Mystic Archives - Saving Seafood

Fish council explores monitoring alternatives

April 19, 2019 — The New England Fishery Management Council continues to work on an amendment to improve monitoring within the groundfish fishery, with a particular emphasis on generating more options within the dockside monitoring alternatives.

Meeting for three days this week in Mystic, Connecticut, the council approved several additions and modifications to the original range of groundfish monitoring alternatives, with an eye toward completing a draft environmental impact statement in time to schedule public hearings later this year.

The council also requested its Groundfish Committee “expand the number of options to determine monitoring coverage levels based on catch” and explore an additional alternative for “vessel exemptions based on fishing location.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NEFMC Meeting: April 17-19, 2018, Mystic, CT, Listen Live, View Documents

April 11, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold a three-day meeting from Tuesday, April 17 through Thursday, April 19, 2018. The public is invited to listen-in via webinar or telephone. Here are the details.

MEETING LOCATION: Hilton Hotel, 20 Coogan Boulevard, Mystic, CT 06355; Hilton Hotel Mystic.

START TIME: The webinar will be activated at 8:00 a.m. each day. However, please note that the meeting is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday and 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. The webinar will end at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST or shortly after the Council adjourns each day.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION: Online access to the meeting is available at Listen Live. There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

CALL-IN OPTION: To listen by telephone, dial +1 (914) 614-3221. The access code is 167-206-035. Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

AGENDA: The agenda and all meeting materials are available on the Council’s website at April 17-19, 2018 NEFMC Mystic.

SPECIAL EVENT: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) Office of Renewable Energy Programs will be holding an open house on Tuesday and Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in conjunction with the Council meeting. The event will be held in the Clipper Room near the Council’s main meeting room. BOEM has scheduled this open house to: (a) gather feedback on recently proposed commercial offshore renewable energy projects; (b) enhance communications between leaseholders and the fishing community; (c) answer questions about future leasing; and (d) solicit public comment on recently published public notices, including the Vineyard Wind project, which currently is under a 30-day public comment period with five public hearings scheduled from April 16 through April 19. Four will be held in Massachusetts (New Bedford, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Hyannis) and one in Kingston, RI. Learn more at Vineyard Wind notice and hearing schedule and visit open house.

GROUNDFISH NOTE: On Wednesday morning, the Council will receive an overview of Northeast Fishery Sector IX’s steps to address its shortcomings, as well as a summary of Sector IX’s proposed operations plan as submitted to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office. Because of recent information received from the industry, NMFS’s consultation with the Council on Sector IX likely will include: (a) discussion of the proposed Sector VII operations plan amendments that relate to Sector IX; (b) other sectors as they relate to Sector IX; and (c) effects on the sector system generally. The Council may provide recommendations to NMFS on any topics discussed.

THREE MEETING OUTLOOK: A copy of the New England Council’s Three Meeting Outlook is available HERE.

Undersea monument plan advocates hear fishermen’s concerns

August 31, 2016 — MYSTIC, Conn. — One hundred and fifty miles east of Cape Cod, a unique undersea landscape of deep canyons and high mountains supports a diverse ecosystem, abundant with colorful corals, fragile sponges, beaked whales, dragonfish and mussels adapted to living in methane hydrate seeps, that is being considered for protection as a National Monument.

Two leading advocates for the designation, which would be given by President Barack Obama under the American Antiquities Act before he leaves office in January, explained why they are lobbying for the designation Tuesday to an audience of both conservation advocates and commercial fishing representatives concerned about losing valuable fishing grounds.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Peter Auster, retired University of Connecticut marine science professor and currently the senior research scientist at the Mystic Aquarium, made their case for declaring the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts as a Marine National Monument during a program Tuesday evening at the aquarium.

But commercial fishing groups say the designation would cut off their access to productive areas for red crab, swordfish, tuna and offshore lobster harvests, among other species.

“Those areas have been used for hundreds of years,” said Joe Gilbert, owner of Empire Fisheries, which has operations in southeastern Connecticut and elsewhere along Long Island Sound.

He and other fishing representatives argued that if Obama uses the executive authority afforded him in the Antiquities Act to designate the area a monument, the federal and regional fisheries regulatory processes that require public input would be circumvented.

“We feel disenfranchised at this point,” Gilbert said.

Eric Reid of North Kingstown, R.I., who represents commercial fishing interests on the New England Fishery Management Council, said creating the monument would cause “localized economic damage” to the already stressed fishing industry, and advocated for a compromise being recommended by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Read the full story at The Day

NEFMC April/May Newsletter

May 6, 2016 — The Council Report summarizes major actions approved at NEFMC meetings or highlights items of interest.

At its April 19-21 meeting in Mystic CT, the Council approved actions related to the development of its fishery management plans. The issues involved:

Development of a Deep Sea Coral Amendment
Atlantic Herring Amendment 8
The Industry-Funded Monitoring Amendment
Sea Scallops and the NGOM Area
EBFM
Spiny Dogfish
At-Sea Monitoring
Small Mesh Multispecies

Read the full newsletter as a PDF

New England Fishery Council Honors Steve Correia of Fairhaven, MA

April 20, 2016 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

Former Massachusetts state fishery scientist Steven Correia received the New England Fishery Management Council’s (NEFMC) Janice Plante Award of Excellence for 2016 at its meeting today in Mystic, CT. While the now-retired Fairhaven resident was employed by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries for over 30 years, Steve was honored by the NEFMC for his extraordinary contributions to federal fisheries management.

The annual Janice Plante Award of Excellence, first awarded to Janice herself in 2015 for her outstanding news coverage of New England’s fisheries, was established to pay special tribute to those who have displayed outstanding commitment and contributions of time and energy in service to the Council fishery management system.

For the last 26 years Steve served the NEFMC in various ways. He was a member of the technical teams that provide the scientific underpinnings of the Council’s management actions. To that end, he was a charter member of the Scallop Plan Development Team, or PDT, beginning in 1991 and served on the Groundfish PDT from 1994 through 2015, during one of the most challenging periods faced by the New England Council.

But he also was a key contributor to nearly all of the Council’s major PDTs at one time or another. The standing joke among his colleagues was that Steve was the most valuable Council employee who was not on the NEFMC payroll. He was Chairman of the Multispecies Monitoring Committee from 1997 through 2001 and during other periods was a member of the Atlantic Herring, Monkfish, Red Crab, and Dogfish PDTs, always bringing ideas, analysis, and integrity to the job.

During the development of the Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP) as we know it today, he was influential in designing effort controls to reduce fishing pressure on fish stocks of concern and stock rebuilding programs, harvesting “sector” rules, and methods to establish and account for catch limits. As a member of the Scallop PDT, Steve participated in the development of the rotational management system and the early scallop closed area access programs. He also helped develop measures to protect river herring and shad that were eventually included in the NEFMC’s Herring Fishery Management Plan.

Steve frequently contributed to the stock assessments supporting each fishery management plan. Through his long experience, he was able provide key perspectives to management challenges, often helping less experienced Council staff better understand the context of management choices. He also served on the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee in 2011 and several years on its Research Steering Committee.

He touched nearly every management decision made by the Council since at least 1990. His hard work and technical skills were valued by every PDT chair and significantly improved the analyses that supported Council actions. During his many years of service Steve Correia was an invaluable asset to both staff and the Council alike.

From left: NEFMC Chairman Terry Stockwell, Correia, and Dr. David Pierce, Director, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries