Saving Seafood

STEVE URBON: Groundfish Industry Taking Another Hit With Addition of At-Sea-Monitors

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — September 6, 2015 — So this is how it looks. The gradual collapse of the New England groundfish industry continued last week as about two dozen people jammed into a meeting room of the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries office in the former voc-tech school on Purchase Street to argue about the distribution of disaster relief money allocated by Congress.

The discussion was about the so-called “Bin 3” money, the third piece allocated in the disaster relief bill that Congress approved to mitigate the effects of the collapse of the groundfish industry in New England.

Richie Canastra, president of the BASE seafood auction, pleaded with the fishermen and cooperative managers from New Bedford, Chatham and Scituate for civility and derided NOAA Fisheries for “throwing them under the bus” in the wake of failed regulatory policies that continue to heap regulatory costs on the back of the fishing industry.

Canastra, late in the two-hour meeting, pleaded with his colleagues in the industry to think about where the industry will go from here once it decides how to allocate the remaining $6 million of federal disaster relief money approved by Congress three years ago.

Read the full opinion piece from the New Bedford Standard-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

 

Lawmakers fear some fishermen may miss out on aid

September 2, 2015 — BOSTON — Steering a course opposite from the recommendations that came out of Gloucester for spending the last pot of federal fishing disaster funds, elected officials from Cape Cod are urging Gov. Charlie Baker to recast the landings criteria so the approximately $6.5 million will be spread among all 200 boats in the state’s groundfish fleet.

That position most certainly will not be embraced by the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition and the city of Gloucester, whose separate recommendations to the state Division of Marine Fisheries call for landing criteria that would send the disaster aid money to Massachusetts-based groundfishermen who landed at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 — levels that could exclude fishermen on Cape Cod who have scaled back from catching groundfish. 

The Cape Cod effort comes just as the process for determining how to distribute the so-called Bin 3 money is about to close, with the public hearings completed, the period for public comment elapsed, and the advisory group established by the state to help draft a distribution plan set to meet for the final time on Friday in New Bedford.

Why the change?

The last-minute attempt to recast the criteria flows from the decisions by many Cape Cod fishermen, operating under shrunken quotas for cod, to shift their focus to catching other 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.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

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

 

 

DAVID GOETHAL: Fishermen’s anger justified

August 18, 2015 — Recently, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker called the requirement for fishermen to pay $710 per day for catch monitoring “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate” and continued on to call the policy “ridiculous” and “outrageous.” As a fisherman with close to 50 years experience in the fishery, I could not agree more but think your readers and editors need more context to understand the fishermen’s anger.

Philosophically, we are opposed to this idea because other industries do not pay for their monitoring. The airlines do not pay for the TSA, agribusiness does not pay for meat inspection, and pharmaceutical companies do not pay for the FDA, to name a few. These are considered functions of government and so is catch monitoring.

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

NOAA Fisheries Adjusts Fishing Year 2015 Catch Limits for NE Groundfish Sectors

August 17, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries announces adjustments to the 2015 groundfish catch limits based on current sector enrollment, to account for unused sector quota from 2014, and to account for a 2014 common pool overage.

Each year we publish an adjustment to the groundfish catch limits after we know the final sector enrollment. This adjustment is necessary since the sector enrollment deadline is April 30, while the annual catch limits are effective at the start of the fishing year on May 1.

This action also incorporates carryover quota available to each sector (i.e., sector quota unused in fishing year 2014 and that can be fished in fishing year 2015).

This rule also reduces the Eastern Georges Bank cod common pool sub-annual catch limit by 1.3 metric tons to account for a 2014 fishing year overage, leaving an allocation of 1.4 metric tons for the remainder of fishing year 2015, which ends April 30, 2016.

Another adjustment rule may be necessary to account for any additional underages or overages after final catch accounting is concluded later this fall.

For more information, read the rule as filed in the Federal Register and read the permit holder bulletin.

Questions? Contact William Whitmore, Regional Office, at 978-281-9182 or william.whitmore@noaa.gov.

Credit: NOAA

Credit: NOAA

MA Gov. Baker backs fishermen’s call for NOAA to pay for monitors

August 13, 2015 — With a crystalline portrait of America’s oldest seaport serving as the backdrop, Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday attacked NOAA’s plan to force fishermen to pay for at-sea observers on their boats and reiterated his pledge to help convince the federal fishing regulator to consider science other than its own.

Baker, speaking to a crowd of about 100 near the Fishermen’s Wives Memorial on Stacy Boulevard, with the city’s Outer Harbor sparkling in the background, called the federal at-sea observer proposal “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I think it’s ridiculous and it’s outrageous,” Baker told the audience of fishermen, fishing advocates, Gloucester officials and members of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association. “If they want to send observers out on the boats, they should pay for them with their own money.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has told the commercial fishermen in the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery that it expects to run out of money to fund the at-sea observer program by Oct. 31 and then will shift the responsibility for funding it  — estimated at $600 to $800 per day for each boat that carries an observer — to the fishing permit holders.

“It’s insult to injury as far as I’m concerned,” Baker said. “And I’m sure that most of the people in the fishing industry feel the same way.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Technology buoys fishermen devastated by cod’s collapse

August 11, 2015 — Late last year, the National Marine Fisheries Service released an unexpected, midseason stock assessment estimating that the number of spawning cod is 3 to 4 percent of a sustainable population. Within months, cod fishermen — already operating under shrunken quotas — had to find a new species to target and build a business around.

And then another blow: By the end of this year, NMFS wants groundfish fishermen to pay for their own “at-sea monitors,” the independent observers who collect data on bycatch and ensure fishermen follow the rules. Such monitors can cost $800 for each day on a boat, and NMFS requires one to be on 20 percent of trips, in addition to the observers NMFS pays to put on board.

Ford and other fishermen say they can’t afford it. Without cod, they say, their profit margins are slim.

Here’s Ford’s budget: On a good day of fishing flounder, he might make $1,500. His two-man crew gets 25 percent. Fuel costs about $250. And then there’s insurance, maintenance and other recurring expenses. Spending up to $800 on an at-sea monitor, he said, would make the trip not worth it.

“That’s the thing I can’t get past — is the cost of it,” Ford said. “I’ll tie the boat up before I pay for an observer.”

Is there another option?

Read the full story here

 

New England’s Groundfish Industry is Suffering, Hope for Fix Unclear

August 7, 2015 — SCITUATE, Mass. — In 1759 and 1776 economist, Adam Smith, used the metaphor of the “invisible hand” to describe how the actions of individuals based in self-interest could result in unintentional benefits for society overall. Smith used the invisible hand both in describing the benefits of a free market when it comes to income distribution and production. The theory goes an individual working in for their own interest in a market of other individuals behaving in the same manner will unintentionally create more social benefits than if that individual was working with the intention of creating social good.

In the fishing industry in New England, the invisible hand has been slapped away by the overbearing paw of excessive and misguided government regulation. The result is an inefficient market that not only hurts individuals, but also the overall industry and consumers.

Today, there are only five ground fishing boats that make Scituate their homeport. Five years ago, the number was 16, a reduction of over 68 percent. Each boat represented a small business.

Read the full opinion piece at Scituate Mariner

 

US wants struggling fishermen to pay for observers

August 4, 2015 — One was knocked overboard on a winter trip in the middle of the night, while another was handed a noose and told to hang himself. Their computers have been tossed into the sea, their bunks set up over a boat’s toilet, their water bottles tainted with tobacco spit.

The men and women who monitor the catch of New England’s once-mighty groundfishing industry, a job required by federal law to curb overfishing, have long had strained relationships with the fishermen who take them to sea.

Now, with federal funding for the controversial program set to run out this fall, the region’s long-beleaguered fishermen are being told they have to pay for the observers themselves — or they can’t fish.”

“This could be the final hit that pushes us into bankruptcy, causing the collapse of the whole fleet,” said Phil Lynch, 45, a Scituate fisherman who has persisted while the number of groundfishing boats in the region has plummeted by more than 70 percent over the past decade. “The guys still left will be gone.”

The threat to the estimated 200 boats remaining, more than half of which are based in Massachusetts, became more palpable last week when the National Marine Fisheries Service denied an emergency request from the council that oversees New England’s fishing industry to suspend the observer program. The agency said fishermen who catch cod, flounder, and other bottom-dwelling fish will have to find a way to pay for the region’s approximately 100 observers, who accompany them on about a quarter of their trips.

Fishermen insist they can’t afford to pay for the observers, especially after major cuts to their quotas. At a government-estimated cost of $710 every time an observer accompanies fishermen to sea, the program would cause most boats to operate at a loss, they say.

“They’ve set up fishermen to fail, and now they want to monitor the failure,” said Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, an advocacy group for commercial fishermen. “I believe they’re out to put us out of business.”

Read the full story from The Boston Globe

Read a letter from NOAA Northeast Regional Administrator John Bullard officially rejecting the request for emergency funding