February 14, 2014 — The word that Massachusetts will lose about $34 million in direct revenue through the decline in 2013 fish landings — and the estimate that direct and indirect revenue losses to the state’s fishing industry and fishing communities like Gloucester will be about $103 million — should not come as any surprise.
Those figures, outlined by Gov. Deval Patrick in a letter to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker show the level of economic disaster the state and its fishing communities are confronting in the face of the continuing commercial fishing crisis, and stand on their own to emphasize the immediate need for the $75 million in federal disaster aid promised for six declared disasters, including the Northeast Groundfish fishery.
But the numbers, compiled through a state-commissioned study, also drive home that this level of aid may not make a large dent in the level of crisis faced by fishermen out of Gloucester and elsewhere.