Northeast Fishery Sector 13 Archives

Court Rules Against Local Fishermen, Upholds Job-Killing Government Mandate

August 2, 2016 — The following was released by Cause of Action:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire dismissed the lawsuit filed by Plaintiffs David Goethel and Northeast Fishery Sector 13 against the U.S. Department of Commerce.

In December 2015, the Department of Commerce ordered that fishermen who fish for cod, flounder and certain other fish in the Northeast United States not only must carry National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”) enforcement contractors known as “at-sea monitors” on their vessels during fishing trips, but must pay out-of-pocket for the cost of those monitors. This “industry funding” requirement would devastate the Northeast fishing industry, at the price of many jobs and livelihoods. The District Court’s order allows that requirement to remain in place.

The Court found that the fishermen’s suit was untimely and that the requirement that monitors be funded by the fishermen was authorized by law.

“I am very disappointed by this decision,” said Goethel. “I’ve made a living fishing in New England for more than 30 years, but I can’t afford to fish if I have to pay for at-sea monitors. I’m grateful to Cause of Action Institute for joining the fight, and I hope that the rule of law will win in the end.”

“The fishermen in my sector can’t sustain this industry funding requirement,” said Northeast Fishery Sector 13 Manager John Haran. “They’ll have to try other fisheries, if they can keep fishing at all.”

“While we respect the District Court and its decision, it appears that decision is contrary to the law and facts,” said Alfred J. Lechner, Jr., President and CEO of Cause of Action Institute and a former federal judge. “In the end, the federal government is overextending its regulatory power and is destroying an industry. We intend to study the decision and consider further action.”

Read the full release at Cause of Action

East Coast fishermen spar with federal government over cost of at-sea monitors

July 14, 2016 — Every year, the federal government spends millions monitoring New England commercial fishermen to ensure they ply their timeless maritime trade in accordance with the law.

Now, a judge is set to rule on who should foot the bill for the on-board monitors: the government or the fishing boat owners. The East Coast fishermen say sticking them with the bill would be the “death knell” for their industry and is illegal on the part of the federal government.

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 — third-party workers hired to observe fishermen’s compliance with federal regulations — collect data to help determine future fishing quotas and can cost about $18,000 a year, or $710 per voyage.

The Cause of Action Institute, a legal watchdog representing a group of East Coast fishermen, sued the federal government in December in U.S. District Court in Concord, N.H., seeking to block the transfer of payments from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the fishermen.

“It is unlawful for NOAA to force struggling fishermen to pay for their own at-sea monitors,” said former federal judge Alfred Lechner, the institute’s president and CEO. “The significant costs of these regulations should be the responsibility of the government.”

The lawsuit was filed against the Department of Commerce on behalf of David Goethel, owner and operator of F/V Ellen Diane, a 44-foot trawler based in Hampton, N.H., and Northeast Fishery Sector 13, a nonprofit representing fishermen from Massachusetts to North Carolina.

It called the transfer of payments the “death knell for much of what remains of a once-thriving ground fish industry that has been decimated by burdensome federal overreach.”

“Fishing is my passion and it’s how I’ve made a living, but right now, I’m extremely fearful that I won’t be able to do what I love and provide for my family if I’m forced to pay out of pocket for at-sea monitors,” Goethel said when the suit was filed last December.

Read the full story at Fox News

MASSACHUSETTS: South Shore ground fishermen skeptical of plan to use digital cameras for monitoring mandate

June 9, 2016 — A program to get New England fishermen using video technology instead of human monitors to track their adherence to catch limits and document fish discarded from boats is getting mixed reviews in South Shore fishing ports.

Longtime commercial fishermen from Marshfield and Scituate said the project to equip some groundfishing boats with digital cameras comes with numerous pitfalls, including cost burdens and concerns about how video footage would be used.

Beginning this week, up to 20 groundfishermen from the Maine and Cape Cod will use three to four cameras to document fish handling on their vessels. At the end of each fishing trip, boat captains will send hard drives to third-party reviewers, who will view the footage and determine how much fish was discarded.

The Nature Conservancy is overseeing the project and hailed it Tuesday as a “new era in fisheries monitoring” that would be less costly than the current federal mandate, which requires having human monitors aboard boats on a percentage of fishing trips – at a cost to the fishermen of more than $700 a day.

Last December, South Shore fishermen threw their support behind a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Cause of Action on behalf of Northeast Fishery Sector 13, which represents fishermen from Massachusetts and New Hampshire down to North Carolina. The federal lawsuit challenges the legality of the federal mandate and came in the aftermath of news that government funding to cover the cost of monitors was running out.

Christopher McGuire, The Nature Conservancy’s marine program director, said his group has begun working with National Marine Fisheries Service personnel in hopes of winning approval for the video-monitoring program.

If video monitoring can deliver verifiable data at an affordable cost, McGuire expects federal approval to come within two years.

South Shore fisherman Ed Barrett questioned whether there would be any cost savings, saying the camera equipment would cost thousands of dollars.

“Then someone has to sit in a cubicle and watch the video,” said Barrett, who lives in Marshfield. “ In a multi-species complex like we have in New England, it’s impossible for the video to pick out which fish are being discarded.”

Read the full story at the Patriot Ledger

STATE HOUSE NEWS: Fishing fleets turning to technology to meet monitoring mandate

June 1, 2016 — New England fishermen are starting to use digital cameras to document groundfish discards and prove they are fishing within established quotas, turning to technology for a method that may prove more cost effective than hiring human monitors.

With support from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, The Nature Conservancy is overseeing a new project, which launches on Wednesday, June 1 and is being hailed as a “new era in fisheries monitoring.”

Up to 20 groundfishermen from the Maine Coast Community Sector and Cape Cod’s Fixed Gear Sector will use three to four cameras to capture fish handling activity on the decks of their vessels. After completing their trips, crews will send hard drives to third party reviewers who watch the footage and quantify the amount of discarded fish.

“Electronic monitoring is the only realistic solution for the small-boat fishery,” Eric Hesse, captain of the Tenacious II, of West Barnstable, said in a statement. “Even if some fishermen have managed to scrape together enough daily revenue to cover the cost of human observers, it won’t take much to undo that balance.”

In December 2015, the non-profit Cause of Action announced a federal lawsuit challenging the legality of the federal mandate requiring them to carry at-sea monitors on their vessels during fishing trips and to soon begin paying the cost of hosting the federal enforcement contractors. The suit was filed by Northeast Fishery Sector 13, which represents fishermen from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Cause of Action estimates the cost of human monitors at $710 per day.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

MASSACHUSETTS: South Shore ground fishermen skeptical of plan to use digital cameras for monitoring mandate

June 1, 2016 — A program to get New England fishermen using video technology instead of human monitors to track their adherence to catch limits and document fish discarded from boats is getting mixed reviews in South Shore fishing ports.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

DAVID GOETHEL: Fishermen on the Hook to Pay for Their Own Regulators

December 28, 2015 — The following is a excerpt from an opinion piece published today in The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Goethel, a groundfish fisherman out of Hampton, N.H., writes that he is suing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “to stop it from sinking New England’s groundfish industry for good.” He is represented by Cause of Action, a government watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Goethel writes: “The courts are the industry’s last chance. This month, along with the Northeast Fishery Sector 13, I filed a federal lawsuit- Goethel v. Pritzker. Our claim: Neither NOAA nor its subsidiary, the National Marine Fisheries Service, has the authority to charge groundfishermen for at-sea monitors. Even if Congress had granted this authority, they would have had to follow the process called for in the Administrative Procedure Act and other statutes-which they haven’t. A bipartisan group of senators, including Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), highlighted this troubling fact in April. Writing to the assistant administrator of NOAA Fisheries, they stated NOAA ‘has chosen an interpretation of the FY15 report language that is inconsistent with congressional intent, and consequently, that very high [at-sea monitoring] costs will soon unreasonably burden already struggling members of the fishing industry in the Northeast.'”

Few professions are as significant to New England’s economy and history as fishing. Yet the ranks of groundfish fishermen have dwindled so much that we’re now an endangered species. The causes are many-but the one now threatening us with extinction is the federal government. Along with one other plaintiff, I’m suing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to stop it from sinking New England’s groundfish industry for good.

Groundfish include cod, haddock and 11 other common bottom-dwelling species. After years of dwindling stocks, in 2012 the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a disaster declaration for groundfish territory off the coast of New England. Over the past four years my cod quota-my bread and butter-plummeted from 60,000 pounds to 3,700 this year. I caught my limit in four days in June.

Shifting ocean patterns have certainly contributed to our struggles, but regulators are a separate anchor altogether. Groundfish fishermen are organized into a patchwork of 15 sectors, i.e., government-designed cooperative organizations. We operate under at least seven overlapping federal and state entities and programs, all of which have their own regulatory nets.

As if warrantless searches from the Coast Guard, catch inspections upon returning to port, and satellite tracking weren’t enough, at-sea monitors also accompany us on roughly one in five randomly selected fishing trips. They are hired by three for-profit companies-one of which is led by the former NOAA official who designed the monitor program. They follow us around and take notes on everything we do. That includes measuring our nets, measuring fish we bring in and those we throw back, and recording our expenses down to how much we spent on lunch.

The program is unnecessary given the heavy regulation that exists. And last month NOAA informed us that, beginning on Jan. 1, groundfish fishermen must pay an estimated $710 a day when a monitor is present. That fee covers the monitors’ training, mileage to and from the fisherman’s boat, supervisor salaries, data processes and all other administrative costs. It also covers a set profit margin for the three companies providing the monitors. What those margins are, neither NOAA nor the companies have disclosed.

Read the full opinion piece at The Wall Street Journal

Costs for at-sea monitors will force many fishermen out of business.

December 18, 2015 — The following was released by the Center for Sustainable Fisheries:

The Center for Sustainable Fisheries fully supports the lawsuit filed in New Hampshire last week by Cause of Action. The Washington-based watchdog group, which focuses its attention on government overreach, is suing the federal government on behalf of our commercial fishermen in New England.

The case is crystal clear. It stems from the high cost for at-sea monitors and the insistence, by NOAA’s intransigent National Marine Fisheries Service, that fishermen must now foot the bill for monitors because the agency has run out of money. This is simply outrageous. The regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service is former New Bedford mayor John Bullard.

Beginning January 1, fishermen who are required to bring monitors on groundfish trips will be billed an estimated $710 daily for their services, an expense previously borne by our government regulators. This mandate comes down at a time that the groundfishery in New England has been declared a disaster, with landings and revenue down and fewer boats fishing. To now burden struggling fishermen with what is undoubtedly a function of government is simply unjust. Furthermore, NOAA has conducted its own study on the costs of monitoring and concluded that upwards of 60 percent of active groundfish vessels would be rendered unprofitable if forced to pay for at-sea monitors. ‘Unprofitable’ in this case meaning fishermen going out of business; deprived not only of income but a way of life.

The plaintiffs in this important case are Dave Goethel, a CSF board member and owner of the Ellen Diane, a 44-foot dayboat out of Hampton, N.H., along with Northeast Fishery Sector XIII, comprising thirty-two East Coast fishermen and managed by John Haran in New Bedford. The controversial issue has been simmering for some time. It is now in the hands of the judiciary. In arguing the case Cause of Action will present a number of legal arguments, primarily that NOAA has no authority to compel funding. It does not take a legal scholar to see which way this case should be resolved. Let us hope that justice will prevail.

View a PDF of the release

MASSACHUSETTS: South Shore fishermen support lawsuit over at-sea monitors

BOSTON, Mass. — December 11, 2015 — In a new lawsuit, regional fishing interests are challenging the legality of a mandate requiring them to carry at-sea monitors on their vessels during fishing trips and to soon begin paying the cost of hosting those federal enforcement contractors.

South Shore fishermen Thursday threw their support behind the lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Cause of Action on behalf of Northeast Fishery Sector 13, which represents fishermen from Massachusetts and New Hampshire down to North Carolina.

Marshfield fisherman Ed Barrett said shifting the cost burden to small fishing boats would “pull the rug out” from under fishermen.

The lawsuit “puts the issue as out-front as it can get,” said Barrett, who is president of the Massachusetts Bay Ground Fishermen’s Association.

In the suit filed in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire against the U.S. Department of Commerce, the plaintiffs are also seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent fishermen from taking on the costs, estimated at hundreds of dollars per day at sea.

Read the full story at Marshfield Mariner

Lawsuit plaintiffs: Groundfish observer funding rule will ‘basically destroy industry overnight’

December 11, 2015 — A lawyer representing fishermen suing the federal government over a forthcoming requirement that they pay for the cost of bringing at-sea observers on their boats estimates that “more than half” of the US east coast groundfishermen will go out of business if the new rule takes effect.

Speaking to reporters on Dec. 10 about a lawsuit filed that day against the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Department of Commerce, attorney Stephen Schwartz estimated that the rule change would “basically destroy the industry overnight”.

“That’s the fishermen with downstream effects on the crews, on buyers and sellers of seafood, on restaurants with kind of rippling effects throughout the entire economy of New England,” he said.

Schwartz works for Cause of Action, a non-profit Washington, D.C.-based legal advocacy group that is representing New Hampshire groundfisherman

David Goethel as well as the non-profit industry group Sector XIII filed suit in federal court alleging that a NOAA requirement that groundfishermen begin paying for the cost of at-sea observers on Jan. 1 — a cost that NOAA has previously borne itself — violates existing federal laws including the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

According to Sector XIII manager John Haran, the at-sea observer funding rule will accelerate the decline of the east coast groundfish industry, which has already been in decline for years, he said.

Goethel, who operates a small dayboat from New Hampshire waters, agreed.

“We can not afford to pay for this. It’s that’s simple. I would ask everybody on the call, could you afford to pay $710 to pay for someone to ride to work with you everyday. We can’t either,” Goethel said.

Haran added fishermen are not clear why the cost for the at-sea observers is so high.

“The actual observer, the person on the boat gets paid between $15 and $20 per hour. How they get to $710 from there is one of the great mysteries of this whole program,” he said. “The fishermen are expected to pay for the observers’ training, for observer company overhead, for observer company profit even though we don’t know what that profit is.”

NOAA has defended the program arguing that it needs the information provided by the observers, but doesn’t have the resources to fund it itself.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

New England Fishermen File Lawsuit Over At-Sea Monitoring Mandate

WASHINGTON — December 9, 2015 — The following was released by Cause of Action:

Today, Cause of Action is announcing that its clients, David Goethel, owner and operator of F/V Ellen Diane, a 44-foot fishing trawler based in Hampton, N.H., and Northeast Fishery Sector 13, a nonprofit entity comprised of over 20 groundfishermen located up and down the eastern seaboard, are suing the U.S. Department of Commerce over a program that would devastate much of the East Coast’s ground fish industry.

The complaint challenges the legality of a federal mandate requiring groundfishermen in the Northeast United States to not only carry National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”) enforcement contractors known as “at-sea monitors” on their vessels during fishing trips, but to soon begin paying out-of-pocket for the cost of these authorities. In addition to the complaint, the Plaintiffs have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would protect fishermen from having to bear the costs of the at-sea monitors.

“Fishing is my passion and its how I’ve made a living, but right now, I’m extremely fearful that I won’t be able to do what I love and provide for my family if I’m forced to pay out of pocket for at-sea monitors,” said Goethel. “I’m doing this not only to protect myself, but to stand up for others out there like me whose livelihoods are in serious jeopardy. I’m grateful to Cause of Action for giving my industry a voice and helping us fight to preserve our way of life.”

“The fishermen in my sector are hard-working and compassionate folks who would give the shirts off of their backs to help a fellow fisherman in need,” said Northeast Fishery Sector 13 Manager John Haran. “Our sector will be effectively shut down if these fishermen are forced to pay, themselves, for the cost of at-sea monitors.”

“By the federal government’s own estimate, this unlawful regulation will be the death knell for much of what remains of a once-thriving ground fish industry that has been decimated by burdensome federal overreach,” said Cause of Action Executive Director Dan Epstein. “Americans, particularly those who enjoy good, quality seafood, should be extremely concerned that an industry that has been around since before our nation was even founded is slowly going extinct, having been left out at sea by a federal government that seems more interested in caving to special interests than protecting jobs, families and consumers everywhere.”

BACKGROUND:

“Catch Shares” are a fishery management tool that dedicates a secure share of quota allowing fishermen or other entities to harvest a fixed amount of fish. Since 2010, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has coerced New England groundfishermen like Mr. Goethel into joining a form of catch shares known as “sectors,” where they share quota, and are forced to invite federally-contracted monitors onto their boats anytime they set out to sea.

Although the agency has claimed in Federal court that “Sector membership is voluntary; permit holders need not join a sector in order to be able to fish,” the reality is they have designed the alternative, known as the “common pool” to be so prohibitive, that fisherman are forced to join a sector to remain economically viable in the groundfish industry.

Catch Shares were promoted heavily by environmental groups and NOAA during the first years of the Obama Administration. Former NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, asserted that “fisheries managed with catch share programs perform better than fisheries managed with traditional tools.” She promised that catch shares are “the best way for many fisheries to both meet [federal mandates] and have healthy, profitable fisheries that are sustainable.” However, the promises made by Federal appointees and environmentalists have not been fulfilled in New England.

Unfortunately, it’s about to get much worse for these struggling fishermen, who are already policed by the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Some time in “early 2016,”, NOAA will begin forcing them to pay the costs associated with having at-sea monitors watch over their shoulders.

This unlawful mandate will cost Mr. Goethel and the groundfishermen of Sector 13 hundreds of dollars per day at sea, which, for many of them, is the difference between sinking and staying afloat. In fact, according to a study produced by NOAA, nearly 60% of the industry will be rendered unprofitable if it is required to pay out of pocket for these monitors.

NOAA has implemented the industry funding requirement for monitoring despite the fact that:

The Secretary of Commerce declared the groundfish fishery an economic disaster in 2012.

The industry continues to struggle with the precipitous decline in groundfish profitability, as evidenced by a four-year low in groundfish revenue of $55.2 million for Fishing Year 2013 – a 33.6 percent decline from Fishing Year 2010.

Congress has directed NOAA to use its appropriated funding to cover the cost of these at-sea monitors, which NOAA has refused to properly utilize and allocate in accordance with congressional intent.

NOAA is specifically required by statute to implement regulations that allow fishing communities sustainable prosperity and “minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities.”

As mentioned above, NOAA itself produced a study indicating that upwards of 60 percent of the groundfish industry could be rendered unprofitable if it is required to pay for at-sea monitors.

About David Goethel:

Mr. Goethel, who has been fishing for over 30 years, holds a B.S. in Biology from Boston University, and worked at the New England Aquarium as a research biologist before choosing to go back out to sea as a fisherman. Mr. Goethel served two terms on the New England Fishery Management Council, and has been an advisor to seven state and federal fishery management boards, including the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission and the governor’s commission on marine biology. Mr. Goethel has been awarded the National Fisherman’s Highliners Award for his active involvement in cooperative efforts to research and manage marine fisheries resources, and is a member of the Yankee Fishermen’s Cooperative.

About Northeast Fishery Sector 13:

Northeast Fishery Sector 13 is a nonprofit organization comprised of 20 active groundfishermen who are permitted in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia. The number of groundfishing activity within the sector has declined sharply in the past five years due to poor science and overregulation, which has resulted in quota cuts. Click here for more information about the sector.

About Cause of Action:

Cause of Action is a government accountability organization committed to ensuring that decisions made by federal agencies are open, honest, and fair.

MEDIA CONTACT: Geoff Holtzman, geoff.holtzman@causeofaction.org, 703-405-3511

Read the Complaint here

Read the Motion here

Watch a YouTube video to learn more about the case here