Saving Seafood

NOAA to pay fishermen’s at-sea monitoring costs

August 15, 2018 — Commercial groundfishermen will not have to pay any at-sea monitoring costs in the current fishing year and will be reimbursed for an additional 25 percent of their 2017 fishing trips that included monitor coverage, NOAA Fisheries said Tuesday.

The expanded at-sea monitor funding, fueled by an additional $10.3 million secured by New Hampshire’s U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in the current federal budget, means fishing vessels in the Northeast Multispecies groundfishery are eligible to be reimbursed for about 85 percent of their 2017 trips with at-sea monitors aboard.

“Effective at-sea monitoring is essential to the success and sustainability of this fishery,” Jon Hare, the director of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center said in a statement. “This $10.3 million increase from Congress for groundfish at-sea monitoring provides additional economic stability for the sector vessels.”

The additional $10.3 million was part a $22.5 million appropriation to NOAA to fund both at-sea monitoring and court-mandated bycatch reporting requirements.

The increased funding will relieve commercial fishermen of a significant financial burden — estimated at $710 per day for boats with monitors — for at least this fishing year. It also halts — at least for now — NOAA Fisheries’ strategy of increasingly shifting the costs of at-sea monitors onto fishermen until industry bears the full cost of monitor coverage.

“This is very welcome money and good news all the way around,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition. “It’s a lot for groundfishermen to pay for, especially as quotas decline and they lose access to key stocks.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NEFMC SSC – Listen Live – Wednesday, August 15, 2018, Groundfish Issues

August 8, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will meet on Wednesday, August 15, 2018 to discuss groundfish-related issues.  The public is invited to attend in person or listen live via webinar or telephone.  Here are the details.
 
MEETING LOCATION:  Hilton Garden Inn, Boston Logan Airport, 100 Boardman Street, Boston, MA.  Hotel information is available here.
 
START TIME:  9:30 a.m.
 
WEBINAR REGISTRATION:  Online access to the meeting will be available at Listen Live. There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.
 
CALL-IN OPTION:  To listen by telephone, dial +1 (415) 930-5321. The access code is 523-918-908.  Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.
 
AGENDA:  The SSC will:
  • Review recent stock assessment information from the U.S./Canada Transboundary Resource Assessment Committee and Groundfish Plan Development Team (PDT) and then;
  • Recommend the overfishing limit (OFL) and acceptable biological catch (ABC) for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder for the 2019 and 2020 fishing years;
  • Review 2017 operational assessments for ocean pout, Georges Bank winter flounder, witch flounder, Northern windowpane flounder, and Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder;
  • Comment on the rebuilding alternatives under development by the PDT for the above-mentioned stocks to advise the Council on their technical basis; and
  • Discuss other business as necessary.
COMMENTS:  The deadline for submitting written comments for consideration at this meeting is 5 p.m. on Friday, August 10, 2018.  Address comments to Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn or Executive Director Tom Nies and email them to comments@nefmc.org.  The address for mailing comments via the U.S. Postal Service is:  New England Fishery Management Council, 50 Water Street, Mill #2, Newburyport, MA  01950.
 
MATERIALS:  Meeting materials will be posted on the Council’s website at SSC August 15, 2018 documents.
QUESTIONS:  Contact Joan O’Leary at (978) 465-0492 ext. 106, joleary@nefmc.org or Janice Plante at (607) 592-4817, jplante@nefmc.org.

 

End of groundfishing ban only the first step of many for fishery

July 20, 2018 — It’s “finally” over, but it’s only the first step.

A saga that dragged on for nearly eight months ended Thursday when NOAA lifted its groundfishing ban that sidelined about 17 vessels and 80 fishermen.

What shocked Cassie Canastra, who is on the board of Sector VII, about NOAA’s final interim rule, was its finality.

“It was in effect immediately. That was shocking to me. That was great news. It allows us to start leasing right away …,” Canastra briefly paused before finishing her thought, “if we can. It’s tough.”

NOAA waived any comment or delay period, although comments will still be accepted. It approved Sector IX’s lease-only operational plan and allocated quota to Sector VII, establishing it as a lease-only operation until Carlos Rafael’s vessels are sold to an independent party.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MSA Today: House approves Magnuson reauthorization

July 13, 2018 — The House of Representatives passed its version of the latest Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization on Wednesday, July 11.

H.R. 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, sponsored by Alaska Rep. Don Young, passed primarily on party lines at 222-193. Support from the industry, however, came from all coasts as well as onshore and offshore businesses.

One of the most controversial aspects of this reauthorization has been the elimination of a 10-year rebuilding timeline for rebuilding fish stocks.

The 10-year guideline, however, is an arbitrary goal. Some fisheries recover in 2 to 3 years, and some take decades, regardless of restrictions on fishing effort. Even more to the point, regional administrators always had some flexibility in forcing managers to adhere to the rebuilding guideline or allowing for some leeway. This change is critical for fisheries managed as if there were no flexibility, like East and West coast groundfish stocks. It simply spells out the flexibility that has always been implied.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

‘How are we going to get paid?’; fishing ban continues to suffocate local businesses

July 9, 2018 — Anne Jardin-Maynard is an accountant. She doesn’t own a commercial fishing vessel. The New Bedford native works within an office on Centre Street.

Yet for more than seven months, a groundfishing ban implemented by NOAA has prevented Jardin-Maynard from receiving a paycheck. That doesn’t mean the owner of Jardin & Dawson, a settlement house, which handles payroll and accounting for fishing boats, has stopped working.

“If the boats aren’t fishing, how are we going to get paid,” Jardin-Maynard said.

NOAA announced the groundfishing ban at the end of last November as a result of Carlos Rafael falsifying fishing quota. It was also meant to delay operations for Sector IX, the fishing division where Rafael’s boats were associated, so it could draft provisions to prevent repeat offenses.

Since that time, though, the sector has assigned new board members multiple times, provisions have been drafted, and quota has been gathered as potential repayment, but the ban remains.

“I think they need to move it along,” said Jardin-Maynard, who is a new board member of Sector IX as well. “This has been a long time coming. The person that was involved in it (is penalized). It’s not fair for the other people to be involved in this. He’s paying his price.”

Rafael is serving a 46-month prison term in part for falsifying fishing records. While he serves his time in federal prison in Fort Devens, about 80 fishermen have been out of work sending a ripple effect throughout shoreside businesses from ice houses to processors to settlement houses.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

HANK SOULE: Revitalizing waterfront is still up to sectors and Carlos Rafael

July 9, 2018 — Carlos Rafael misreported his groundfish catch, and in its piece “Time for NOAA to let Sector IX fish again,” the Times is misreporting the facts.

First, NOAA didn’t calculate, as the piece states, that Rafael misreported just 72,000 pounds of grey sole. He openly admitted to stealing over 10 times that amount, of several different fish stocks. Rather, NOAA has apparently calculated that all but some remaining grey sole has been repaid, with quota seized earlier to cover the debt.

Second, neither Sector IX nor Sector VII has submitted a plan to return to fishing. Sector IX purged itself of nearly every vessel and permit enrolled there, retaining the bare minimum required to maintain legal status. It submitted an operations plan — which explains how a sector and its boats will track and report their quotas — which states that Sector IX has no immediate intent to resume fishing.

Sector VII is even more explicit. It absorbed the many Rafael vessels and permits shunted from Sector IX under the condition that they “will be enrolling as a non-active member and will not be authorized to fish” until Carlos Rafael sells them. In fact, Sector VII explicitly requested NOAA’s help to DENY those vessels permission to harvest.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Senate Candidate Geoff Diehl unveils plan to help fleet

June 21, 2018 — Geoff Diehl, the Republican challenger to incumbent U. S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, would retain Carlos Rafael’s forfeited groundfish permits in New Bedford and would push to repeal the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Monument, according to his plan to help the fishing industry.

Diehl, a state representative from Whitman, is set to release the plan, “A Good Diehl for Fishing,” at campaign stops Thursday in New Bedford, Scituate and Gloucester. The Gloucester event is set for 4 p.m. at the Fishermen’s Monument on Stacy Boulevard.

The Diehl fishing plan also calls for reducing the regulatory burden on commercial fishermen and finding “a balance between the necessary protections to ensure ocean preservation, and continuing to support the growth of a healthy marine industry across the state.”

His plan opposes mandated at-sea monitoring of the Northeast groundfish fleet, calling them “onboard watch dogs,” as well as an “egregious example of government overreach and a crippling cost to the fishermen.”

Diehl said transferring Rafael’s groundfish permits to “ready licenses” in New Bedford rather than dispersing them to other fishing concerns throughout the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery “is critical for maintaining the livelihood of those individuals and for ensuring the survival of the fishing industry now and in the future.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

New Bedford Standard-Times: Time for NOAA to let Sector IX fish again

June 21, 2018 — Seventy-two thousand pounds of grey sole.

That’s the amount of fish that NOAA calculates Carlos Rafael misreported in his illegal groundfish scheme.

Multiple people at a Monday meeting of the New Bedford fishing community cited the number. So after months of NOAA saying it could not let Sector IX fishermen back on the water because it didn’t know how much overfishing took place in the sector dominated by Rafael, now the federal agency knows.

We don’t officially know it from NOAA, however, because the oversight group remains silent, even as the ban on the groundfish sector drags on into its eighth month. We know it because the members of the New Bedford fishing community — the fishermen, the fuel depot owners, the gear suppliers, the settlement houses — are all struggling because of the lost fishing. And they cited the number publicly Monday, based on information from NOAA itself.

“Everyone knows (the money in) the account is overdrawn. How do we get the money back in the bank,” asked Sector 9 attorney Andrew Saunders.

That’s the conundrum. The sector is ready to deduct the 72,000 pounds of grey sole from its fishing effort. But it needs NOAA to tell them to go ahead, and the agency remains silent. As it has for months.

The inaction has caused an estimated 240 jobs lost across the Northeast, estimated SMAST professor Dan Georgianna.

Richard Canastra, the co-owner of the New Bedford Seafood Display Auction, estimated it will take a long time to bring the groundfish industry back in New Bedford after so many months without fishing. It was not a very profitable industry to begin with, but it played a key role in keeping many of the New Bedford waterfront support industries active.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

North Pacific Council Looks at Limits for Cod Deliveries to Motherships in the Bering Sea

June 21, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Twelve years ago Amendment 80 was adopted by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to allocate several non-pollock groundfish among trawl sectors, and help form cooperatives in that sector. The amendment covered dozens of competing concerns and succeeded in striking a balance that has worked well in the last decade.

But Amendment 80 was silent on whether the catcher/processors (CPs) in that fleet could act as motherships in the Bering Sea limited access cod fishery.

Last winter, AM80 CPs acted as motherships taking deliveries from their own catcher vessels and others in a reduced allocation cod fishery. That resulted in an increased percentage in the amount of Pacific cod delivered to the AM80 sector, an increase in the number of catcher vessels delivering Pcod to motherships, and a decrease in the amount of cod delivered to shoreside processing facilities.

To correct this, the Council is considering options that would restore balance to the shore-based and off-shore processing facilities. In the process of understanding how best to address that, a latency issue has emerged.

The Council revised its problem statement at their June meeting in Kodiak to reflect that.

“Information shows a large number of AFA endorsed vessels are not participating, but whose catch history contributes to the AFA Pacific cod sideboard in the Bering Sea trawl cod fishery,” the new statement reads.

“Despite a high level of latency, the pace of the fishery has increased shortening the season, resulting in decreased ability to maximize the value of the fishery and negatively impacting fishery participants. Additional entrants could exacerbate these issues and threaten the viability of the fishery. The Council is considering options to improve the prosecution of the fishery, with the intent of promoting safety and increasing the value of the fishery.”

Prior to the Council’s early June meeting, there were four Alternatives on the table. Now there are six. As always, Alternative 1 is status quo.

Alternative 2 has two Options, the first of which was revised at the June meeting to allow an AM80 CP may take directed fishery deliveries of Pcod from catcher vessels if the CP acted as a mothership and received targeted Pacific cod deliveries during 2015-2017, with sub-options of in any one of those three years, in any two years, or in any three years. Those sub-options will be analyzed and considered by the Council later this year. A second Option under Alternative 2 is for non-AM80 CP acting as motherships during 2015-2017.

Alternative 3 was also revised at the June meeting to clarify that the allocation will be set for “A” Season and “B” Season and apply to all catcher processors limited by the action. Options for what final allocations will be included the percentage of Bering Sea subarea Pacific cod delivered to CPs acting as motherships, relative to the total BSAI Bering Sea subarea catcher vessels trawl catch between a variety of time periods ranging from 2008 to 2017.

A sub-option was added to Alternative 3 that would exempt a CP from the sideboard limit if it had received deliveries in 7 or more years from the BSAI cod trawl fishery and the catch delivered would not accrue to any sideboard limit established for CPs when acting as a mothership.

Alternative 4 was modified to clarify that both the catch accounting system and the fish ticket target definition would be considered when determining which catcher vessels would be eligible to deliver BSAI Pcod in the future.

An option was also added to exempt the 8 severable Aleutian Islands trawl endorsements on LLP licenses, established under BSAI Amendment 92, from the proposed BSAI landings requirements for trawl CVs.

The two new Alternatives went further to include American Fisheries Act, or the BSAI pollock fleet.

Alternative 5 would establish American Fisheries Act and non-AFA sector allocations for the cod “A” season. Specific allocation percentages or years to consider were not determined as part of the June motion.  Council staff will provide information on that and on ways for the non-AFA sector to develop a cooperative or cooperatives to fish their Pacific cod allocation.

Alternative 6 was added to ensure that AM80 CPs that have been replaced and no longer have an Amendment 80 quota share permit or an Amendment 80 LLP license would be prohibited from acting as a mothership for Pacific cod in the future. The restriction would apply to both the BSAI and GOA.

Initial review of the analysis is scheduled for the Council’s February 4-12, 2019 meeting in Portland, OR.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. This article is reprinted with permission.

New Bedford fishermen, businesses losing out while waiting on NOAA

June 20, 2018 — The wall of windows within the Harborview Room on the top floor of the Whaling Museum provided a look of serenity across the waterfront as the sun shined down on countless fishing vessels.

The conversation within the walls painted a much different picture as those from the fishing industry described the suffocating effects that NOAA’s groundfishing ban has imposed on fishermen and shoreside businesses.

“If something doesn’t happen with groundfishing soon, it’s gone,” general manager of Hercules SLR John Reardon said.

NOAA implemented the ban Nov. 20 and has continued because of an overage calculated at 72,000 pounds of grey sole, according to multiple people who spoke Monday evening.

The overage represents the amount of fish calculated by NOAA that Carlos Rafael misreported. He is serving a 46-month prison sentence, but the NOAA punishment aspect has held many along the waterfront hostage.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times