The Massachusetts groundfish and skate fisheries have made their case to the secretary of commerce for emergency action, with the effective and widespread support of the local New Bedford political establishment.
Likewise, the New Bedford and greater Massachusetts sea herring industry is in dire need of emergency action from the secretary to fix a far more simple, and already settled, regulatory issue that the National Marine Fisheries Service northeast regional office has chosen to ignore: the recalculation of the haddock catch cap on Georges Bank herring, based on current federal observer coverage of 100 percent.
This issue was brought to the New England Fishery Management Council and NMFS in June and remains unresolved. The cap is constraining the harvesting of $22 million in sea herring that must be caught before Dec. 31, when the sea herring fishing year expires.
Read the complete opinion piece from the South Coast Today.