Saving Seafood

North Atlantic Traders Acquitted on Smuggling and Conspiracy Charges in Less than One Hour of Jury Deliberation

August 15, 2017 — BOSTON — The following was released by Stephen Ouellette, attorney for North Atlantic Traders:

A 12-person federal jury acquitted federal tuna dealer North Atlantic Traders and its principal, Robert Kliss, on Lacey Act, smuggling and conspiracy charges in a case before District Judge William Young, investigated by the Department of Justice working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.   The jury reached its verdict of not guilty on all five counts against both defendants in less than a full hour of deliberation.

Barry Pollack of Boston, attorney for Kliss, added, “the federal agents engaged in misconduct by pressuring witnesses to make exaggerated statements, which the jury saw through.”

Stephen Ouellette of Gloucester, Massachusetts, attorney for North Atlantic Traders, said “the verdict of not guilty reflected more than two decades of regulatory compliance by my client and its dedication to a sustainable fishery.  That NOAA’s overzealous prosecution in this and other cases following closely on the heels of the highly critical assessment of NOAA law enforcement by the Department of Commerce Office of the Inspector General can only be seen as an attempt to justify NOAA’s enforcement budget at the expense of the fishing industry and fundamental principles of justice.”

For further information, contact Stephen Ouellette at 978-281-7788 or 978-317-2542.

Charter boat owners see jump in cancellations as cod ban takes effect

August 14, 2017 — A new rule that recreational anglers in the Gulf of Maine can’t keep cod they catch is putting the squeeze on the charter boat industry, business owners say.

Capt. Don Taylor runs a six-person charter boat out of Rye Harbor. He said he can see the scientific reasoning behind imposing the restriction, but says it is causing people to cancel their reservations — even though they can still keep haddock, cusk and hake.

“I don’t think not allowing us to have one cod per person on a boat is going to make any difference at all. That’s my opinion on it,” Taylor said. “I think they’re going a little overboard, myself, and it’s hurting the charter boat industry.”

Allison Ferreira, who is in charge of communications for the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office in Gloucester, Mass., said the reason for the restriction is that recreational fishermen exceeded their cod catch limit by 92 percent last year.

Federal officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use estimates from the Marine Recreational Information Program to determine if a population is being overfished. In addition to getting reports from charter boat captains, they survey individuals who go out on their own boats.

Read the full story at the New Hampshire Union Leader

Despite guilty plea, Carlos Rafael continues to fish

August 14, 2017 — Gloucester fisherman and vessel owner Vito Giacalone is the chairman of governmental affairs, and sits on the board of directors of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, the umbrella organization that oversees a dozen sectors, including Rafael’s. Up until 2016, Rafael was also a coalition board member.

Giacalone believed that Rafael was simply too big to be allowed to fail, that his sector worked with NOAA to enact changes — including bringing in new board members and a new enforcement committee — that allowed them to stay in business.

Rafael’s vessels control considerable groundfish quota, up to 75 percent of what New Bedford holds, according to New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, and Rafael has said he has 280 employees.

“You don’t have to be too imaginative to see that that is an enormous collateral impact as soon as that operation is stopped in its tracks,” Giacalone said, estimating that as many as 80 fishermen would be immediately out of work.

“I wish Carlos Rafael had thought about that before he did what did,” said Hank Soule, manager of the Sustainable Harvest Sector in South Berwick, Maine.  “The bottom line is New Bedford is the richest port in the U.S. The loss of his groundfish boats won’t devastate the port.”

NOAA is reportedly working with Rafael’s legal team on an agreement that would have him selling off his vessels and permits and leaving fishing forever, including scallop and lobster vessels not involved in the fish smuggling scheme.

At least 13 vessels are scheduled to be forfeited to the government as part of the plea deal and Giacalone thinks NOAA may be trying to maintain the value of the assets by keeping them fishing.

“I think it would be clumsy of the sector to cause collateral damage that could be excessive to innocent third parties,” Giacalone said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Honors planned for Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association president

August 9, 2017 — Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, will be the guest of honor at the Sea to Supper Celebration at 6 p.m. Aug. 24 at the Mile Marker One Restaurant & Bar, 75 Essex St., in the Cape Ann Marina Resort.

The Sea to Supper Celebration will feature local, fresh seafood specially prepared for the occasion by Todd Snopkowski of Snapchef, wines, oral tributes and displays on Cape Ann fishermen and more.

Tickets cost $75, and may be obtained by calling 978-821-1590 or visiting http://bit.ly/2v0HBdj.

Proceeds benefit nonprofit Fishing Partnership Support Services, which Sanfilippo helped found in the late ’90s, and on whose board of directors she has served ever since. Fishing Partnership Support Services helps commercial fishermen and their families through a variety of free services — from safety trainings, to health coverage enrollment assistance, to disaster relief support.

While honoring Sanfilippo, the Sea to Supper Celebration will also highlight the contributions commercial fishermen have made to coastal communities and to the health of seafood consumers, according to J.J. Bartlett, president of Fishing Partnership Support Services.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

MASSACHUSETTS: A meeting of the minds on the future of the fisheries

August 3, 2017 — For some, the focus was on collaboration and the need to build sustainable seafood partnerships.

“Much of what we have already learned comes from the farming sector,” said Jack Wiggin, head of the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Urban Harbors Institute. Opening a Wednesday morning conference on the seafood industry at The Gloucester House, he noted cited parallels between harvesting America’s farms and seas.

To Anamarija Frankic, however, the future of the seafood industry is tied to a more basic approach.

“It’s like the chicken and egg,” said Frankic, a UMass-Boston teacher of biomimicry — the science of seeking solutions based on time-tested patterns and models. “How can you have aquaculture? How can you sustain seafood without protecting the ocean (waters), not just in the harbors but in watersheds? Much of what we do is very specific, protecting and rebuilding specific species or specific habitat, but we have to work to sustain the entire coastal habitat.”

Those were just two of the ideas raised over the course of the daylong conference, which was funded by the state’s Seaport Economic Council and drew more than 50 experts representing government agencies, fishermen, seafood processors and community leaders.

“This is a summit — I would call it that,” Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said in welcoming the group to Gloucester. “We haven’t truly had something like this in 20 years.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: A focus on selling seafood

Local stakeholders hope event generates opportunities

August 2, 2017 — More than 60 key players from the fishing and seafood industries will be in Gloucester on Wednesday exploring new ways to promote locally caught seafood and spotlight seaport economic successes.

Presenters from the U.S. Department  of Agriculture and the University of Massachusetts Boston, along with waterfront representatives from Maine to New Jersey will attend a day-long conference, open to the public, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at The Gloucester House.

“Building the Massachusetts Seafood System,” as the event is titled, will include presentations and discussion groups, said local organizer and harbor activist Valerie Nelson. But she said it will be more than just talk.

“This is designed to produce recommendations to the Seaport Council, to the state, maybe to the UMass system,” Nelson said . “This isn’t an idle conversation, this is to lead to a next step. We want some real momentum to come out of this.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Improving the science is key

Gov. Baker pledges support for new studies, research on fishing industry

July 31, 2017 — Governor Charlie Baker says more and stronger data will help Gloucester fishermen push back against federal fisheries regulations they believe are unwarranted and which, they claim, are in some cases based on inaccurate government data.

Citing scientific data as key to reviving not only Gloucester’s, but also the state’s fishing industry, Baker told a roomful of fishermen and their supporters Thursday that he will continue to support their push for new studies and other research. He also hailed the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition for its focus on those needs.

“We’re very proud of you and all that you are doing to improve the science,” Baker told up to 300 people gathered for the coalition’s annual fundraiser at The Gloucester House. The benefit, which was expected to raise up to $50,000 for the fishing industry policy and advocacy organization, carried a theme of “Know fish, better science.”

“We look forward to working with you, and we are committed to advocating for you,” the governor added, noting that the coalition continues to push for a greater role for fishermen in government trawl studies and other research used to craft fishing quotas on cod and other groundfish. “We respect the work you do, and we look to working with you and for you long into the future.”

Baker, who has consistently sided with fishermen in their questioning of the accuracy of government catch data, made his latest visit to Gloucester two weeks after the announcement that John Bullard, NOAA Fisheries’ Greater Atlantic regional administrator for the past five years, is retiring in January.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Seafood exec escapes jail time

July 14, 2017 — A senior sales executive at a Gloucester seafood processing company avoided jail time, but will spend the next six months under home confinement and must pay restitution of $25,879 after his federal sentencing Thursday for tax fraud.

Richard J. Pandolfo, 71, who lives in North Andover and has been an executive vice president at National Fish & Seafood on Parker Street, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns to a year’s probation, with six months to be served in home confinement.

The judge also assessed a fine of $5,000 and ordered Pandolfo to pay restitution to the IRS for the amount he had failed to pay on “supplemental income” he had received from the company and former National Fish executive and part-owner Jack Ventola between 2008 and 2012.

Pandolfo was indicted in June 2016 by a federal grand jury on four counts of filing false tax returns. As part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, the charges were reduced to a single count. But he still faced a federal prison term of up to three years and a fine of up to $100,000 in addition to the restitution when he stood for sentencing Thursday.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Pandolfo failed to pay federal tax on about $90,000 of the $95,000 in supplemental income he received from Ventola from 2008 to 2012. According to the original indictment, some of the supplemental pay went directly to Pandolfo, while other payments went to a shell interior design company established in the name of Pandolfo’s wife. Pandolfo’s wife was not charged in the indictment.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Overdose suspected in fisherman’s death

July 6, 2017 — The death of a 26-year-old Maine fisherman, found aboard a vessel moored at the Jodrey State Fish Pier over the holiday weekend, is being categorized by the Essex District Attorney’s office as a suspected drug overdose.

Neither the state medical examiner’s office nor law enforcement authorities would confirm the identity of the man who was found aboard the FV/Titan at the fish pier off Parker Street early Saturday morning. A positive identification and definitive cause of death were, as of Wednesday, pending findings by state medical examiner’s office, said Carrie Kimball Monahan, spokeswoman for the office of Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett.

Massachusetts state police from the DA’s office, following a call from Gloucester police, responded to a report of an unattended death. The troopers and Gloucester police found drug paraphernalia at the scene, indicating a likely overdose, Kimball Monahan said. There were no signs of foul play, and the DA’s office is not actively investigating, she said.

“If there is a presence of drug paraphernalia on or in the vicinity of the deceased, we will categorize that as a suspected drug overdose,” Kimball Monahan said. The DA’s office tracks overdose deaths each year for Essex County.

John McCarthy, Gloucester’s interim police chief, said Wednesday that police and the Fire Department’s rescue squad had responded to a call from an “unknown party” around 5:30 a.m. Saturday reporting an apparent drug overdose on the fishing boat Titan.

He said police and Fire Department paramedics found the 26-year-old man on the boat, and administered nasal naloxone, a drug that temporarily reverses the effects of an opioid overdose often known by its trade name, Narcan. 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

NOAA study: Locally caught fish lands on plates locally

June 28, 2017 — It’s like Las Vegas, only colder: Groundfish landed in the Northeast generally stay in the Northeast.

NOAA Fisheries this week released a study tracing the ultimate destination of seafood landed in the Northeast that concluded that most of the groundfish landed in this region is consumed as food by consumers in the region.

According to the study, other species, such as scallops, are processed for wider domestic and international distribution, while some — such as monkfish — are sold in parts or whole in more limited markets.

The study said only a small percentage of the scallops landed in the region remain here. Most are sold to large industrial food companies and transported throughout the country or flash-frozen and transported to Europe or elsewhere.

Groundfish, it said, is one of the few fisheries that is primarily consumed regionally.

Using data from the New England Fishery Management Council and other stakeholders, the study traced the region’s boat-to-consumer supply chain, of which Gloucester plays a pivotal role along with New Bedford, Boston and Portland, Maine.

“This study is a first step in characterizing New England fisheries, including where fish are caught, what they are used for, and where they go once they are landed,” Patricia Pinto da Silva, a social policy specialist at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and one of the study’s author, said in a statement accompanying the release. “We did not include aquaculture or the regional recreational harvest, which is something we would like to do in the future.”

The study showed the seafood species landed in the Northeast “vary widely in where they are sold and how they are used.”

Much of the groundfish landed within the region — including cod, haddock, pollock and several flounders — ends up sold as food fish to local restaurants, fishmongers and domestic supermarkets, the study stated.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times