January 16, 2016 — The battle over the cost and scope of at-sea monitoring of Northeast groundfish vessels, now being played out on various regulatory and legal platforms, promises a hectic end to the current fishing season and a complex start to the next.
There are no shortage of questions.
- When will the federal government run out of money and shift the responsibility for paying for observers to the permit holders?
- How will NOAA Fisheries respond to the recommendations from the New England Fishery Management Council that would significantly alter the at-sea monitoring program in the 2016 fishing season, which begins May 1?
- How do the fishing sectors, once they are handed the responsibility of paying for observer coverage, negotiate new contracts with monitoring contractors when they don’t know what rules will be in place for the remainder of this fishing season and the beginning of the next?
- Finally, what affect will the federal lawsuit, filed by New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel seeking the elimination of the monitoring program, have on the process in the short and long terms?
- “Knowing what the numbers are going to be and what the process is going to be is really important,” Northeast Seafood Coalition Executive Director Jackie Odell told the Gloucester Fishing Commission on Thursday night. “That kind of certainty is really essential.”
Presently, that certainty is nowhere to be found.
Proposed rule changes
Odell was before the board seeking its commitment to support the proposed rule changes for at-sea monitoring approved by the council in December. Those measures are designed to alter the methodology and cost of providing observer coverage to make the program more efficient and ease the ultimate burden of assuming the responsibility for paying for the coverage.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times