Saving Seafood

As Onerous Fees go into Effect that Threaten New Hampshire’s Fishing Industry, Sen. Shaheen Provides an Opportunity for Industry Leaders to Send a Message to Washington

March 3, 2016 — The following was released by the Office of Senator Jeanne Shaheen:

Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the lead Democrat on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, invited two prominent industry leaders in the New England fishing industry to testify at a committee hearing today. Through her leadership on the committee, Senator Shaheen was able to make New Hampshire’s struggling fishing industry a major focus of Thursday’s hearing. James Hayward and Dr. Joshua Wiersma both spoke to the enormous threat that new federal at-sea monitoring fees and existing catch limits pose to New Hampshire’s fishermen. As of the first of this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is forcing New Hampshire fishermen to pay for an at-sea observer program, which monitors catch sizes for conservation purposes. The program, which was previously paid for by NOAA, will cost fishermen an estimated $700 per day on fishing trips.

“Fishing is an integral part of New Hampshire’s economy and heritage,” said Shaheen after the hearing. “Our struggling small-boat fleet needs relief from onerous federal regulations so New Hampshire’s fishermen can continue to make a living. Catch limits and at-sea monitoring fees threaten the very existence of our fishing industry. I’m very pleased that Mr. Hayward and Dr. Wiersma took the time to inform the Senate of their first-hand experience in our region’s fishing industry.”

During the hearing Mr. Hayward and Dr. Wiersma delivered a dire warning to the Senate.

Mr. Hayward: “Time is crucial and the road we’re headed down right now is not a good one. It’s pretty much the end is near and if things aren’t changed soon, at least to some extent, the fleets going to look a lot different in thirty six month. I can assure you of that.”

Shaheen: “Will we still have any fishing in New Hampshire if we don’t see some changes from NOAA?”

Mr. Hayward: “What will happen is the infrastructure will be gone and when that’s gone, the boats will leave. The ones that want to remain will be forced out because they will have no place to offload, market or sell.”

That interaction can be watched here.

At a separate hearing today on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Shaheen confronted the Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker with the testimony she had just heard from Mr. Hayward and Dr. Wiersma. NOAA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Their interaction can be watched here.

Background information on Senator Shaheen’s invited witnesses:

James Hayward, President of XI Northeast Fisheries Sector, Inc.

James Hayward is a second generation commercial fisherman. He is primarily a day boat gillnet fisherman operating in the Gulf of Maine ranging from 20 to 120 miles from port. He currently owns two fishing boats located in Portsmouth Harbor, New Hampshire. He owns and manages Heidi Seafood Services, the only federally licensed groundfish dealership at the State facility in Portsmouth Harbor.  He is president of the community’s groundfish sector, XI Northeast Fisheries Sector, Inc., as well as treasurer of New Hampshire community supported fisheries, New Hampshire Community Seafood.  He is also a board member of the Northeast Seafood Coalition and the Northeast Sector Services Network, and a member of the Seafood Harvesters of America.

Dr. Joshua Wiersma, Manager, Northeast Fisheries, Environmental Defense Fund

Dr. Wiersma has over 15 years of experience working with commercial fishermen in New England to improve their business conditions. His doctoral research, which examined the value of collaborative research to New England fishermen, led him to work directly for the ground fishing industry after graduation. Initially hired by the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership as a Fisheries Economist, he then worked for the Northeast Seafood Coalition as their Sector Policy Analyst where he helped to create the twelve Northeast Fisheries Sectors. He went on to manage New Hampshire’s two ground fishing sectors for the next five years.  Over this time, he also co-founded and was the Executive Director of New Hampshire Community Seafood Association, a successful community supported fishery cooperative that offers fresh, local, underutilized fish to the New Hampshire public through a type of fish share model. He is now the Manager of Northeast Fisheries at Environmental Defense Fund, where he continues to work with fishermen to shape effective fisheries management, to improve fisheries science and data collection, and to develop better seafood markets and other business opportunities.

Invasive species? Try new culinary treat

March 3, 2016 — It’s not easy being green . . . crabs, that is. Then, how could it be?

The green crabs are the poster child of invasive seafood species, prompting their fair share of hand-wringing and vitriol — not to mention legislative action here in Massachusetts to figure out ways to mitigate the far-flung eco-damage they’ve foisted on animal and plant species throughout the state’s Great Salt Marsh that stretches more than 20,000 acres from Cape Ann to the New Hampshire border.

Many people talk about the green crabs, but Spencer Montgomery is actually trying to do something about them. In short, he’d like restaurants and large-scale institutional food purveyors to start using them in recipes and for the consuming public to start eating them. 

Montgomery, a seafood buyer for Woburn-based food vendor Dole & Bailey, is trying to build up a consuming market for the small, ubiquitous crabs, even if he has to do it one chef and harvester at a time.

“There’s really no reason we shouldn’t be selling hundreds of pounds of the green crabs each week,” Montgomery said. “It would be better to get them out of the water to help protect our other seafood species and the marine environment, but they’re also a real alternative for chefs looking to use crabs and crab flavors in different ways and at a far lower price.”

Montgomery said he recently filled orders for about 70 pounds of the crabs from three New England restaurants and now he’s looking to build up his network of harvesters to handle the future demand he envisions from restaurants, hotels, universities and hospitals.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily 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

Presumed Dead, Wild Atlantic Salmon Return to the Connecticut River

February 23, 2016 — By the fall of 2015, the salmon of the Connecticut River were supposed to be doomed. The silvery fish that once swam the Northeast’s longest river, 407 miles from the mountains of New Hampshire to Long Island Sound, went extinct because of dams and industrial pollution in the 1700s that turned the river deadly. In the late 1800s a nascent salmon stocking program failed. Then in 2012, despite nearly a half-century of work and an investment of $25 million, the federal government and three New England states pulled the plug on another attempt to resurrect the prized fish.

But five Atlantic salmon didn’t get the memo. In November, fisheries biologists found something in the waters of the Farmington River — which pours into the Connecticut River — that historians say had not appeared since the Revolutionary War: three salmon nests full of eggs.

“It’s a great story,” said John Burrows, of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a conservation group, “whether it’s the beginning of something great or the beginning of the end.”

The quest to resurrect Atlantic salmon in the Connecticut River began anew in the mid-1960s when the federal government and New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut joined forces. They worked to curb pollution in their shared river and also build passageways around some of the 2,500 dams that plugged the river and its feeder streams in the 11,250-square-mile Connecticut River watershed.

The streamlined wild Atlantic salmon, genetically different from their fattened domesticated counterparts, which are mass-produced for human consumption, are so rare that anglers spend small fortunes chasing them across Canada, Iceland and Russia. Robert J. Behnke, the preeminent salmon biologist of the 20th century, wrote that Salmo salar (Latin for “leaping salmon”) has inspired in people “an emotional, almost mystical attachment to a species they regard as a magnificent creation of nature.”

Read the full story at Al Jazeera America

Court battle continues over at-sea monitoring

February 10, 2016 — The federal lawsuit filed by a New Hampshire fisherman to block NOAA Fisheries’ plan to shift the cost of at-sea monitoring to groundfish permit holders has devolved, at least for now, into a paper fight.

Lawyers for plaintiff David Goethel, captain of the Ellen Diane out of Hampton, N.H., have filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Joseph J. Laplante for an expedited hearing on the merits of the case. Federal lawyers have countered with a motion to dismiss the case outright.

Laplante, sitting in Concord, N.H., has yet to rule on either motion.

In late January, Laplante denied a motion by Goethel’s lawyers for a preliminary injunction that would have immediately halted federal plans to shift the costs of at-sea monitoring to the groundfish boats, thereby helping stave off the impending economic carnage the shift is expected to visit on the already reeling fleet.

“Given that preliminary injunctive relief is not available, plaintiffs request that the court proceed to the merits at its earliest convenience,” Goethel’s lawyers wrote in their motion. “This case remains urgent, with a ‘substantial, largely unrebutted’ risk of ‘potentially disastrous financial impact’ impending in a matter of weeks.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it expects to run out of money for the at-sea monitoring around March 1. Groundfish fishing sectors have been instructed to begin negotiating with monitoring contractors to directly provide the service for the remainder of the 2015 fishing season and the 2016 fishing season that is set to begin May 1.

The question, however, is at what cost. The currently accepted estimate for the cost of groundfish monitors is about $710 per day per vessel, though some fishing sectors around New Bedford have said they were able to negotiate a better price from observer contractors.

Gloucester-based fishing sectors have declined to give specifics about their negotiations with the providers of observer coverage.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Maine Coldwater Shrimp Research Survey Harvests Fall Short of Predictions

February 10, 2016 — Maine shrimp lovers are hoping for the best this winter. With the shrimp population in decline over the past few years, and the Gulf of Maine shrimp fishery being closed for the third season in a row to shrimp trappers and trawlers, there won’t be much Maine shrimp in markets, restaurants or on dinner tables again this year.

But thanks to a study being conducted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, four trawlers and two trappers have been selected to collect samples of northern shrimp from the Gulf of Maine.

Marine biologists will use the data to determine the timing of the egg hatch, and the size, gender and developmental stage of the shrimp, according to biologist Margaret Hunter of the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). A total catch of 48,500 pounds from the Gulf of Maine is being allowed. Any shrimp not used in the study may be sold by the fishermen.

Each participating trawler is required to conduct five research trips in one region, and is being compensated $500 per trip. Each would be allowed to sell up to 1,800 pounds of shrimp per trip.

The two shrimp-trapping vessels are required to continue hauling until the shrimp have hatched off all their eggs. Each is allowed 40 traps, and may haul as often as necessary during the project, with a 600-pound weekly catch limit. The shrimp may be sold, but there will be no other compensation for the trappers.

Despite the best efforts of local trapper Bill Sherburne, as of yet, the shrimp catch has not met his expectations.

As of Feb. 1, Sherburne said he hadn’t done as well as he had hoped. “It makes a difference where the traps are placed. They don’t come close to shore until the water cools down.”

Read the full story at Boothbay Register

NEFMC Releases Newsletter for January 2016 Meeting, Portsmouth, NH

February 5, 2016 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

At its Jan. 26-28 meeting in Portsmouth, NH, the Council approved actions related to the development of several fishery management plans. The issues involved:

  • A witch flounder ABC
  • At-Sea Monitoring
  • Small Mesh Multispecies
  • The Omnibus Industry-Funded Monitoring Amendment
  • Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring FMP

View a PDF of the Newsletter

Federal judge denies fisherman’s motion to block shift of monitoring costs to fishermen

January 28, 2016 —  A federal judge has denied a New Hampshire fisherman’s motion for a preliminary injunction that would have halted NOAA Fisheries’ plan to shift the cost of the at-sea monitoring program to fishermen.

U.S. District Judge Joseph J. Laplante, sitting in Concord, New Hampshire, ruled Wednesday that New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel’s claims for injunctive relief in his suit against the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are barred by the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

“Accordingly, plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction is denied,” Laplante wrote in his ruling.

Goethel, owner of the 44-foot fishing trawler Ellen Diane out of Hampton, and Northeast Fishing Sector 13 are suing the federal agencies and administrators, claiming NOAA’s plans to shift the cost of at-sea monitoring (ASM) to permit holders is illegal and will put fishermen out of business.

Saving Seafood Editor’s Note: The following clarification was provided by David Goethel, a primary plaintiff in the lawsuit:

The Judge gave a narrow preliminary ruling that denied the availability of a particular kind of preliminary injunctive relief. He ruled that he could not issue an injunction to stop the National Marine Fisheries Service from charging the fishermen for At-Sea-monitoring until the merits of the case were decided. The court said nothing about the merits of the case — specifically, nothing at all about the legality of industry funding for ASM — and we are working to get the merits decision as quickly as possible. Meanwhile the Court denied the government’s motion to transfer the case to Boston, Massachusetts, so we can hope that he will want to reach the merits soon.  We are still fighting to prevent industry funding from kicking in. A court date has not been set for a hearing on the merits of our case, but the Judge did set a date for the government to provide the administrative record and honor a Freedom of Information request for all documents and emails written in regards to at-sea monitoring.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

DON CUDDY: Fishermen fight back against government overreach

January 28, 2016 — The commercial fishermen suing the federal government over the cost of at-sea monitors had their day in federal court in Concord, New Hampshire, last Thursday. At issue is the notice to fishermen that they will henceforth be required by the National Marine Fisheries Service to pay out of pocket for the at-sea monitors that accompany them on fishing trips, an expense previously absorbed within the annual budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That agency contends that it no longer has the money to fund the program, although these monitors act as agents for the government, and it insists that the boats must now assume payment. Fishermen believe that the high cost of monitors, as much as $710 daily, is excessive, will force many to tie up their boats and result in “irreparable harm.” They also believe that, irrespective of the cost, having at-sea monitors on their boats is a government mandate and consequently should be funded by the government.

I attended the hearing with John Haran of Dartmouth, manager of Northeast Fisheries Sector XIII which includes 32 fishermen. Sector XIII is a plaintiff in the case along with New Hampshire commercial fisherman Dave Goethel.

The all-day hearing concluded without a ruling. Federal District Judge Joseph Laplante will issue a decision in his own time after deliberating on a legal case with potential ramifications not only for the fishing industry but with respect to any government agency’s attempt to increase its own power.

Steve Schwartz, an attorney with Cause of Action, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on government overreach, represents the fishermen. He told the court that the scope of an agency’s power is determined exclusively by Congress and that NOAA lacks the statutory authority to require fishermen to pay for monitors. If NOAA can force fishermen to start writing checks, “it would open the door to a whole panoply of ways that agencies can expand their powers,” he said.

Read the full opinion piece at New Bedford Standard Times