Saving Seafood

Justice asks for details in fish monitoring suit

June 15, 2016 — The final judgment in New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel’s federal lawsuit against NOAA Fisheries concerning at-sea monitoring will be further delayed after the judge in the case requested additional briefs and memoranda from both sides.

“In consideration of the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment and conducting the attending legal research, the court has identified points, authorities and (to some extent) arguments that were unfortunately not cited or raised by the parties’ legal memoranda,” U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Laplante wrote in his procedural order.

Prior to ordering the supplemental filings, Laplante, who sits in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, held a June 9 conference call with attorneys to discuss “whether, and the extent to which, any delay caused by additional briefing would increase, extend or intensify any claimed economic hardship” from the federal mandate shifting the costs of at-sea monitoring to the industry.

“Counsel assured the court that neither party had objections or reservations in this regard with respect to additional briefing,” Laplante wrote in the order issued June 10. “The court therefore orders counsel to supplement their arguments in support of their summary judgment motions.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Federal judge orders more briefs in Goethel lawsuit

June 14, 2016 — The final judgment in New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel’s federal lawsuit over at-sea monitoring will be further delayed after the judge in the case requested additional briefs from both sides.

“In consideration of the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment and conducting the attending legal research, the court has identified points, authorities and (to some extent) arguments that were unfortunately not cited or raised by the parties’ legal memoranda,” U.S. District Court Judge Joseph N. Laplante wrote in his procedural order.

Prior to ordering the new briefs, Laplante, who sits in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, held a June 9 conference call with attorneys to discuss “whether, and the extent to which, any delay caused by additional briefing would increase, extend or intensify any claimed economic hardship” from the federal mandate shifting the costs of at-sea monitoring to the industry.

“Counsel assured the court that neither party had objections or reservations in this regard with respect to additional briefing,” Laplante wrote in the order issued June 10. “The court therefore orders counsel to supplement their arguments in support of their summary judgment motions.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

No ruling yet in at-sea monitoring lawsuit

May 17, 2016 — There still has been no decision in the federal lawsuit brought by New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel and his Northeast Fishing Sector 13 to bar NOAA Fisheries from making permit holders pay for at-sea monitoring.

The last significant acts of the case, which was filed Dec. 9 in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, occurred in early March, when both sides filed motions for summary judgment with U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Laplante.

Laplante took those motions for summary judgment under advisement. Then, except for a few incidents of legal housekeeping, there has been nothing but judicial silence.

Neither side in the dispute agreed to speak on the record Monday regarding the extensive delay or what it could mean to the case’s ultimate outcome.

“We believe that the hearing went well,” Alfred Lechner Jr., president and chief executive officer of Cause of Action Institute — which is providing legal guidance to Goethel in the case — said in a statement. “Our clients were provided the opportunity to tell their story and outline how these regulations impact their business and are making it difficult for fishermen in New England to earn a living. The judge listened to what they had to say.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

New England’s Commercial Fishermen Worried About Sustainability of Fishing Communities

April 28, 2016 — PROVIDENCE, RI — Fishermen, scientists and interested citizens gathered in mid-April at Rhode Island College for a panel discussion about whether commercial fishing is, or can be, sustainable.

The panel consisted of six speakers who discussed the current state of fish populations within U.S. waters, climate change and its impact on fish stocks, and the current rules and regulations imposed on commercial fishermen. The discussion was often heated, and it was obvious that the fishermen, both on the panel and in the audience, weren’t happy with current catch quotas and monitoring regulations.

Panelist John Bullard, the northeast regional administrator of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said commercial fishing is “definitely sustainable.” But fishermen David Goethel and Mark Phillips, also on the panel, believe the more important question to explore is if fishing communities are sustainable. Both fishermen said that between catch quotas and the crippling expenses fishermen have to face both to run their boats and pay catch monitors, makes fishing as a way of life all but impossible.

“The smell of fish is gone, replaced by burnt coffee,” Phillips said about the traditional fishing docks of New England.

NOAA regulates the fishing industry, and both Phillips and Goethel are involved in a lawsuit against the federal agency regarding the costs incurred by New England fishermen who now have to pay monitors about $700 a day to be on their boats.

Read the full story at ecoRInews

RHODE ISLAND: Fishermen-heavy crowd shows frustration with catch rules, monitoring costs at RI forum

April 14, 2016 — PROVIDENCE, RI — A forum on the sustainability of the commercial fishing industry revealed significant frustration in a fisherman-heavy crowd and a few suggestions for future changes, but little tangible optimism, Thursday night at Rhode Island College.

“Right now, there are more fish in the Atlantic Ocean than there was 20 or 30 years ago — we are just not allowed to catch them anymore,” said fisherman Mark Phillips, a New York native who has fished out of New Bedford for several decades.

Phillips and New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel, who sued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in December over catch monitoring costs, were the two fishermen on the forum’s six-person panel.

They drew, by far, the most applause from the crowd throughout the event, as both reiterated industry-wide complaints about a regulatory environment that fishermen say is choking their viability.

The forum was titled, “Is Commercial Fishing Sustainable?” But Phillips said the real question, in his view, is whether fishermen and fishing communities are sustainable.

See the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Fishermen look to replace human monitors with cameras

April 4, 2016 — The program, slated to begin next month, will include about 20 boats, roughly 10 percent of the region’s active groundfishing fleet, and will require fishermen to use sophisticated software, maintain cameras through the harsh conditions at sea, and submit to constant electronic scrutiny.

That has made some fishermen, who say their boats are like homes, uneasy.

They worry about losing their privacy and whether the footage could become public.

“Our bathrooms are buckets out on deck. I do not want some person counting how much toilet paper I use when I go to the head,” said David Goethel, who fishes cod out of Hampton, N.H.

Goethel sued NOAA last year for requiring fishermen to assume the costs of the observer program, which he said were too expensive and would put many of his colleagues out of business. The agency had previously covered the costs, but officials said they could no longer afford to subsidize the $3 million program.

See the full story at the Boston Globe

At-sea monitoring fees are the latest threat to New Hampshire’s dwindling fishing industry

April 1, 2016 — Working as both a biologist and a fisherman, David Goethel brings a unique perspective to the state and federal fishery management boards he’s an adviser on. 

“I’ve spent all my life acting as a translator because they speak all different languages,” says Goethel, who worked as a research biologist at the New England Aquarium before he became the owner and operator of the Ellen Diane, a 44-foot fishing trawler based out of Hampton. 

But the most recent disconnect between the factions has resulted in Goethel and other groundfishermen filing a federal lawsuit. 

After delaying the regulation for years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is now requiring groundfishermen to pay for the at-sea monitoring program — at a cost of an average $710 per trip, conducted at random. The monitoring is done to ensure that the fishermen adhere to groundfish catch quotas set in May 2010 by the New England Fishery Management Council, under NOAA. (Groundfish include cod, haddock and other common bottom-dwelling species.) 

Read the full story at the New Hampshire Business Review

DAVID GOETHEL: Should catch share management be indicted?

March 16, 2016 — According to accusations from Federal investigators, the seafood business run by Carlos Rafael “laundered” fish to evade quotas, sold fish for cash to evade taxes, and cheated captains and crews by paying them for lower-valued fish than what they landed. These are serious criminal accusations, but they also raise a disturbing question: Is the system known as “catch shares” at least in part responsible for what occurred?

Catch shares are a system of managing fish where fishermen are given fixed quota for each species, which they can either catch or lease. All legal fish must be retained, and the quota cannot be exceeded. According to proponents of the system, giving fishermen economic incentive not to exceed limits will promote sustainability.

Fifty-three million dollars has been spent implementing catch shares in New England. Since implementation, the NOAA regional office moved into a new four-story building with room to accommodate all the new hires and subcontractors maintaining the program, while environmental non-governmental organizations have wrung millions from their multimillionaire donors to run a relentless promotional public relations campaign. A cottage industry of companies, consultants, and academic institutions has received millions in grants to implement, monitor, and study catch shares. Meanwhile, most fishermen and their families, other than a handful of winners, have been eliminated from the fishery or reduced to near bankruptcy.

As a fisherman, you either work or you don’t eat. The people running Mr. Rafael’s boats essentially became modern-day sharecroppers. The exorbitant cost of leasing quota was deducted from their share of the catch, and, as of March 1, they are additionally responsible for the cost of government-mandated monitoring. Mr. Rafael also allegedly told the captains how to fill out their logbooks so that his fish-laundering scheme could operate. The captains, who signed the logbooks under penalty of perjury, had a choice: Sign, or do not eat.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishermen need Mass. Attorney General Maura Healey’s help

March 2, 2016 — When touring the North Shore a year and a half ago, then-candidate for attorney general Maura Healey made it a point to mention her family ties to Gloucester, Newburyport and the region’s fishing industry. The implication was that, if elected, fishermen would have a powerful ally on Beacon Hill, or at the very least someone who understood the unique difficulties facing the industry.

Now, Healey is well into her second year as attorney general, and it is time to make good on her promise to protect the industry from federal overreach.

We are talking specifically about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s at-sea monitoring program, which places observers on fishing vessels to record details of their catch and make sure the federal government’s byzantine regulations are strictly followed.

The most galling aspect of the program, however, is the requirement that fishermen pay for their overseers. By some estimates, the cost could run as high as $710 a trip. Fishermen are already on a razor’s edge; forcing them to pay out and extra several hundred dollars a trip will undoubtedly kill off many of these small businesses for good.

Last week, state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante and state Sen. Bruce Tarr reached out to Healey, asking for her help.

“We request that your office explore all appropriate legal means to support our fishing families and ports through vehicles such as the current pending case,” they wrote in a letter to Healey, referring to a lawsuit filed by fisherman David Goethel in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire aimed at stopping the mandatory monitoring. “We are interested in Mr. Goethel’s plight because his situation is comparable to that of fishermen and Gloucester and the statewide fishing industry.”

Read the full opinion piece at Gloucester Daily Times

Fishing Monitor Program Suspended and Will Start Again March 1, When Boats Must Pay Costs

February 25, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries exhausted its budgeted money for at-sea monitoring of Northeast fishing sector groundfish boats on Feb. 16 and has suspended all required monitoring until the fishing industry assumes monitoring costs on March 1.

The details of the suspension, which has not been publicly announced by NOAA, were contained in a Feb. 19 declaration filed by NOAA Regional Administrator John K. Bullard in the federal lawsuit New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel of Hampton filed against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Commerce and officials within those federal agencies.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, seeks to block NOAA from transferring to the fishing industry the responsibility of paying for contracted at-sea monitoring (ASM), charging it will economically destroy what is left of the Northeast groundfishing fleet.

Late last fall, NOAA said it anticipated retaining sufficient money to continue paying the ASM costs until March 1. That changed, according to Bullard’s declaration, on Feb. 16 when NOAA realized it had not sufficiently updated the weekly reports used to determine the number and cost of observed trips on sector groundfish boats.

“On or about Feb. 16, the (Northeast Fisheries) Science Center became aware for the first time that recent updates did not include information for all completed trips … and that committed government funds to pay for ASMs had been exhausted,” Bullard wrote in his declaration.

NOAA Fisheries, he said, then decided to cease until March 1 the requirement and deployment of monitors on sector trips selected for coverage.

“Due to a lack of funds, those trips have been issued waivers from the requirement to take on ASM,” Bullard wrote. “This decision is based on our commitment that sectors be provided adequate notice of the onset of industry funding so that necessary accommodations, planning and contracting can occur.”

Bullard stated the agency is confident the temporary suspension of observer coverage will not jeopardize NOAA Fisheries’ ability to estimate discards by sector vessels — one of the primary tasks of the ASM program.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times