Politicians and public leaders are quick to promise that they will bring more jobs to Maine and get our economy moving. They expressed outrage and concern recently when Kestrel Aircraft decided to locate hundreds of new jobs in Wisconsin instead of the former Brunswick Naval Air Station.
But where was our Congressional delegation, the governor or members of the Legislature when regulators met recently in South Portland to reconsider this season’s devastating shrimp quota? What did they do to help save a $70 million industry that employs thousands of people up and down Maine’s coast?
There were hundreds of shrimp fishermen at the hearing, along with processors and dealers, all hoping that the regulators would listen to science and common sense and give us a chance to make a decent living during these cold winter months. More than 1,500 fishing families had signed an online petition at saveourshrimp.org urging the regulators to take a hard look at the science that argued strongly in favor of a bigger shrimp stock and a longer season.
Instead, with no help from our elected officials, the regulators turned their back on us and refused to raise this year’s shrimp quota to a reasonable — and scientifically defensible — level. That means that hundreds of fishermen will be out of work this winter. It means that processors who have invested millions of dollars to improve their facilities will send their workers home and idle their plants. It means that valuable overseas markets for Maine shrimp could be lost for years to come and will likely be replaced by shrimp from Canada and China.
Read the complete opinion piece from Bangor Daily News