Saving Seafood

Ohio Gov. Kasich and the New Hampshire Fishermen

January 25, 2016 — When John Kasich tells you that he is a skilled executive, believe him.

Governor Kasich met with several New Hampshire fishermen on 8 January.  David Goethel, owner and captain of the 44-foot fishing trawler Ellen Diane, is suing NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) for bureaucratic overreach and has explained his position in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.  Governor Kasich read the op-ed and as a result requested the meeting.

This was not a campaign stop.  Nobody took names for a mailing list; nobody handed out bumper stickers.  The governor was there to learn and to help.

The impromptu get-together was held indoors in the fish-processing bay at the Yankee Fisherman’s Cooperative in Seabrook, N.H.  The aroma of fish guts filled the air, reminding me of my school-day summers working on the fish pier in Gloucester.

There were several fishermen present – a small several, as years of government assistance have driven many from the business.  The governor listened to them as they expanded their complaints beyond the scope of Mr. Goethel’s lawsuit.  I couldn’t hear well, as the non-campaign stop lacked an audio system.

After a few minutes, Governor Kasich said, “OK, can I speak now?” and then went on in a loud but conversational tone to outline what needs doing.  First and foremost, he said, get your congressional representatives involved.  Have them write letters, forceful letters, to the executive branch.  Get the powerful congressional leaders involved, Republicans and Democrats, like Senator Schumer among the latter group.

The fishermen told the governor that there had been several congressional letters in their behalf; all apparently fell on deaf ears.  There are currently two letters relative to Mr. Geothel’s lawsuit sent to Dr. Sullivan, the head of NOAA, in early January.  One was signed by nine senators and several House members from the five seacoast New England states.  The other was from the tenth senator of the region, the obsequious Edward Markey.

Read the full story at American Thinker

Fishermen await court’s decision about at-sea monitoring lawsuit

January 22, 2016 (AP) — CONCORD, N.H. — East Coast fishermen are awaiting a judge’s decision about their contention that the federal government’s plan to hand them the cost of at-sea monitoring is illegal.

Fishermen of important New England food species such as cod and haddock will have to start paying the cost of at-sea monitors soon under new rules. Monitors collect data to help determine future fishing quotas and can cost about $800 per day.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Herald

NEFMC Meeting – January 26-28, 2016 Webinar Info

January 21, 2016 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

Meeting: The public is invited to listen in to the January 26-28, 2016 Council Meeting at the Sheraton Harborside Hotel at 250 Market Street in Portsmouth, NH. Check here Sheraton Harborside for further information about the venue. 

Webinar Registration: For online access to the meeting, please use the following link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6378985305225649154. The webinar will be activated beginning at 8:00 a.m. and end at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST.

Charges for Listening: There are no charges if you access the webinar via your computer. If dialing in, your normal phone charges will apply.

Dial in number: Toll: +1 (213) 929-4232

Access Code: 591-922-206 

Meeting Materials: Please consult the Council’s website January 26-28, 2016 for an agenda and copies of the materials to be considered.  

Questions: If you have questions prior to or during the meeting, feel free to call me at the Council office at (978) 465-0492 ext. 106, or otherwise send an email – pfiorelli@nefmc.org.

Questions schooling around at-sea fishing monitors

January 16, 2016 — The battle over the cost and scope of at-sea monitoring of Northeast groundfish vessels, now being played out on various regulatory and legal platforms, promises a hectic end to the current fishing season and a complex start to the next.

There are no shortage of questions.

  • When will the federal government run out of money and shift the responsibility for paying for observers to the permit holders?
  • How will NOAA Fisheries respond to the recommendations from the New England Fishery Management Council that would significantly alter the at-sea monitoring program in the 2016 fishing season, which begins May 1?
  • How do the fishing sectors, once they are handed the responsibility of paying for observer coverage, negotiate new contracts with monitoring contractors when they don’t know what rules will be in place for the remainder of this fishing season and the beginning of the next?
  • Finally, what affect will the federal lawsuit, filed by New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel seeking the elimination of the monitoring program, have on the process in the short and long terms?
  • “Knowing what the numbers are going to be and what the process is going to be is really important,” Northeast Seafood Coalition Executive Director Jackie Odell told the Gloucester Fishing Commission on Thursday night. “That kind of certainty is really essential.”

Presently, that certainty is nowhere to be found.

Proposed rule changes

Odell was before the board seeking its commitment to support the proposed rule changes for at-sea monitoring approved by the council in December. Those measures are designed to alter the methodology and cost of providing observer coverage to make the program more efficient and ease the ultimate burden of assuming the responsibility for paying for the coverage.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

Gloucester Daily Times: Finding common ground on monitors

January 13, 2016 — It takes a lot to bring Democrats and Republicans together on any issue in these days of heightened, highly partisan politics. It seems, however, that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has done the trick.

Sixth District U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton and 16 of his fellow New England congressmen — 12 Democrats, four Republicans and an independent — united last week to call on the agency to delay or call off its plans to force fishing vessel permit holders to pay to have someone looking over their shoulder as they work.

The so-called onboard monitoring program, where a federal observer rides along on fishing trips, is estimated to cost about $710 per day, per vessel. And NOAA expects fishermen to foot the bill. It’s an additional expense — the very definition of an unfunded mandate — that could put permit holders out of business for good. 

As Hampton, N.H., fisherman David Goethel asked John Kasich during the presidential candidate’s visit to Seabrook last week, “Can anyone in this room afford to spend $710 a day to drive to work, to have your own personal state trooper by your side to make sure you don’t go 66 on Interstate 95? (NOAA’s) own economists tell them that fishermen can’t afford it, and their answer is, basically, ‘tough.’ We shouldn’t have to sue our own government, but we have to because they’re not being held accountable.”

Goethel is suing the federal government over the monitoring plans. Kasich called the idea of forcing fishermen to pay for monitors “ridiculous” and “absurd.”

Goethel would seem to have allies — in spirit, at least — in the region’s congressmen. Their letter to NOAA Administrator Kathleen D. Sullivan urged the agency to delay shifting costs for the program to fishermen until a more efficient, less expensive plan is devised.

Read the full editorial at Gloucester Daily Times

New Hampshire Candidates Sought for New England Fishery Management Council

January 12, 2016 — DURHAM, N.H. — The State of New Hampshire has been notified by the National Marine Fisheries Service of vacancies for New Hampshire’s obligatory seat and two at-large seats for the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC). New Hampshire’s obligatory seat is currently held by Ellen Goethel of New Hampshire, who is completing her first term as a Council member.

Candidates should be individuals who, by reason of their occupational or other experience, scientific expertise, or training, are knowledgeable regarding the conservation and management, or the commercial or recreational harvest, of the fishery resources in the coastal and ocean waters of New Hampshire and New England. Those interested in being considered for the obligatory seat must be residents of New Hampshire.

To assist in filling these vacancies, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department’s Marine Fisheries Division will host a candidates’ interview night on Thursday, February 11, 2016, at 7:00 p.m., at the Urban Forestry Center in Portsmouth, N.H. Potential candidates must be prepared to present their qualifications at the session. Interested candidates should contact Doug Grout, Chief of Marine Fisheries for the N.H. Fish and Game Department, at (603) 868-1095.

Read the full story at The Outdoor Wire

 

Ohio Gov. John Kasich to meet with N.H. fishermen

January 5, 2016 — SEABROOK, N.H. — Republican presidential candidate John Kasich will meet with New Hampshire fishermen Friday to discuss federal regulations some say will kill the Granite State’s fishing industry.

The Ohio governor will meet privately with commercial and recreational fishermen and industry members from 3 to 4 p.m. at Yankee Fisherman’s Cooperative after he holds a noon town hall event at the Lane Memorial Library in Hampton.

Ellen Goethel, a Hampton marine biologist and wife of Hampton commercial fisherman David Goethel, said in an email that the local fishing industry is not endorsing any particular candidate.

Read the full story at Portsmouth Herald

Over-regulation threatens fishing industry

December 30, 2015 — HAMPTON, N.H. — New Hampshire fishermen locked horns with a federal agency this year over fishing regulations and mandatory costs they said would put them out of business for good.

The fight ultimately led to a federal lawsuit filed in December against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the nation’s fisheries. The suit challenged the legality of NOAA’s intent to make fishermen pay for observers to monitor their compliance with federal regulations. Fishermen said it was unfair they would be forced to pay for their own policing.

Fishermen were already struggling with regulations in the start of 2015. In August 2014, NOAA’s scientific arm reported that Gulf of Maine cod was down 97 percent from historic sustainable levels. That led NOAA to cut fishing allocations for commercial fishermen in 2015 by roughly 70 percent from last year. NOAA also prohibited recreational fishermen from catching any cod and limited haddock this year.

Half of the commercial groundfishing fleet went inactive this year as a result, leaving only nine. Many recreational fishermen have picked up land jobs for supplemental income and anticipate leaving the fishing business eventually for good.

Read the full story at the Portsmouth Herald

 

 

New England States Schedule Hearings on the Public Hearing Document for Draft Amendment 3 to the Atlantic Herring FMP

New England states of Maine through Massachusetts have scheduled their hearings to gather public comment on the Public Hearing Document for Draft Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring. The dates, times, and locations of the scheduled hearings follow.

Maine Department of Marine Resources

Wednesday, January 6th at 1 p.m.

Marquardt Building

Conference Room 118

32 Blossom Lane

Augusta, ME

Contact: Terry Stockwell at 207.624.6553

New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game

Tuesday, January 5th at 7 p.m.

Urban Forestry Center

45 Elwyn Road

Portsmouth, NH

Contact: Doug Grout at 603.868.1095

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries

Tuesday, January 5th at 2 p.m.

Annisquam River Station

30 Emerson Avenue

Gloucester, MA

Contact: David Pierce at 617.626.1532 

Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management

Monday, January 4th from 6 – 9 PM

University of Rhode Island Bay Campus

Corless Auditorium

South Ferry Road

Narragansett, RI

Contact: John Lake at 401.423.1942

Draft Amendment 3 was initiated to propose management measures in Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) which reflect changes in the stock structure, integrate recent data into management decisions, and respond to changes in the fishery. The Public Hearing Document proposes (1) alternatives to the spawning monitoring program (protocol, default start dates, area boundaries, and length of the closure period); (2) removing the fixed gear set‐aside rollover provision, and (3) requiring a vessel’s fish hold to be emptied before leaving on a fishing trip.

Today’s rebuilt herring population is comprised of a broader range of age classes with older and larger fish compared to the population during overfished conditions. Analysis of more than a decade’s worth of data suggests larger herring spawn first and the timing of the start of spawning varies from year-to-year. Proposed alternatives to the current spawning monitoring program address inter-annual differences and provide additional measures to more adequately protect spawning fish in the areas where they spawn.

At the request of the fishing industry, the Public Hearing Document includes an option to adjust the fixed gear set-aside rollover provision. Currently, the set-aside of 295 mt is available to fixed gear fishermen through November 1, after which the remaining set-aside becomes available to the rest of the Area 1A fishery. The November 1 date was set because, typically, herring have migrated out of the Gulf of Maine by that time. Anecdotal evidence suggests herring are in the Gulf of Maine after November 1, therefore, fixed gear fishermen requested the set-aside be made available to them for the remainder of the calendar year.

Members of industry also suggested a requirement for fish holds to be empty of fish prior to trip departures. This provision would allow for full accountability and encourage less wasteful fishing practices by creating an incentive to catch herring which meet market demands. The New England Fishery Management Council included a complementary provision in its Framework Adjustment 4 to the Federal Atlantic Herring FMP.

Fishermen and other interested groups are encouraged to provide input on the Public Hearing Document either by attending state public hearings or providing written comment. The document is available here and can also be accessed on the Commission website (www.asmfc.org) under Public Input. Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 PM (EST) on January 20, 2015 and should be forwarded to Ashton Harp, FMP Coordinator, 1050 N. Highland St., Suite A-N, Arlington, VA 22201; 703.842.0741 (FAX) or at aharp@asmfc.org (Subject line: Draft Amendment 3). For more information, please contact Ashton Harp, at aharp@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.