Saving Seafood

New England fishermen fear looming costs for at-sea monitors

October 21, 2015 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — New England fishermen, running out of time before the federal government hands them the cost of monitoring the industry at sea, say emergency intervention is needed or many of them will be out of business.

The monitors are trained workers who collect data on commercial fishing trips that help fishery managers with things like setting quotas on catches in future years. Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the money it had been using to pay for monitors who work in New England fisheries such as cod, pollock and haddock is going to run out around Dec. 1.

Fishermen will have to pay for the monitors, which can cost more than $700 per trip. The new cost is almost certain to put people out of work in a struggling fishery that is already challenged by declining fish stocks and tough quotas, said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

“It’s really scary. At the same time, we have problems with our resources right now,” Martens said. “We need to make sure we have better and stronger business not just next year, but three and five years down the line.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle

 

2,000 lb Possession Limit in Effect October 22 for Midwater Trawl Vessels in the GB Haddock AM Area

October 19, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Herring Possession Limit Reduced to 2,000 lb in the Georges Bank Haddock Accountability Management Area in Effect October 22 for Midwater Trawl Vessels

The Atlantic Herring Georges Bank Incidental Haddock Catch Cap for the 2015 fishing year has been harvested. 

As a result, herring midwater trawl vessels will be prohibited from fishing for or landing more than 2,000 lb of herring per trip or calendar day in or from the Herring Georges Bank Haddock Accountability Measure Area effective October 22. This limit will remain in place until the quota becomes available for the 2016 fishing year (expected on May 1, 2016). 

This action effectively limits the midwater trawl fishery in Herring Management Area 3 to 2,000 lb of herring per trip/day until May 1, 2016, because Area 3 falls within the Georges Bank Haddock Accountability Management Area. 

Herring vessels issued an All Areas or Areas 2/3 Limited Access Herring Permit may land haddock from the Herring Georges Bank Haddock Accountability Measure Area provided they have a Northeast Multispecies permit and are on a declared Northeast Multispecies day-at-sea.

For more information, please read the Federal Register notice and the permit holder bulletin.

Questions? Contact Shannah Jaburek, Regional Office, at 978-282-8456 or shannah.jaburek@noaa.gov.

Atlantic herring. Credit: NOAA

 

NOAA to pay for at-sea monitors through November

October 1, 2015 — NOAA Fisheries will continue bearing the cost for at-sea monitoring of Northeast multispecies groundfish vessels at least through the end of November, three months past the target date the agency initially set for the expense to shift to permit holders.

This extension — the second in as many months — is based on the same rationale as the first: with fishermen producing fewer fishing days because of slashed quotas and area closures, the money the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budgeted for at-sea monitoring for at least 24 percent of total fishing days is lasting longer than the agency expected.

NOAA initially said the money for at-sea monitoring — which runs to about $710 per vessel per day — would run out around Aug. 31 and then the responsibility for paying for the legally mandated at-sea monitoring would have to be borne by the fishermen.

In early August, NOAA said decreased effort by the fleet had reduced monitoring expenditures enough for the money to last through Oct. 31. Now that same reduction in fishing effort has given the fleet another month-long reprieve, but it has not solved the long-term dilemma of how to pay for the at-sea monitoring.

The issue certainly is not going away.

NOAA is adamant that it expects permit holders to ultimately assume the cost of monitoring, while fishermen flatly state that the additional expense — heaped upon already miniscule, if non-existent, profit margins — simply will sink the fleet.

In late July, NOAA flatly rejected the request of the New England Fishery Management Council to use its emergency powers to remove all at-sea monitors from groundfish boats for the remainder of the 2015 fishing season.

Instead, NOAA, as well as the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, advanced the idea that the cost of monitoring be covered by some portion of the $6.9 million remaining in the Bay State’s third phase, or Bin 3, of the federal fishing disaster assistance.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Disbursement of Groundfish Disaster Funds (Bin 3)

October 1, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The final installment of groundfish fishery disaster aid, commonly known as Bin 3, has been released to four of the affected states (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut) by NOAA Fisheries. Bin 3 represents the final third of $32.8 million available to assist the groundfish industry. This action allows the states to move forward with the development of individual spend plans for economic assistance to include direct aid to permit holders and crew.  

For more information on the spend plans, contact:

Maine: Meredith Mendelson (207) 624-6553 

New Hampshire: Cheri Patterson (603) 868-1095

Massachusetts: Melanie Griffin (617) 626-1528

Connecticut: David Simpson (860) 434-6043 

New York and Rhode Island continue to work with NOAA Fisheries to develop and complete grant applications to benefit affected fishers and their families.

More information is available on our website.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel, Regional Office, at 978-281-6175 or Jennifer.Goebel@noaa.gov.

Credit: NOAA

 

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

NEW BEDFORD STANDARD-TIMES: Fishery management needs balance

September 30, 2015 — The requirement that the cost of at-sea monitors be paid by the fishermen who participate in the Northeast Multispecies Fishery is mere weeks away from being phased in.

Study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests as many as 60 percent of affected boats could be pushed out of profitability by the requirement, based on estimates of monitors costing $700 per day.

Republican U.S. Rep. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire hosted a roundtable mid-month with NOAA representatives and fishermen to address the issue.

“We’re supposed to take into account that we don’t destroy the fishing communities,” Rep. Ayotte said, according to Sept. 18 report by the Portsmouth Herald. “(Requirements to protect fishermen) are being ignored in all this.”

She was referring to National Standard 8 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which says measures used to manage the fishery must “take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities by utilizing economic and social data,” consistent with the prevention of “overfishing and rebuilding of overfished stocks.”

The requirement for consistency, above, might explain why Greater Atlantic Regional Administrator John Bullard told Rep. Ayotte that “eliminating overfishing” supersedes all other priorities.

The Standard-Times is having a very difficult time trying to understand why a policy that will have such a clear negative impact on fishermen is being instituted when the beneficial impact on the resource — the fishery — is so unclear.

Read the full editorial from the New Bedford Standard-Times

Cape Cod fleet hopes for financial aid

September 29, 2015 — The big “bin” of cash, doled out by Congress in September 2012, when they declared the New England groundfish fishery a disaster, is about to be emptied of the last nickels and dimes.

It wasn’t a hurricane or brutal snowstorm that caused the disaster, it was a lack of cod. Quotas for the Cape’s namesake fish were slashed 80 percent in the Gulf of Maine and 61 percent for Georges Bank.

A total of $32.8 million was set aside for the New England fishery, with $11 million reserved for future use and $14.6 million sent to Massachusetts for distribution.

“The first round was money distributed by the federal government to permit holders who caught 5,000 pounds of ground fish in either 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013,” explained Claire Fitzgerald, policy analyst for the Chatham-based Cape Cod Commercial Fisherman’s Alliance.
In round one (or bin one) $6.3 million of Massachusetts’ share of the award was parceled out to 194 ground fish permit holders who qualified; $32,463 apiece. Unfortunately, in the case of the Fisheries Alliance, less than half of the two dozen boats in their Fixed Gear Sector qualified.

Read the full story from The Cape Codder

Fishing industry pushes for safety exams every 2 years

September 27, 2015 — SEATTLE — The Coast Guard will require commercial fishing vessels to undergo dockside safety examinations only once every five years, a move that North Pacific industry officials are protesting as far too infrequent.

The industry officials want the exams, which become mandatory Oct. 15, to be required every two years so that the Coast Guard has a better chance of spotting torn survival suits, malfunctioning alarms and other safety problems.

Commercial fishing has long ranked as one of the most deadly occupations in the nation. Plenty of people within the industry have bridled at regulations that have come about in recent decades, so it’s unusual to have some call for tougher oversight. But the North Pacific industry officials said in their letter that the two-year interval would do a much better job of overseeing safety and could save lives.

“Once every half decade is just a really bad idea,” said Chris Woodley, executive director of the Seattle-based Groundfish Forum and a member of the Coast Guard’s Fishing Vessel Safety Advisory Committee. He is one of 15 representatives of North Pacific fishery associations and seafood companies that have signed onto the protest letter sent this month to U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft.

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

 

Weekly Update: 9/21/15 North Carolina Fisheries Association

September 21, 2015 — The following was released by the North Carolina Fisheries Association:

INTERESTED CANDIDATES FOR SAFMC SEAT EXPIRING IN 2016
Members interested in serving in the obligatory seat for the South Atlantic Marine Fishery Commission, please let Lauren know. You can email or give her a call at 252-725-2468.

NEW ANALYSIS COMPARES COSTS OF ELECTRONIC MONITORING AND AT–SEA OBSERVERS
Earlier this year, NOAA Fisheries issued regional electronic technology implementation plans that lay out our vision for the implementation of this technology in U.S. fisheries. One key element missing from those plans and ongoing Council discussions regarding the use of electronic monitoring was cost information. To better inform the Council decision-making process with regard to fishery-dependent data collection, NMFS is issuing two reports comparing the projected costs of two different operational electronic monitoring programs with the costs of more traditional observer/at-sea monitoring programs, as well as an independent review of the groundfish electronic monitoring report. The costs in both reports are estimated for hypothetical programs and costs are based on agency spending and cost estimates provided by three electronic monitoring service
providers in the fall of 2014. Access the reports below:

Cost Comparison for Hypothetical Groundfish Sector
Independent Review of the Groundfish Cost Comparison
Cost Comparison for Hypothetical Herring/Mackerel Fishery

Read the full update from the North Carolina Fisheries Association