Bristol Seafood processing firm in Portland, said he was not considering moving his business and its 75 employees out of Maine. But he did say the Legislature needs to do more to make Maine more business-friendly.
“I would look at Massachusetts for an expansion before I looked at Maine,” he said.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News