Management & Regulation

August 5, 2013 — The head of the NOAA-affiliated New England Fishery Management Council has told NOAA Northeast Regional administrator John Bullard than the panel stands opposed to Bullard’s call for fishermen venturing into newly opened areas off Cape Cod and Nantuck to bear the full cost of NOAA-mandated on-board monitors for any such trips.

In a letter dated July 26, Council Chairman C.M. “Rip” Cunningham told Bullard that the monitoring cost requirement may prevent virtually any fishermen from participating in the program.

He notes that as a result of the fragile economic state of many participants, the increased costs to fund observers may not be affordable. He also noted that little, if any, justification for this requirement was provided other than two general statements which the Council did not find convincing.

“Little, if any, justification is provided other than general statements that without higher coverage rates, ‘discard rates would be difficult to estimate because there is little catch history in these areas’ and the higher coverage would ‘allow (the National Marine Fisheries Service) to monitor whether vessels are interacting with protected species,’” Cunningham wrote. “Neither argument is convincing …”

The letter follows a July 10 announcement in which Bullard, essentially saying he and the agency want to provide relief to fishermen dealing with a federally declared “economic disaster” and 2013 fishing year cuts of up to 78 percent in their landing limits, formally launched proposals to open portions of previously closed fishing areas.

NOAA spokeswoman Maggie Mooney-Seus — based, like Bullard, at NOAA’s Northeast regional headquarters in Gloucester’s Blackburn Industrial Park — indicated that the areas to opened would includes parts — but not all — of Areas I and II and the Nantucket Light Ship area. Mooney-Seus also noted that the change would primarily provide a boost only to the larger trawlers due to the distance to the grounds from Cape Ann; it would not be expected to help the smaller, independent day boats that make up Gloucester’s remaining but shrinking groundfishing fleet.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

EASTON, Md. — July 31, 2013 — A recently organized group, the Harvesters Land and Sea Coalition, is calling for the withdrawal of regulations put into effect in June by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources on the total allowable catch of menhaden, alleging that DNR didn't follow proper procedure for promulgating the regulations.

"We've tried and tried and tried to work with DNR, and the reason this coalition was started is we can't do anything else," Bob Newberry, spokesman for the coalition, said.

The coalition, which was recently organized and is made up of independent watermen and farmers, is growing in membership quickly, according to Newberry. It is accusing DNR of not following proper procedure for promulgating a fishery management plan (FMP) on menhaden.

The coalition alleges that there is no peer-reviewed scientific study using the best available science that establishes the Atlantic menhaden in the Bay are in need of conservation or are overfished.

Officials from both DNR and the ASMFC said the 2009 to 2011 stock assessment is the best available science.

Newberry said the regulations are causing strain on watermen economically and could put them out of business, specifically pound netters in Dorchester County whose primary catch, and the way they make a living, is menhaden.

According to a letter the coalition sent to the DNR, when the bycatch limits are in play, the most a waterman can harvest on a single day is 240 boxes of menhaden. At current market rates, 240 boxes sell for roughly $1,500. It costs about $600 in fuel and labor for a waterman to untie his boats, travel to his pound nets and harvest that quantity of menhaden in a day. Also, boat payments, boat maintenance, equipment, equipment maintenance, taxes and regulatory fees must be paid.

The letter also states the regulations will drive up the price of the menhaden used by crabbers as bait, therefore driving up the price of Maryland blue crabs.

"We have nothing left to lose. They're (DNR) getting ready to put a $250 million dollar a year business right out the window," Newberry said. "Every other avenue has been explored in trying to get DNR to listen to the watermen of the state of Maryland, and this latest thing with the menhaden was the biggest kick in the face. These guys are putting us out of business."

The coalition alleges there hasn't been an economic impact study on how the regulations will affect Maryland. Kerns said ASMFC isn't required to do an economic impact study, but Newberry said DNR would be required to under law.

Read the full story at the Easton Star-Democrat

Read the comment letter submitted to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources on behalf of the Land and Sea Coalition

Read the letter from the Land and Sea Coalition to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources

Read the letter from the Land and Sea Coalition to the Maryland Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review

Saving Seafood has extensively covered issues relating to Atlantic menhaden and the menhaden fishery. Links to some of our previous reports are provided below.

"Menhaden are Overfished" Reports were Premature

Areas of Concern in the ASMFC's 2012 Atlantic Menhaden Assessment Update

Pew Environment Letter-Writing Campaign on Menhaden Misleads Public with Selective Presentation of Facts

 

July 26, 2013 — The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) today announced new emergency regulations to establish Atlantic menhaden commercial quota management, reporting requirements and a recreational possession limit. This rule making is necessary to adopt changes to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (ASMFC) Atlantic menhaden Fishery Management Plan (FMP) in order to end overfishing on the stock and remain in compliance with the coast-wide plan.

The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board adopted new reference points for the status of Atlantic menhaden populations in response to the 2010 Peer Review Panel's recommendation to provide greater protection for the stock. The 2012 stock assessment update found overfishing on the Atlantic menhaden stock based on these new reference points. Prior to the changes, it was believed that overfishing was not happening. Amendment 2 to the FMP puts in place a total allowable catch (TAC) for the Atlantic coast to help end overfishing. The 2013 TAC is a 20 percent reduction from the 2009 through 2011 average landings and approximately 25 percent reduction from 2012 landings.

Read the full story at LongIsland.com

CHATHAM, Mass. — July 25, 2013 — Until last week, many local fishermen thought the herring problem had been solved.

After nearly a decade of a hard-fought grassroots campaign to have fishery managers more closely monitor herring – a keystone species in the food chain – there was a plan.

The proposal, developed last year by the New England Fishery Management Council, was to have all Atlantic herring trips by large vessels covered by federal observers who would note what was being caught and what was being thrown back.

But last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service disapproved the 100-percent observer coverage requirement as well as two other measures considered by advocates to be vital to protecting herring stocks: a requirement that fish dealers weigh the catch and not use estimates based on volume or other methods, and a limit on the number of times herring fishermen could invoke an emergency clause and dump fish in their nets without them being counted by an observer.

“They basically approved nothing,” said a frustrated and angry John Pappalardo, the CEO of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance and a former member and onetime chairman of the New England council.

“They kicked the can down the road,” said Chatham fisherman John Our after returning Tuesday from a day’s fishing for skates and dogfish.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

July 25, 2013 — NOAA Fisheries, on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce, has partially approved Amendment 5 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. Amendment 5 was developed to improve the Atlantic herring fishery catch monitoring program and address bycatch issues in the fishery.

A notice of availability soliciting public comments on Amendment 5 was published on April 22, 2013, with a comment period ending June 21, 2013.  A total of 115 comments were received and considered in making the decision to partially approve Amendment 5.  The proposed rule to implement Amendment 5 was published on June 3, 2013, with a comment period ending July 18, 2013.  A summary of the comments received, and NOAA Fisheries’ responses to those comments, will be published in the final rule implementing Amendment 5.

Click here to view Volume 1 of the Environmental Impact Statement for this action.

Click here to view Volume 2 of the Environmental Impact Statement for this action.

Read the full notice from NOAA Fisheries

July 18, 2013 — A rule by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) can be found below:

Action: Correcting Amendment.

Summary: This action contains corrections and clarifications to the final rule implemented through Joint Framework Adjustment 24 to the Scallop Fishery Management Plan and Framework Adjustment 49 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (Joint Framework 24/49), which published in the Federal Register on May 9, 2013. Following publication, NMFS identified certain provisions of the implementing regulations for Joint Framework 24/49 that needed correcting or clarification. Specifically, this correcting amendment makes corrections pertaining to the scallop fishery's default 2014 fishing year days-at-sea allocation for full-time vessels so that the allocation in the regulations is as intended by Joint Framework 24/49 (i.e., currently this allocation is greater than specified through the preambles to the proposed and final rules). In addition, this amendment makes corrections to the observer call-in requirements for scallop limited access general category individual fishing quota vessels when fishing in open areas so that vessel owners and operators are clear on when they are required to call into the industry-funded observer program.

Dates: Effective July 18, 2013.

Read NOAA's full rule at the National Register

July 24, 2013 — On his Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) blog, RFA Managing Director Jim Hutchinson argues that the perennial dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay are directly traceable to the menhaden fishery in these areas (“SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE: How 'Gas & Oil' Industry Helps Create Coastal Dead Zones,” 6/21). But his argument ignores most of the relevant information on dead zones, menhaden, and even the basic ecology of the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay.

Mr. Hutchinson writes: “it should be of no surprise to anyone that the biggest dead zones in coastal U.S. waters are at the mouth of the Mississippi and in a small region of the Chesapeake, right where factory menhaden reduction operations…are based.” It is certainly unsurprising, but not for the reason Mr. Hutchinson alleges. Conspicuously absent from his highly selective account is any reference to agricultural runoff, by far the largest contributor to the formation of dead zones, especially in the Gulf of Mexico.

A dead zone forms when nutrients, like nitrogen, stimulate an excessive growth, or “bloom”, of phytoplankton. These small, plant-like organisms are at the base of the ocean food chain. As blooms proliferate and die off, they consume most or all of the oxygen in the surrounding waters.

When crafting his narrative, Mr. Hutchinson inexplicably fails to mention that huge quantities of nitrogen, in the form of fertilizer from farming, pour into rivers like the Mississippi and estuaries like the Chesapeake every year. This is despite the fact that it is easily one of the largest influences on the growth of dead zones.

The Gulf of Mexico’s annual summer dead zone is one of the largest in the U.S., forming around where the waters from the Mississippi River and its watershed meet the Gulf. The Mississippi watershed itself is massive: according to a NOAA fact sheet, water from 41 percent of the continental United States eventually discharges into the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi. Much of the land in that watershed is dedicated to farming, and much of that farming requires nutrient-rich fertilizer that will eventually return to the watershed, with dead zones being the direct result.

In its 2013 forecast, NOAA cites conditions in the watershed, specifically “flood conditions in the Midwest that caused large amounts of nutrients to be transported from the Mississippi watershed to the Gulf,” for the estimated size of this year’s dead zone.

What responsibility does NOAA assign menhaden for this year’s algal bloom? The agency’s forecast does not mention menhaden at all. In contrast, mentions of menhaden comprise the bulk of Mr. Hutchinson’s piece. But given the volume of nutrients that flow into the Gulf every year, blaming its dead zones on a lack of menhaden is absurd.

Similar flows of nutrients from farms and population centers have led to dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay. As with the Gulf, the key is the flow of nutrients into the Bay. According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the reductions in the size of the dead zones can be attributed to programs designed to limit nutrient inflow, including “upgrades to wastewater treatment plants, stormwater management controls, [and] the implementation of agriculture management practices such as cover crops.”

But even if an overwhelming amount of nutrients weren’t flowing into U.S. rivers and estuaries, would menhaden be able to improve water quality by “filtering” phytoplankton? While Mr. Hutchinson certainly believes so, claiming that menhaden can rid the water of “4 to 6 gallons of algae” per minute, a substantial amount of evidence shows the opposite.

Several studies show that menhaden have limited filtering abilities, and that their ability to remove phytoplankton from the water decreases as they age. Juvenile menhaden have been found to consume relatively more phytoplankton than adults, which consume relatively more zooplankton, tiny marine animals such as krill. This is an important distinction because the menhaden fishery only harvests adult menhaden, and zooplankton do not contribute to algal blooms.

The most recent study, published in 2010 by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, found that menhaden only eat phytoplankton in significant quantities until they reach the age of 1. After that, they primarily consume zooplankton, meaning that adult menhaden do nothing to directly prevent algal blooms. A 2006 study from scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service and the University of Massachusetts reached a similar conclusion: adult menhaden do not consume large amounts of phytoplankton. As a result, the fishery’s influence on the growth of algal blooms and the persistence of dead zones appears to be limited.

Dead zones are not the only environmental issue that Mr. Hutchinson gets wrong: his inaccuracies extend to his descriptions of how one company, Omega Protein, operates. He describes the company as a “resource degradation outfit” that “functions to take as much menhaden from areas of the Chesapeake and Gulf of Mexico as is technological [sic] possible.” Not included in this overzealous denunciation is the fact that Omega Protein operates within the catch limits set by the Atlantic and Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commissions for the menhaden fisheries in the Chesapeake and Gulf of Mexico.

The company has also taken other environmentally conscious steps to reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency at its facilities in Reedville, Virginia and along the Gulf, as well as updating wastewater treatment equipment on its fishing vessels, and supporting oyster restoration efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.

Mr. Hutchinson’s attacks on Omega Protein’s hiring practices are similarly long on rhetoric and short on reality.

He is particularly irate about the hiring of what he dismissively and demeaningly labels “cheap foreign labor,” in actuality temporary, seasonal workers hired through H2B visas. He writes that when “the Louisiana unemployment rate was 3.7% in 2006-2007, topping 6.5% in Mississippi during the same period, Omega’s manufacturing facilities in that region had utilized close to 600 of those low-paid foreign workers.” Such a statement is clearly ignorant of the actual requirements of the H2B program.

In order to even be eligible to hire non-domestic workers through an H2B visa, a company must first demonstrate that it can’t fill the positions domestically. While Mr. Hutchinson criticizes Omega Protein’s hiring of individuals born outside of the United States, the company was only able to fill the positions through the H2B program because of a lack of response from the domestic workforce.

Recent reductions in the menhaden harvest in the Chesapeake Bay have forced that company to consolidate its Chesapeake fleet. At the same time three boats were being decommissioned, two new boats were unveiled as part of an effort to modernize the fleet. Grasping at straws, Mr. Hutchinson sees this as evidence of hypocrisy on Omega Protein’s part. But, according to Monty Deihl, Omega Protein’s Director of Fishing Operations, the two newly commissioned vessels were purchased as part of a long-planned effort to improve its fishing vessels, before the ASMFC had even considered the new, harsh regulations. As Mr. Hutchinson himself notes, these are the first new vessels commissioned in Reedville in over 20 years. This isn’t hypocritical of Omega Protein, but instead represents a long-term investment in the menhaden fishery and the surrounding communities that depend on it.

Mr. Hutchinson makes only a cursory attempt at proving menhaden responsible for dead zones, instead diverting into irrelevant tangents about oil money and CIA conspiracies. The facts that are presented are obviously tailored to fit his preconceived notions, and omit some of the most relevant information on menhaden, the Gulf, and the Chesapeake. If Jim Hutchinson’s intention was to educate his readers on dead zones, he completely missed the mark. What he presents more closely resembles ideological opinionating, rather than objective reporting.

You can read the RFA story for yourself here

July 22, 2013 — The federal law that mandates fishery management sets ten national standards that all fishing regulations must meet. But those standards are somewhat vague and sometimes even contradictory. They set managers the difficult task of protecting fish stocks while simultaneously preserving fishing communities. They’re also supposed to ensure that fishing rights are distributed fairly and equitably.

Not surprisingly, new regulations are often criticized for failing to give due weight to one of these competing standards. The New England Fishery Management Council has often been accused of employing a "fire, aim, ready" approach to management. And they're not alone. Rick Robins, chair of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, says that region was for a long time stuck in a reactive, rather than pro-active, mode.

To break out of that mode, Robins said the Mid-Atlantic council decided it needed to stop and actually think about what they wanted to accomplish. In 2011, they launched a Visioning and Strategic Planning Project.

Read the full story and listen to the audio from NPR affiliate WCAI

July 18, 2013 — Trying to keep track of Who's Who when it comes to New England's Fisheries can be very confusing. In an attempt to clear up some of the confusion, here is your 4-minute Video Guide to the Players.

It's a high-speed, information-packed chalkboard illustration – check it out.

View the video at WCAI

July 17, 2013 — For decades, fishery management has focused almost exclusively on the need to restrict fishing. Now, environmental changes are forcing fishermen and regulators to reevaluate their traditional practices.

Ernie Eldredge has been fishing all his life – clamming, long-lining cod, and crewing on sea scallop boats. But weir fishing is his love and mainstay. Last May, Eldredge netted something (or rather, two somethings) that even he’d rarely seen before – an Atlantic croaker and a grey triggerfish.

Weir fishing on Cape Cod is a tradition that dates back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The circular nets anchored by hickory poles are like underwater corrals that trap fish as they migrate along the coast. Eldredge still uses some of the gear his father did, and others before him. The chain stretches all the way back to the Native American inhabitants of Cape Cod.

Looking out over one of his weirs just off the beach in Chatham, Eldredge says he’s witnessed a major shift in recent years. The odd southern fish is part of it. The bigger problem, though, is that Eldredge’s traditional targets have moved offshore out of reach of his nets. This weir is empty, and he’s already disassembling his others two months earlier than usual. He blames climate change.

Rising carbon dioxide levels have profound consequences for ocean ecosystems. Water temperatures increase, ocean chemistry changes, and weather patterns shift. The microscopic plants and animals at the base of the food chain respond and the impacts reverberate through the ecosystem. The location, growth, reproduction, even behavior of fish is affected.

Coping with climate change will take an equally herculean shift in fishery science and management. Many experts say the key to weathering climate change is something called ecosystem-based management. As the name implies, the idea is to base any one decision on a comprehensive understanding of the entire ecosystem. It’s a logical idea but far from simple.

The first step is getting a handle on the physical and chemical changes taking place in the ocean. Dr. Jon Hare and his colleagues at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center have documented deviations in temperature, salinity, acidity, and nutrient levels in New England’s waters. They’re also seeing shifts in wind patterns and ocean currents in the Gulf of Maine. And that translates into ecological changes.

Read the full story and listen to the audio from NPR affiliate WCAI