February 4, 2019 — Should the US government slide into another partial shutdown on Feb. 15, it’s likely that the harvesters of Atlantic scallops off the coast of New England could be looking at smaller landings, warns an article published in Forbes Magazine.
Michael Pentony, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s administrator for the greater Atlantic region, warned last week that his group was already backed up as a result of the shutdown that was at least temporarily halted after 35 days on Jan. 25 when he briefed the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) at its New Hampshire meeting, as reported by Undercurrent News.
But should president Donald Trump and Democratic party leaders not reach an agreement over his demands for a wall on the Mexican border in 11 days, the shutdown would resume and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) probably wouldn’t be able to make the deadline necessary to implement regulations necessary to increase scallop harvest before the season kicks off on April 1, Forbes warned. That means the earlier default quota would have to be used.
Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund, is quoted as suggesting treating Feb. 15 as if another shutdown was going to happen.
“Get everything that you can get done now,” he said. “Hopefully it’s not going to be a shutdown. But I think it’s foolish to assume it won’t be a shutdown again. We don’t know. Nobody knows.”
But Minkiewicz also was concerned about the next season.
“During the whole 35 days that we’ve been shut down, the government was supposed to be moving (next season’s) package forward. Is that 35-day delay going to not allow us to have that in place for April 1? I don’t know the answer to that yet,” he said.