Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Worries About What Happens To ‘The Codfather’s’ Fishing Permits

April 11, 2017 — Down on the docks of the Whaling City, everyone knows him as “Carlos.”

“I’ve been working for Carlos for 12 years now,” says Richard Mauzerolle of Weston. “Sometimes he should watch out who he’s talking to,” he adds with a laugh, referencing the IRS sting that landed Carlos Rafael guilty on 28 counts in late March. “But he’s a good guy.”

The fall of New Bedford fishing boss Carlos Rafael could be a big blow for the city’s port. And if his fishing permits are forfeited and end up in another state, it could hurt Massachusetts as a whole.

What happens to Rafael’s boats — and the permits attached to them — will be decided by a federal judge. And people in New Bedford want them to stay in the city.

‘He’s One Of My Main Livelihoods’

Mauzerolle is in the spray foam business — he insulates holds on fishing boats owned by Rafael. He’s one of hundreds of people who work with the man known as “the Codfather,” who gives Mauzerolle about a third of his business.

“He’s one of my main livelihoods right down in the area, so it’d be a shame to have him lose anything,” says Mauzerolle, standing in front of his box truck with a massive Donald Trump sign stuck to the side. Rafael, he says, has “brought this fishing industry back to where it’s supposed to be down here.”

In 2004, Rafael spoke to an archivist at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford about how he amassed so many boats, highlighting the importance of diversifying between scallops and groundfish.

Read the full story and listen to the radio report at WBUR

MASSACHUSETTS: Poached fish served up by Gloucester food pantry

April 11, 2017 — About a half-dozen times a year, the folks at The Open Door in Gloucester receive a phone call — or even a knock on their Emerson Avenue door — to see if they’re interested in some donations of fresh seafood.

The offers don’t arrive from entrepreneurial fishermen or someone looking to unload a bunch of seafood off the books.

The offers come from the Environmental Police. And the answer is almost uniformly yes.

“Generally, they call, but sometimes they just show up,” said Julie LaFontaine, The Open Door’s executive director. “Our mission is to alleviate the impact of hunger in our community, so when we have the opportunity of receiving free food — especially something as healthy and beneficial as locally caught, fresh seafood, we take it and then we distribute it through our food pantry.”

The Environmental Police have made a practice of donating seized seafood — or seafood unable to be returned to the water — to social service agencies, such as food pantries, shelters, veterans organizations and the like.

“It something that we’ve been doing since before I even came on the force and something that we do all the time, distributing this fresh seafood in communities up and down the coast,” said Environmental Police Maj. Patrick Moran, who is in his 33rd year on the force. “Mostly, it’s donations of fresh fin fish.”

But not always.

In late March, the Environmental Police donated dozens of lobsters to the Veterans Transition House in New Bedford, which serves homeless and at-risk veterans and their families in the southeastern region of the state.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Working Waterfront festival returning this fall

April 6, 2017 — The Working Waterfront Festival returns to the working piers of New Bedford, the nation’s most valuable fishing port, on Saturday, Sept. 23. This free, family-friendly event celebrates the history and culture of New England’s commercial fishing industry in a way that is authentic, hands-on and educational.

The flagship event is back with a new co-producer, a new format, and a new festival director, organizers announced this week in a press release.

This year, the festival is partnering with the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center. Located in the heart of the City’s historic downtown, the Fishing Heritage Center opened its’ doors last June. Its mission is to tell the story of the fishing industry past, present, and future, through exhibits, programs, and archives. This partnership is a natural fit for two organizations dedicated to celebrating the commercial fishing industry.

The 2017 festival will be presented in two locations: on Steamship Pier and at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center. These two sites will be linked by a free shuttle bus, allowing visitors to enjoy all the festival has to offer.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: SouthCoast officials, business leaders set for trade mission to British wind energy ports

April 6, 2017 — Mayor Jon Mitchell later this month will lead a trade mission to two cities on the British east coast to see what it looks like when the wind energy sector of the economy takes off the way New Bedford hopes it will here.

About 20 people from SouthCoast are expected to be on the four-day trip to Hull and Grimsby, England, both on the Humber River and close to the English Channel and the North Sea.

Kingston on Hull, usually shortened to Hull, is a city of 257,710 people where the construction of wind turbines is an industry that has grown by leaps and bounds.

Nearby Grimsby, population of about 90,000, with an emphasis on installation and maintenance, has a history with uncanny parallels to the story of New Bedford, according to a scouting report by Paul Vigeant, president of the New Bedford Wind Energy, who visited there in January with a small contingent.

What they found was a region of England that is saturated with wind energy development. It is a place that New Bedford would eventually like to resemble, with hundreds of millions of dollars of wind power investment.

Grimsby once looked a lot like New Bedford. It had a thriving whaling industry, transitioning to fish, where it became the world’s largest fishing port for a time in the mid-20th century.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Call for Photos for Fishing Heritage Center Exhibit: Taken Out to Sea

April 5, 2017 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

New Bedford, MA – The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center invites commercial fishermen to submit their original photos for a new exhibit, Taken Out to Sea, opening June 8, 2017.  This exhibit provides fishermen with an opportunity to share their world with those on-shore.

Commercial fishermen have a unique view of our world.  They can describe the beauty of a sunrise at sea, the assortment of sea life they encounter, or explain the work they do but words do not always have the same power as an image.  For many years, fishermen could not truly share their world with their loved ones at home. With the advance of camera technology, fishermen can capture and share images, opening up their world to us all.

To be considered for the exhibit, fishermen may submit one to three original, at-sea photos by May 15, 2017 to programs@fishingheritagecenter.org.  Please include name, phone number, vessel name, type of vessel, and a caption for the photo.  Fishermen and their families will be invited to the exhibit opening on June 8th.

The Center is open Thursday – Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is free. Located at 38 Bethel Street in the heart of the National Park, the Center is wheelchair accessible with free off-street parking.  The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to preserving and presenting the story of the commercial fishing industry past, present, and future through archives, exhibits, and programs. For more information please contact the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center at info@fishingheritagecenter.org or call (508) 993-8894.

MASSACHUSETTS: Coastal commerce impacts tackled in new report

April 5, 2017 — Settled four centuries ago by seafaring pilgrims, Massachusetts continues to draw sustenance from the water as more than 90,000 people are employed in its maritime economy, according to a new report.

The Bay State’s maritime economy accounts for $6.4 billion, or 1.3 percent, of its gross state product, and it has outpaced other industries, according to a report commissioned by the Seaport Economic Council.

Fishing, marine transportation and tourism are some of the fields that make up the sector, according to the report produced by the UMass Public Policy Center’s Massachusetts Maritime Economy Study. The study highlighted offshore wind and aquaculture as “two opportunities” for the marine economy. In 2013, Massachusetts had an estimated 145 aquaculture operations generating $18 million in revenue, and while no offshore wind has yet been installed off the coast of Massachusetts, it has “the largest offshore wind potential of any U.S. state,” according to the report.

The report will inform the council in its work to promote job growth on the coast and prepare for sea-level rise. The council anticipates awarding about $8 million in grants over the next year and a half, according to the Baker administration.

“This council is focused on the economics of our coastline and the waters that exist here and leveraging those natural assets and those infrastructure assets for more jobs and more economic development,” said Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who chairs the council and said it has given out about $20 million in grants. “My hope is that we continue to protect and preserve our resources and at the same time build a talent pool that can really fuel these emerging industries and promote what we have here in our Commonwealth.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Carlos Rafael faces $109K fine, loss of 13 vessels

April 4, 2017 — New Bedford fishing mogul Carlos Rafael may have to surrender up to 13 of his groundfishing vessels and must pay almost $109,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service as part of his plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

Rafael pleaded guilty last Thursday to falsifying fish quotas, conspiracy and tax evasion in U.S. District Court in Boston and is scheduled to be sentenced there on June 27 by Judge William G. Young.

The 65-year-old Rafael could face up to 76 months in prison on the three charges — far less than the up to 20 years he would have faced under the original 27-count indictment. Federal prosecutors, however, have recommended a prison sentence of 46 months and a significant period of supervised release.

Young is not bound by the specifics of the plea agreement, nor must he follow federal prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations.

“Based on my experience, (Rafael) is probably looking at least three to four years in prison and a substantial fine,” New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, a former federal prosecutor, told the Undercurrent News fishing website. “But I think the bigger question is what happens to his groundfish permits. They may be subject to forfeiture, but his forfeiture obligation can be subject in a number of ways.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

New Bedford mayor: What’s next after Rafael’s guilty plea

April 3, 2017 — All eyes are on Carlos Rafael’s sizeable load of assets—32 fishing vessels, 44 permits and a business named Carlos Seafood—now that he’s facing up to 20 years of jail time when he receives his sentence in June.

His guilty plea agreement with the US government agrees to forfeiture of all 13 of his groundfish vessels, but his sizeable fleet of scallop vessels aren’t mentioned. A spokesperson at the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to speculate on whether the federal government could seize these after his sentencing in June if Rafael couldn’t come up with the money to pay his fines, set at up to $7 million in the plea agreement.

New Bedford mayor Jon Mitchell, a former federal prosecutor, said there is flexibility within the terms of the plea agreement.

“Based on my experience, he’s probably looking at least three to four years in prison and a substantial fine,” Mitchell told Undercurrent News. 

Rafael is facing multiple counts of federal crimes, some of which include a maximum sentence of five years and one of which provides a maximum sentence of 20 years.

“But I think the bigger question is what happens to his groundfish permits,” Mitchell said. “They may be subject to forfeiture, but his forfeiture obligation can be subject in a number of ways.”

Typically, in other cases where the government seizes assets, those assets are sold by the government in an open auction; however, this case is unusual, making the asset sale process possibly run differently, a spokesperson for the DOJ told Undercurrent.

Such a sale at a government auction raises big concerns for Mitchell. 

“There’s a chance they may be bought up by government interests outside the port, and that scenario may have a direct impact on the industry here,” he said.

Mitchell plans to argue for Carlos’s permits to remain in the port of New Bedford, the largest seafood port in the United States.

The DOJ and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) could substitute cash for the forfeiture of vessels by allowing Carlos to pay an equivalent amount of cash, attained through a sale of the vessel to a New Bedford buyer, instead of simply handing the vessels over to them to sell, Mitchell said. 

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MASSACHUSETTS: A milestone in the war over the true state of cod

April 3, 2017 — For years, fishermen from Gloucester to New Bedford have accused the federal government of relying on faulty science to assess the health of the region’s cod population, a fundamental flaw that has greatly exaggerated its demise, they say, and led officials to wrongly ban nearly all fishing of the iconic species.

The fishermen’s concerns resonated with Governor Charlie Baker, so last year he commissioned his own survey of the waters off New England, where cod were once so abundant that fishermen would say they could walk across the Atlantic on their backs.

Now, in a milestone in the war over the true state of cod in the Gulf of Maine, Massachusetts scientists have reached the same dismal conclusion that their federal counterparts did: The region’s cod are at a historic low — about 80 percent less than the population from just a decade ago.

“The bottom line is that the outlook of Gulf of Maine cod is not good,” said Micah Dean, a scientist who oversaw the survey for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. “What we’ve seen is a warning sign about the future of the fishery, and it’s a stark change from what we saw a decade ago.”

The state’s surveys, conducted on an industry trawler, also found a dearth of juvenile cod and large cod, suggesting that the population could remain in distress for years. The lack of small cod reflects limited reproduction, while the absence of the larger fish is a problem because they’re capable of prolific spawning. 

Dean said he hoped fishermen would find the results credible, given that the survey sought to accommodate their concerns about the federal survey, conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To address their concerns, the state spent more than $500,000 to trawl for cod in 10 times as many locations. Rather than sampling the waters twice a year, as NOAA does, the state cast its nets every month from last April to January, and kept them in the water about 50 percent longer. They also searched for the fish in deeper waters, where fishermen have said they tend to congregate.

“It was an exhaustive survey meant to provide an answer to the questions that the fishermen were posing,” Dean said. “But the fish weren’t there.”

Some longtime cod fishermen remain unconvinced. They say the historic fishery has been fully rebuilt, although the federal and state surveys estimate it is only about 6 percent of the level needed to sustain a healthy population.

Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition in Gloucester, which represents many of the region’s commercial fishermen, maintained that the state surveys had some of the same flaws as the federal surveys. Rather than conducting random sampling throughout the Gulf of Maine, the researchers should have trawled for cod in areas where fishermen are finding them, he and other critics said.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

MASSACHUSETTS: Cabral hopeful lobster bill will finally get passed, bring new jobs to New Bedford

April 3, 2017 — It was billed as a legislative lunch with the likes of U.S. senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, but much of a March 24 “legislative luncheon” at Seatrade International was actually about trying to hammer out an agreement on a bill governing the way you can sell lobsters in Massachusetts.

Other topics focused on policies that will govern the growth of the Port of New Bedford.

The luncheon had two parts, one public and one private. And the initial closed-door part, which besides Warren and Markey included the five members of New Bedford’s all Democratic House delegation, began with a heated debate over a lobster bill.

The bill (House Bill 2906) was co-sponsored by 13th Bristol District Rep. Antonio Cabral, who represents the downtown, South End and much of the waterfront. His proposed legislation would allow for the sale, processing and transport of lobster parts, which is already legal in Maine and New Hampshire but not Massachusetts.

“We’ve been trying to resolve this issue for some time,” Cabral said. “There was a bill during the last session, but we’ve made some progress.”

The packet handed to the attendees of the legislative lunch included two letters, one signed by Mayor Jon Mitchell and the other by Ed Anthes-Washburn, the executive director of the Harbor Development Committee. The letters supported two previous lobster bills that failed.

Anthes-Washburn’s letter, addressed to the State House, voiced support for Senate Bill S469 in 2015. After three readings and being passed to be engrossed by the Senate, the House sent it to the Committee on Ways and Means in 2016, where no further action was taken.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times