AUGUSTA, Maine — February 15, 2014 — Passamaquoddy Chief Joseph Socobasin said Friday the tribe was disappointed that the Department of Marine Resources withdrew its support Wednesday for a tentative agreement with them over the state’s elver fishery because of legal concerns.
Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources, on Wednesday told members of the Legislature’s marine resources committee that the department was backing off its support of the proposal because of legal concerns raised by the Maine Office of the Attorney General.
The committee was meeting to discuss possible measures that might be included in a bill, LD 1625, that would lay out rules for the 2014 elver fishing season that starts March 22.
“We were cautiously optimistic” going into the meeting, Socobasin said in a Friday news release.
“By lunchtime, the agreement dissolved before our eyes,” said Vice Chief Clayton Sockabasin, who is also the chair of the Passamaquoddy Fisheries Committee. The Passamaquoddy Fisheries Committee and Passamaquoddy Tribal Leadership entered into good-faith negotiations with the DMR last December. Last week the tribe and the state met with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The commission approved a general proposal for Maine to use a statewide catch quota, rather than a hard cap on fishing licenses, to protect stocks of American eels. Department of Marine Resources officials have promised the commission that Maine will reduce the total statewide volume of the 2014 elver harvest by 35 percent.
The attorney general’s office, however, said that some provisions in the proposal may violate the equal protection clause of the state constitution and, as a result, might be unenforceable if challenged in court. Prohibiting the Passamaquoddys from using fyke nets but allowing nontribal fishermen to use them might not be constitutional, the attorney general’s office has said. The same might be true about penalizing nontribal fishermen who exceed their personal quotas but not imposing penalties on individual Passamaquoddy fishermen, who would have no personal quotas.