Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Deal between Rafael, Canastra brothers worth $93M, still needs government OK

October 6, 2017 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Richard and Ray Canastra offered $93 million to purchase 42 permits and 28 vessels as part of a “global settlement” which would remove Carlos Rafael from the commercial fishing industry, Richard Canastra told The Standard-Times on Thursday.

The brothers approached Rafael about six months ago, Canastra said, offering the fishing mogul, who pleaded guilty to falsifying fishing quota, bulk cash smuggling and tax evasion in March, a way out of the industry. The deal would include Rafael’s fleet of scallopers and accompanying permits.

Canastra said, Rafael mulled the offer over for a few days before negotiations began. The two parties eventually entered into a Memorandum of Agreement, which was mentioned in court documents. The Canastras weren’t revealed as the buyers until Rafael’s sentencing on Sept. 25.

While the Canastras and Rafael have agreed, the deal isn’t complete. NOAA and the U.S. Attorney haven’t taken a final position on the proposed sale, according to court documents.

Canastra said he “didn’t know” how likely the agreement was to becoming a done deal.

“We’re just waiting,” Canastra said. “The government has all our deal structure. We presented it to the government. They know the deal and how Carlos would stay out of the business.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Permit banking threat helped drive Canastra Rafael deal

October 6, 2017 — Richard and Raymond Canastra weren’t the only ones interested in buying Carlos Rafael’s New Bedford, Massachusetts-based fishing empire, Richard Canastra said in an interview with a local radio station on Thursday.

Several big corporations have approached both Rafael and the two brothers to inquire about either buying or investing in the 42-permit, 32 fishing vessel operation, he told drive-time, talk-show host Phil Paleologos on WBSM 1420 AM, in the nearby town of Fairhaven. But the “biggest competitors” Canastra said he was concerned about are non-governmental organizations that could buy Rafael’s permits and “bank” them.

The Nature Conservancy has been making an effort to buy up fishing permits in coastal towns, especially for groundfish, and leasing quotas to fishermen for more than a decade. Geoff Smith, marine director for the NGO’s Maine chapter, estimated that between 12 and 15 groundfish permits have been bought in New England over the past seven years, but he said the Nature Conservancy has not met with Rafael or anyone to make an offer for his permits.

“We’re not interested,” he told Undercurrent Friday. “…We’ve had no contact and we have no plans to contact anyone.”

Smith’s group was interested, two years ago, in obtaining at least one of the groundfish permits now owned by Rafael, according to Canastra.

“There was only one offer up in Maine and that was from the NGO, and I believe it was Nature Conservancy,” Canastra said, adding: “So do you want to see those permits go to an NGO, where it can be put on a shelf or the permit could be leased out to their favorites? That’s been happening since sectors.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MASSACHUSETTS: Canastra Brothers Offering $93 Million for Carlos Rafael’s Fishing Fleet

October 5, 2017 — Last week in court, it was publicly revealed that the potential buyers of Carlos Rafael’s fishing fleet are brothers Richard and Ray Canastra, owners of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction in New Bedford, Massachusetts. This morning, Richard Canastra appeared on WBSM to confirm that the brothers have entered into a memorandum of agreement with Mr. Rafael to buy his fleet for $93 million.

“We wanted to keep everything in New Bedford,” Mr. Canastra said. “Ray and I had to make a decision – do we want to do this? I’m 56 years old, Ray is 60 years old. It’s a big task…at this later stage in our life. We believe that it’s the right thing to do for New Bedford. The waterfront has been good for us since 1986, [we] started the auction in ’94, and we’d hate to see the industry collapse because of what Carlos did in the past.”

When asked about those who have raised questions about the relationship between the Canastras and Mr. Rafael, Mr. Canastra  said, “I look at it this way. We are the largest fish auction in the United States, and Carlos Rafael is the largest boat owner on the East Coast.” He said that although the Canastras and Mr. Rafael are friends, the negotiations became tense, and there was a period where tensions ran so high that the brothers and Mr. Rafael did not speak for three weeks. 

Mr. Canastra also discussed competition with NGOs over the permits. “Our biggest competitors here are the NGOs and people up in Maine who are in cahoots with the NGOs,” he said. He described a situation in 2015 in which Mr. Rafael purchased quota from a Maine seller at fair market value when no one else would. “There was only one offer up in Maine and that was from the NGO, and I believe it was Nature Conservancy. So do you want to see those permits go to an NGO, where it can be put on a shelf or the permit could be leased out to their favorites? That’s been happening since sectors. It was a fair deal, and everyone wants it back now.”

“There are groups up in Maine that believe that these permits should be dissolved back into the industry, or even given back to them,” Mr. Canastra added. “In reality, if they dissolve all these permits into the industry, every permit holder would receive anywhere between 200 to 300 pounds of each species, so it would not really gain anything for that permit holder but it would destroy New Bedford.”

The following is excerpted from WBSM’s exclusive article on the potential transaction:

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — One of the owners of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction in New Bedford is shedding more light on a proposed deal to buy [Carlos Rafael’s] fishing fleet.

Carlos Rafael has been sentenced to 46 months in prison for his illegal fishing scheme, and cannot be involved in the fishing industry during that time and three years after his release.

In an exclusive interview with WBSM’s Phil Paleologos, Richard Canastra confirms he and his brother, Ray, have entered into a memorandum of agreement with Rafael to buy his business, Carlos Seafood, Inc, for $93 million.

“We know boats. We know the business. We’re doing this to keep this in New Bedford,” said Canastra. “My plan is to get out, hopefully, in ten years when things lighten up and it can be sold properly instead of this fire sale where people want everything for nothing.”

Read and watch the full story at WBSM

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford meeting brings wind, fishing industries together

October 5, 2017 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Jim Kendall painted the city’s streets with snow when he articulated how fishermen may feel about offshore wind during a meeting Wednesday that brought both sides together.

As a child on SouthCoast, Kendall spent his snow days sledding on the streets.

“You just can’t do stuff like that anymore,” he said.

He’s seen the same influx in traffic on the ocean in his evolution from fisherman to fishermen representative for Vineyard Wind. Time has added stock limits, marine monuments and the latest is offshore wind. More traffic equates to more difficulty fishing.

“That’s part of the problem,” Kendall said. “There’s constraints now where there never were earlier.”

Both offshore wind and commercial fishing understand neither is leaving the ocean. So John Quinn chaired a New England Fisheries Management Council habitat committee meeting in New Bedford, which invited offshore wind representatives.

“My general policy view is I’m viewing wind as complementing not replacing fishing,” Quinn said. “That balance is why we’re having meetings, seminars and symposiums about it.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

New England Council Unanimously Reelects Dr. John Quinn as Chair and Terry Stockwell as Vice Chair for Another Term

October 3, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council in late September expressed full confidence in its leadership team when it unanimously affirmed the reelection of Dr. John Quinn of Massachusetts and Terry Stockwell of Maine to serve as Council chair and vice chair, respectively, for another term.

This marks Dr. Quinn’s second consecutive year as chairman. Prior to that, he served three years as Council vice chair under Stockwell. The two switched leadership positions during 2016 but continued to work together as a team to direct the Council’s management and policy initiatives.

“I am honored to be reelected by my colleagues as chairman,” said Dr. Quinn. “We have a lot of very complex and important issues facing us in the year ahead, and I am looking forward to collaborating with my fellow Council members and various stakeholders to attempt to solve some of the problems confronting the industry.”

Dr. Quinn is Director of Public Interest Law Programs at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) School of Law. He also is a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and represented many fishing interests while practicing law in private practice for over two decades in New Bedford before joining UMass.

Stockwell is beginning his first term on the Council as a secretarial appointee. He previously served as the state of Maine’s designated fisheries official to the Council but retired from state service in June following a 21-year career at the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher now sits at the Council table in that capacity. Stockwell was appointed in August to fill the seat previously held by Mary Beth Tooley of Maine, who had served three consecutive terms on the Council, the maximum allowed under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

In another show of confidence in leadership, the Council reelected the same slate of members to serve on its Executive Committee for the 2017-2018 Council year:

  • Doug Grout, chief of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department’s Marine Division, was elected to serve his fifth consecutive term on the Executive Committee;
  • Peter Kendall of New Hampshire also was elected to serve a fifth consecutive term; and
  • Terry Alexander of Maine was elected to serve his second consecutive term.

Dr. Quinn and Stockwell also serve on the Executive Committee in their roles as Council chair and vice chair.

Read the release at the New England Fishery Management Council

Gloucester Times: Carlos Rafael case highlights failings of regulatory system

October 3, 2017 — Sometime early next month, Carlos Rafael is expected to report to a federal prison to begin serving a 46-month sentence for criminal conspiracy and tax evasion.

Rafael, the 65-year-old New Bedford-based fishing magnate, admitted to a judge earlier this year that he had lied to federal fishing regulators about the nature and size of his groundfish landings and bulk smuggling.

At sentencing last week, U.S. District Judge William G. Young rejected the argument from the man who liked to call himself “The Codfather” that the fraud was necessary to protect the jobs of his workers.

“This was stupid,” Young told Rafael. “This was a corrupt course of action from start to finish. It’s a course of action of extensive corruption designed to benefit you, to line your pockets. That’s what it is and that’s why the court has sentenced you as it has.”

Good for Young for handing down a stiff sentence (Rafael was seeking probation). The Codfather’s story, however, does not end here. His arrest and prosecution laid bare a broken regulatory and monitoring system.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Times

Fish council to NOAA: Punish Rafael’s sector

October 2, 2017 — The New England Fishery Management Council wrapped up its three days of meetings in Gloucester last week, but not without sending a message to NOAA Fisheries that it’s time to consider possible enforcement actions against the New Bedford fishing sector that allowed Carlos Rafael to operate illegally over a four-year period.

The council voted 13-1, with two abstentions, on Wednesday to request NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office immediately enforce sector regulations governing Northeast Fishing Sector IX’s operation plan. The sector, according to members supporting the motion, failed in its responsibility to ensure Rafael and other members played by the catch-share rules.

The question is how to get the sector to compensate the fishery for the more than 780,000 pounds of illegally landed or labeled fish that went misreported or unreported by Rafael. One suggestion was the sector be forced to buy additional quota commensurate with the overages, assuming enough quota exists for the species in question.

Read the full column at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: SMAST opening draws interest nationally

October 2, 2017 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The official opening of the second SMAST facility created ripple effects beyond its location on South Rodney French Boulevard.

Construction crews erected SMAST East at a cost of $55 million. The names on the guest list, which packed into the first floor of the 64,000 square foot building Friday, displayed its incalculable value to the SouthCoast.

From the political arena, Cong. Bill Keating, Sen. Mark Montigny, Rep. Antonio Cabral and Mayor Jon Mitchell addressed the crowd at the ribbon cutting ceremony. NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Administrator and former New Bedford Mayor John Bullard and former dean of SMAST Brian Rothschild sat in attendance. Eastern Fisheries President Roy Enoksen and Executive Director of New Bedford Seafood Consulting Jim Kendall each listened to the 90-minute presentation that ended with a ribbon cutting.

“Today, you see evidence of UMass Dartmouth developing as a hub for the blue economy for all of New England,” UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Robert Johnson said.

The reach of the new research building extends beyond the northeast as well, particularly in Washington D.C.

“I happen to work with some people that may not be warming up to the idea of climate change is something that might occur,” Keating said. “So when I come here, I can bring some of that science back and try to work with some of my colleagues.”

Mitchell echoed those sentiments. The mayor spent Wednesday in the nation’s capital speaking to Congress on the reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Act, which is the primary legislation that governs fisheries.

“What you do here in creating the basis of regulation matters a whole lot. It’s indeed indispensable. The industry couldn’t function well. It couldn’t flourish as it is, especially on the scallop side these days, if it didn’t have the science to back up our assertions,” Mitchell said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘A new era’: UMass Dartmouth SMAST building to open

September 29, 2017 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — UMass Dartmouth’s new marine science building is finished, its laboratories gleaming with the promise of new research.

The $55 million School for Marine Science and Technology building, dubbed SMAST East, officially opens today in the South End of New Bedford. At 64,000 square feet, it nearly triples the physical size of SMAST, a graduate school and research center focusing on fisheries, coastal preservation, ocean modeling, and climate change.

The new building reunites the school’s programs in a campus-like setting. For several years, some have been housed in the AT&T building in Fairhaven for lack of space.

“Just to be back together was great,” said Steve Cadrin, a professor and chairman of the Department of Fisheries Oceanography. But more importantly, it’s a world-class facility, he said.

The building also helps cement the school’s relationship with the state Division of Marine Fisheries. The agency leased the third floor for its New Bedford office, and it will have a first-floor office for permitting.

The Division of Marine Fisheries works hand-in-hand with SMAST on research and sometimes hires its Ph.D. graduates. Recent hires have represented the agency on New England Fisheries Management Council committees, helped the state understand fish surveys, and studied algae blooms.

The agency’s director, David Pierce, is an adjunct professor.

“We are now in a far better position to collaborate,” he said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Rep Young’s Magnuson Bill to Move Ahead with Input from Calif. Rep Huffman; Aim is No Poison Pills

September 28, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Alaska’s Representative Don Young closed Tuesday’s hearing on four fisheries bills, by remarking to the panel, “We are going to use the vehicle of [HR] 200. I’m going to work with Mr. Huffman and see if we can’t come to some conclusion.

“The basic skeleton of the Magnuson Act … we’re going to keep the skeleton whole. Get those comments and suggestions to us, because we’re going to try to get something moving by October or November this year,” Young said.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) introduced a discussion draft called “Strengthening Fishing Communities through Improving Science, Increasing Flexibility, and Modernizing Fisheries Management Act.” The discussion paper includes sections on Council transparency, flexibility in rebuilding fish stocks, Saltonstall-Kennedy Act reform, red snapper cooperative research and others.

Rep. Jared Huffman said after the hearing Tuesday that Democrats and Republicans have many agreements when it comes to fishery regulations and management.

However, he said previous attempts in recent years to amend and reauthorize the law have stalled because of “poison pill” riders that would exempt fisheries from conservation policies such as the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Protection Act.

“Instead of making meaningful improvements to our most important fisheries statute, this process has focused on weakening fundamental environmental protections in place of making meaningful improvements to our important fisheries management framework,” Huffman (D-San Rafael) said in his opening statement at the committee hearing. “This partisan process does a disservice to hardworking fishermen across the country including those in my district.”

Members from both sides of the aisle were in agreement that the law — known as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 — has worked to prevent overfishing and replenish overfished stocks as was intended upon its passage.

Two other bills were discussed and commented on at the hearing by invited witnesses. HR 3588  and HR 2023 are focused on modernizing recreational fisheries and managing red snapper in regional ways, respectively.

The hearing was before the Water, Power, and Industry Subcommittee of the larger House Committee on Natural Resources.

Witnesses included Chris Oliver, Director of NOAA Fisheries; Mayor Johnathan Mitchell of New Bedford; Mike Merrifield, Southeastern Fisheries Association; Susan Boggs, co-owner of a charter operation out of Alabama, and others.

Chairman Doug Lamborn opened the hearing saying “Many of you here today probably consider this to be a fishery hearing, but I assure you it is much more than that. …whether we are talking about a commercial, recreational, or charter boat operation, the working waterfront that provides shore side support, a boat manufacturer or your local mom and pop bait and tackle shop, today’s hearing is about supporting American small business. It’s my hope today that we will create a strong, bi-partisan MSA that supports jobs and our fishermen, and that supports the science data and process used in federal fisheries management.”

Jonathan Mitchell, Mayor of New Bedford, pushed back on the concept of “flexibility.”

“The term “flexibility” should not be understood as a euphemism for deregulation,” Mitchell said. “The councils are in the business of finely calibrating decisions in light of relevant environmental and economic data, and their own experience and expertise.

“In the discharge of their duties, they tend not to win friends either in the fishing industry or in the conservation community, and given the goals of Magnuson-Stevens, that’s probably the way it should be,” Mitchell said.

Susan Boggs, co-owner in a charter boating operation in Alabama, supported the current MSA.

“I am here today to tell you that MSA is working. This law was written to bring fisheries back from collapse, to ensure long-term sustainability for future generations, and to provide a conduit for stakeholders to be a part of the management process.

“There are several species of fish that are critical to the charter/for-hire sector in the Gulf of Mexico, but perhaps none more than red snapper. Since 2007, when annual catch limits became a requirement, the recreational sector’s quota for red snapper has tripled. MSA has worked for us.

“A suggestion that I would offer to this committee that would have a meaningful impact on the management of this fishery would be a Federal Red Snapper angler license,” she said.

“No one can tell you how many anglers target Red Snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. This license does not have to be cost prohibitive. Even a $10 fee would provide better data on the number of anglers targeting this species and could generate millions of dollars that could be used for cost recovery, stock assessments and better landings data which should include more real-time reporting using current technology from private anglers.”

Chris Oliver listed challenges to NOAA, nationwide and how MSA can tackle them.  “We face formidable challenges managing recovering stocks to benefit both commercial and recreational user groups with fundamentally different goals and objectives, and who are experiencing increased fish interactions due to the strong management measures that have improved historically overfished populations.

“Together with our partners, it is essential that we continue to explore innovative, science-based management approaches and regional management tools. We must remain dedicated to exploring ways to maximize economic opportunities from wild-caught fisheries for commercial and recreational fishermen, processors, and communities. We are committed to working with Congress on the bills put forth by this subcommittee, to ensure that annual catch limits, accountability measures, stock rebuilding, and other aspects of our management construct are working, while protecting the overall, long-term conservation and sustainability of the nation’s fishery resources.”

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.