The NORPEL story is not only a story about how overregulation can make it impossible for a responsible business to operate. It also is a story about unintended consequences and about how much we still do not know about migratory fish and what affects their populations.
NORPEL's trawlers haul herring and mackerel, mid-ocean species that are caught and sold to mostly overseas buyers.
There are two problems.
Mackerel have been hard to find and so the catch has been down dramatically. Whether that is a result of overfishing, climate or migratory change, or normal population fluctuations is unclear and in need of further study.
Meanwhile, the herring haul has been closed down because even though there are plenty of herring, the trawlers hauling that species often catch haddock at the same time.
And when the overly restrictive bycatch limit on haddock, whose stocks also are abundant, is reached, entire stretches of the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine are shut down.
NORPEL cannot process or sell fish it cannot catch or keep.
The company, the city and advocates for the fishing industry have pushed the New England Fisheries Management Council to loosen the limits on the haddock bycatch, but as is often the case with fisheries regulators, imminent economic disaster in fishing communities is often not enough to move them.
By now, everyone knows that federal fisheries law establishes that the economic impact on fishing communities is as important as environmental impact in the establishment and enforcement of fishing rules and regulations. To date, however, the big environmental lobbies have wielded their influence over policy setters far more successfully than the commercial fishing industry or fishing communities like New Bedford and Gloucester.
That is the primary argument included in a federal lawsuit on the matter, and we are confident that the industry ultimately will prevail in the courts.
In the meantime, however, it would be an act of good faith for the management council to move quickly on a loosening of the senselessly restrictive haddock bycatch limit — and to commission research into what has happened to mackerel stocks.
Read the complete editorial from the Standard Times.