Saving Seafood

Rhode Island’s Groundfish Economic Assistance Program Now Accepting Applications

December 10, 2015 — The following was released by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management:

A new federal funding opportunity is available for Rhode Island fishermen through the Groundfish Disaster Economic Assistance Program, a direct-aid disbursement plan funded by the NOAA in response to the September 12, 2012 Northeast Multispecies (groundfish) disaster declaration by the Acting Secretary of Commerce. The groundfish disaster was declared for the 2013 fishing year in the states of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and New York. 

On May 28, 2014 the state fishery directors from Rhode Island and other affected states, in partnership with NOAA, announced a three-part framework for the distribution of $32.8 million in federal disaster aid monies to the New England groundfish industry. Rhode Island has completed the distribution of about $1.4 million to 43 pre-qualified federally permitted commercial groundfishermen (phase one) and this week began accepting applications for phase two of this framework.  In this phase, Rhode Island will distribute $519,656 for additional assistance to the Rhode Island commercial groundfish industry.

This state-specific program will be used by DEM to mitigate economic hardship experienced by the commercial groundfish industry not previously addressed by the phase one aid to qualified federal permit holders. This objective responds to cumulative economic impacts, which include lost harvest opportunities because of reduced quota allocations, high costs to operate within a sector, past debt incurred to survive the management program, and added investment needed to continue in sector programs, all of which have contributed to decreased revenue for a significant portion of the industry. 

Phase two of Rhode Island’s aid disbursement, the Groundfish Disaster Economic Assistance Program, extends direct-aid payments beyond the federal permit holders, to the captains and crew members who worked aboard the 43 vessels during the same four-year period when the reduced quotas were having the most impact on the commercial industry. It also extends direct-aid payments to the for-hire permit holders who were active in the groundfish fishery during the same period, as well as captains and crew associated with those permitted vessels, thereby addressing the impacts incurred by that sector of the groundfish industry.

Rhode Island’s Groundfish Disaster Economic Assistance program addresses the restoration and sustainability of the State’s commercial groundfish industry by also providing direct aid for the administration of RI-based sectors, which play a central role in the management program and are in need of financial support to remain viable. It is the goal of this disaster aid to ensure the needs and interests of the groundfish community are being met so that we can promote long-term stability in the Rhode Island commercial fishing industry. Additional information and applications can be found online at www.dem.ri.gov/groundfish.htm. Interested applicants should contact the program administrator, Amy MacKown, at 401-782-4492 or amy.mackown@dem.ri.gov. The deadline to submit an application is January 15th.

Members of Congress urge disaster relief for Dungeness crab fishermen

November 25, 2015 — In a bit of good news for California’s beleaguered crab fishermen, four members of Congress announced Tuesday they would call for federal disaster relief in the unlikely event the state’s commercial fishing season for Dungeness crab is canceled altogether.

In a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, the representatives urged the governor to “stand ready” to ask U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker to provide compensation to fishermen and businesses if the crab season — postponed indefinitely Nov. 6 because of high levels of a biotoxin called domoic acid — is wiped out.

The congressmen and congresswomen who signed the letter — Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara; Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel; Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael; and Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough — represent coastal communities affected by the closure. Last season fishermen earned nearly $67 million from Dungeness crab in California.

Read the full story at San Jose Mercury News

New Hampshire fishing industry gets more $1M in federal aid

October 2, 2015 — More than $1 million in federal funding has been released to help struggling New Hampshire fishermen and fishing communities.

The money released from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will assist the commercial ground-fishing industry and for-hire fishing vessels. It is in addition to the more than $2 million in fishery disaster funds that have been released to New Hampshire in the past two years.

Read the full story at WMUR

 

MASSACHUSETTS: State won’t follow Gloucester fishery aid plan

October 1, 2015 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — With one day to spare before the grant period is set to begin, the state finally released details on its plan to distribute the final portion of federal fishery disaster aid to Massachusetts fishermen with federal permits.

It is not the so-called “Gloucester Plan” that would have spread between $6 million and $7 million to federally permitted fishermen who landed at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the fishing seasons 2012 to 2014.

Instead, according to Katie Gronendyke, spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the state will divide the federal assistance among fishermen with a Massachusetts homeport as of April 30, 2015, who either landed at least 10,000 pounds of groundfish in any fishing season between 2012 and 2014 or had an observer aboard their vessel for at least one groundfish trip in 2014.

The plan, according to Gronendyke, will “better target active fishermen in the groundfishery throughout the Commonwealth.”

The full grant of $6.9 million contained in the third phase, or Bin 3, of federal funding being funneled through the state is the final installment of the roughly $21 million in federal fishery disaster funds designated for Massachusetts from the $75 million appropriated by Congress in January 2014.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries, Gronendyke said, is in the process of identifying qualified recipients by auditing federal catch and trip data.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA issues report on at-sea monitors  

September 12, 2015 — The issue of at-sea monitoring seems to pervade almost every current discussion of the future viability of the Northeast groundfish industry, including the distribution of federal fishing disaster money and the ongoing battles over who will  pay for the monitoring program going forward.

NOAA Fisheries this week stepped further into that maelstrom with a largely internally generated report that focuses on cost comparisons between the current manual system of at-sea monitoring and electronic monitoring. It also released an independent review of the NOAA report.

The conclusions?

Electronic monitoring might be a more cost-effective option. Maybe. In some cases. Depending on the fishery and the goals and design of whatever electronic monitoring program ultimately is utilized.

The NOAA report, generated with the assistance of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and other non-governmental organizations, concedes a wide array of assumptions — it is based on hypothetical Northeast multi-species and Atlantic herring and mackerel fisheries — and accepts that it is merely “a starting point for developing future [electronic monitoring] program designs.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Criteria for fishing aid likely to be relaxed

September 11, 2015 — WESTON, Mass. — It probably isn’t going to be the so-called Gloucester Plan that dictates which Massachusetts-based fishermen receive shares of the approximately $6 million in the final installment of federal fishing disaster aid, according to state fisheries officials.

Massachusetts Fish & Game Commissioner George Peterson said Thursday he anticipates the final spending plan, which the state expects to submit to NOAA Fisheries for approval by Oct. 1, will be much closer to the plan put forward by a cadre of Cape Cod fishermen, legislators and stakeholders at last Friday’s contentious meeting of the disaster aid working group in New Bedford.

That plan, with a lower standard of qualifying criteria needed to share in the assistance than the initial recommendations by the city of Gloucester and the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, would provide assistance to any fisherman who landed at least 10,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the fishing years from 2010 to 2014 or who had one vessel trip with an at-sea monitor aboard in 2014.

“After the public hearing and a lot of comment, we think it’s a better plan, a more inclusive plan,” Peterson said.

Peterson said he expects the state Division of Marine Fisheries, which he oversees, will provide him, Secretary of Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton and Gov. Charlie Baker with the final draft proposal of the distribution plan sometime at “the beginning of next week.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times 

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Warring plans delay awarding of fish aid

September 10, 2015 — The consensus toward developing a plan to distribute the approximately $6 million remaining in federal groundfish disaster aid seems to have degenerated into a contentious melee and now local stakeholders anxiously await the decision by the state Division of Marine Fisheries on which Massachusetts fishermen will qualify for assistance.

“I think we should hear something pretty soon,” Jackie Odell, the executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, said Wednesday. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s as soon as the end of this week.”

The process for formulating a distribution plan turned ugly at a two-hour Friday afternoon meeting in New Bedford, according to several people who participated, with different Bay State fishing regions — and fishermen of different species — pitted against each other in their respective efforts to influence DMF’s final spending plan. The meeting had been expected to end with a decision on what plan to forward to DMF.

“When I left that call, I was feeling very frustrated and very upset,” said Gloucester Economic Development Director Sal Di Stefano, who participated via conference call. “It was very unfortunate. We shouldn’t be pitting one fisherman against another. It shouldn’t be Gloucester versus the Cape or the Cape versus New Bedford. That doesn’t move the industry forward at all.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Cape Cod legislators urge Baker to spread relief funds across the fleet

September 2, 2015 — CHATHAM, Mass. – Legislators from the Cape and Islands urged Gov. Charlie Baker to reconsider his current proposal to allocate $6.6 million in federal fisheries disaster money to fishermen who had caught at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish — bottom-feeding fish like cod, haddock and flounder — in 2013 and 2014. Cape fishermen said it would benefit only a relative few boats; they had proposed that the state Division of Marine Fisheries use $4 million to pay for monitors who ride along on groundfish vessels and report on what fishermen catch and what they discard.

“It became apparent to us that that was not going to work,” said Claire Fitz-Gerald, manager of the Georges Bank Fixed Gear Sector, representing 24 boats, and headquartered in Chatham.

There was strong sentiment within the Massachusetts fleet for direct aid to fishermen, and Gov. Baker and the state’s congressional delegation sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and House and Senate appropriations committee chairmen claiming that federal requirements for fishermen to carry observers was an unfunded mandate and the federal government should pay for them, not fishermen. The letter also said paying for observer coverage was not the intent of Congress when it appropriated the federal fisheries disaster money.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times