Saving Seafood

Rep. Bill Keating to file bill to resolve dispute between Chatham and feds

June 17, 2016 — CHATHAM, Mass. — U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., has agreed to file legislation that town officials hope will end a dispute over who owns and manages the ocean off the Nantucket Sound side of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge.

“We think, once and for all, it will put to bed any contention about the boundary issue and we can continue as we have for over a hundred years to manage that area,” Chatham Selectman Seth Taylor said Wednesday after he and town manager Jill Goldsmith left a meeting with Keating and his staff.

When it released its draft management plan for the refuge in April 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service claimed it owned more than 717 acres of beach on the Atlantic side that the town believed it owned instead. Service officials also argued the refuge includes waters that fall within what it considers its western boundary.

The Fish & Wildlife Service and the town were able to agree on most of the disputed portions of the management plan. They settled on a boundary on the Atlantic side that returned much of the 717 acres to the town; the service decided to allow almost all of the fishing activities it had originally claimed were detrimental to the protection of shorebirds and wildlife.

But the two sides couldn’t find common ground on the western boundary.

The town and the state contended the legal documents that took the property in 1944 to establish the refuge, and a subsequent wilderness declaration in the 1970s, defined the boundary as the mean low water mark. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey threatened litigation, arguing the refuge never controlled anything below the mean low water mark.

Read the full story in the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishermen need Mass. Attorney General Maura Healey’s help

March 2, 2016 — When touring the North Shore a year and a half ago, then-candidate for attorney general Maura Healey made it a point to mention her family ties to Gloucester, Newburyport and the region’s fishing industry. The implication was that, if elected, fishermen would have a powerful ally on Beacon Hill, or at the very least someone who understood the unique difficulties facing the industry.

Now, Healey is well into her second year as attorney general, and it is time to make good on her promise to protect the industry from federal overreach.

We are talking specifically about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s at-sea monitoring program, which places observers on fishing vessels to record details of their catch and make sure the federal government’s byzantine regulations are strictly followed.

The most galling aspect of the program, however, is the requirement that fishermen pay for their overseers. By some estimates, the cost could run as high as $710 a trip. Fishermen are already on a razor’s edge; forcing them to pay out and extra several hundred dollars a trip will undoubtedly kill off many of these small businesses for good.

Last week, state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante and state Sen. Bruce Tarr reached out to Healey, asking for her help.

“We request that your office explore all appropriate legal means to support our fishing families and ports through vehicles such as the current pending case,” they wrote in a letter to Healey, referring to a lawsuit filed by fisherman David Goethel in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire aimed at stopping the mandatory monitoring. “We are interested in Mr. Goethel’s plight because his situation is comparable to that of fishermen and Gloucester and the statewide fishing industry.”

Read the full opinion piece at Gloucester Daily Times

Monitor Costs Shift to Fishermen March 1

February 29, 2016 — Cape Ann lawmakers Bruce Tarr and Ann-Margaret Ferrante walked a thin line last week when they sat down and penned a letter to state Attorney General Maura Healey on the issue of at-sea monitoring.

The state Senate minority leader and state representative, respectively, wanted to enlist Healey’s support in the legal campaign to block NOAA Fisheries’ plan to shift the cost of mandated at-sea monitoring (ASM) to groundfish permit holders on March 1 and they knew they were racing the clock.

They also didn’t want to overplay their hand by pressuring Healey to follow a specific course of remedy, such as having Massachusetts become an intervening plaintiff in the ongoing federal lawsuit filed by New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel seeking to block NOAA Fisheries’ plan to transfer the responsibility of funding ASM to the fishermen as of Tuesday.

“We didn’t want to pre-suppose any method of support,” Tarr said. “We just believe that this plan represents such an injustice that it would be a serious mistake not to look at every option and we wanted to make sure the commercial fishing industry is represented.”

So, Tarr and Ferrante carefully worded their letter, asking the state’s senior law enforcement official to explore any available legal avenue for supporting the industry effort that Goethel’s lawsuit has emerged to most poignantly represent.

“We request that your office explore all appropriate legal means to support our fishing families and ports through vehicles such as the current pending case,” they wrote, referring to the Goethel lawsuit that was filed in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire. “We are interested in Mr. Goethel’s plight because his situation is comparable to that of fishermen in Gloucester and the statewide fishing industry.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times