October 1, 2015 — More than two years after the federal government declared a fisheries disaster in the Northeast as groundfish stocks failed to rebound as expected, federal officials on Thursday released the last round of aid to fishermen totaling $6.9 million for Massachusetts.
Read the full story at The Boston Globe
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.
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
September 2, 2015 — Edgartown’s commercial trap fishing industry is tough work. It is evident as much in the number of working boats and fishermen seeking conch and sea bass as it is anecdotally. Those fishermen who remain put in long days and work under strict quotas and regulations. However, fishing is all they’ve done for most of their lives, and they say they are committed to riding out what wave is left of the local industry.
Island landings of channeled whelk, commonly referred to as conch, the most lucrative species caught in Island waters, are valued at more than $2 million each year since 2011, according to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF).
Behind conch are oysters, with Martha’s Vineyard landings valued at $1.3 million in 2014. There is one important distinction. Unlike conch, which are wild-caught, oysters are for the most part raised in the protected waters of Island bays and ponds. Bay scallops, which are propagated as part of an extensive taxpayer-supported program, accounted for just over $700,000.
Even as conch fishing holds steady, the number of commercial fishermen registered as Island residents has started to decline, according to the DMF. In 2008, there were 360 registered Vineyard commercial fishermen. As of 2015, there are 263.
“Conch fishing is tough fishing,” commercial fisherman Tom Turner of Edgartown said as he replaced lost or damaged sea bass traps aboard his boat, the Sea Raven, docked at Memorial Wharf in Edgartown on a hot and sunny August afternoon.
The commercial sea bass season is short. Fishermen can only go out three days a week: Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and each day they fish, they’re allowed to catch no more than 300 pounds of sea bass, Mr. Turner said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sets quotas and updates fishermen as they change.
Read the full story at Martha’s Vineyard Times
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