Saving Seafood

Oregon, California senators step up pressure on Trump administration to approve salmon emergency cash

October 5, 2017 — Oregon and California’s four senators, all Democrats, stepped up the pressure on the Trump administration Wednesday to approve disaster assistance for salmon fishermen along 200 miles of coastline.

In April, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages coastal salmon seasons, recommended closing coastal and commercial salmon fishing entirely along an area equal to roughly half of Oregon’s coastline. Govs. Kate Brown of Oregon and Jerry Brown of California requested emergency funding relief in May, to no avail.

The fall chinook fun on the Klamath is the biggest and is important for recreational and tribal fisherman as well as commercial fisheries. The Yurok tribe, which has preference along the waterway, also had its allocation severely curtailed this year, to roughly 650 fish. Management officials estimated returning salmon to be roughly 12,000.

Oregon has had success in securing emergency assistance for salmon fishery disasters under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Emergency funds were approved in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and their California counterparts, Sens. Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris, sent a letter Wednesday to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries division urging action before the end of 2017.

Read the full story at The Oregonian

JAN MARGESON: Disburse disaster aid to all active fishermen

September 3, 2015 — A typical small-boat fisherman from Cape Cod — or anywhere in the state for that matter — has more than navigating around the tides and the wind to contend with in today’s complicated regulatory world and in the face of a changing ocean. There’s crew to pay to sustain viable communities, gear and fuel to buy to support a coastal economy, and safety equipment to update to make sure they are prepared in any emergency.

Starting in October, these family fishermen will have to undertake a new added expense: paying for at-sea monitors who count the fish they harvest and those they have to throw back.

Until now, the federal government has paid for the services as part of a new management program it initiated to help bring back declining species of fish, such as our peninsula’s namesake cod. Now, it is turning it into an unfunded mandate, and Massachusetts’ fishermen could go out of business over it.

Profit margins in fishing are not high, and the federal government’s own report found that 59 percent of the state’s groundfishermen would go into the red if they had to pay for onboard monitors.

Read the full opinion piece at the Cape Cod Times

Local lawmakers fear Cape fishermen will lose out on disaster funds

September 2, 2015 — Many Cape Cod fishermen, operating under shrunken quotas for cod, have shifted their focus to catching other fish species such as dogfish, skate and monkfish.

But that business decision, some lawmakers worry, could be jeopardizing the fishermen’s ability to qualify for the last pot of federal disaster relief funding being dispersed by the Baker administration to help offset the hit to their livelihoods from declining fish populations.

The Division of Marine Fisheries, after issuing draft criteria for the dispersal of roughly $6.5 million in remaining federal fishery disaster aid, held public hearings this summer soliciting feedback on their proposal. Lawmakers from Cape Cod and the Islands are now urging the administration to reconsider the criteria that they say will exclude over 100 fishing boats that could soon be hit with the added cost of paying for at-sea monitors to police their catches.

“We on the Cape represent a group of fisherman who belong to a groundfish sector down here that the draft proposal as written, I’m not sure any of them would qualify for relief,” said Rep. Sarah Peake, a Provincetown Democrat.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Today

Massachusetts: 15 shoreside businesses to receive disaster aid

August 25, 2015 — In this case, for Gloucester and 15 of the city’s shore-side businesses, the glass is decidedly half-full.

Those Gloucester businesses comprise precisely half of the 30 Massachusetts businesses that will receive groundfish disaster aid.

Collectively, they will receive by far the largest portion of the $750,000 set aside to assist shoreside businesses affected by the federally declared ground fish disaster now grinding through its third year.

The 15 Gloucester fishing-related enterprises — the most from any single Bay State groundfishing community — will share $380,360, or 50.7 percent of the $750,000 included in the second phase, or Bin 2, of the federal groundfish disaster relief distribution plan.

Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said the city’s success in garnering more than half of the available aid earmarked for businesses underlined the city’s prominence at the epicenter of the groundfish disaster, both on the water and on the waterfront.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Gloucester Commission Targets Disaster Aid to 2012-14 Groundfishing Fleet

August 5, 2015 —  The Gloucester Fisheries Commission on Tuesday night recommended a spending plan for the final phase of the federal disaster aid that would preclude using any of the nearly $7 million to pay for at-sea monitoring.

The Gloucester recommendation, which will be contained as public comment in a letter to the state Division of Marine Fisheries, closely mirrors the recommendation of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition by urging the state to use the money as direct financial assistance to fishermen who landed a minimum of 20,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the fishing years 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Commission members Joe Orlando and Al Cottone said using those three fishing years in the eligibility criteria would help expand the pool of potential beneficiaries in the small-boat groundfish fleet.

“Anyone who fished in 2012 caught at least 20,000 pounds of fish,” Orlando said, while Cottone pointed out it 2012 was the last full season of fishing before the deep cuts in groundfish catch allotments.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times