Editorial: Gloucester, Commonwealth have better use for $150K than study telling us what we knew
Mt. Auburn Associates, a consulting firm working off a $150,000 state seaport advisory grant to advise the city on economic development opportunities in Gloucester Harbor, has obviously been listening to those who work there.
That is good, in a way. But so far, virtually all of what it is telling city officials, they could have heard for free from those same people who have attended hearings and spoken out about harbor and waterfront issues in the past.
The fishing industry, for example, is obviously a shadow of what it once was, largely due to federal regulation. As Gloucester’s own Vito Calomo of the Massachusetts Fisheries Recovery Commission puts it, "They won’t let us fish."
Coast Guard bill includes new safety mandates
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved new legislation that includes a number of fishing vessel safety improvements championed by Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank.
The 2010 Coast Guard Reauthorization bill increases funding for the Coast Guard, and enhances its ability to carry out homeland security missions. The bill passed the House by a vote of 385-11.
But, at Frank’s initiative, the legislation also establishes marine safety as a core mission of the Coast Guard, creates a fishing safety training grant program, calls for new federally funded research on improving safety technology within the industry, and updates other safety requirements, including new safety standards for vessels of over 50 feet.
"Fishing is a dangerous business," Frank said in a prepared statement. "But there is a lot that can be done to minimize the hazards faced by fishermen.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.
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During the debate of this legislation on the House Floor Representative Elijah Cummings, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, and Congressman James Oberstar, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, described Congressman Frank as "a vigorous advocate for his fishing community" and praised his efforts on this legislation.
Read the statements of Chairmen Cummings and Oberstar on Congressman Frank’s website.
Fishermen plan protest at NMFS
With participants expected from as far away as Maryland, plans for a massive fishermen’s protest Friday against federal policies at the regulators’ regional offices got a boost yesterday with the release of a supportive "Dear Colleagues" note from Elinor Ostrom, the new Nobel laureate in economics.
A professor at the University of Indiana, Ostrom said major commitments on campus will keep her from joining the protest, which is informally generating a list of grievances that includes converting common resources into privatized commodities or catch shares in the groundfish and scallop fisheries.
But in an e-mail she said "could be read from me at the event," Ostrom wrote, "I wish I could join you today as you struggle with an important issue for you and your families and for all of us affected by the fisheries of the world."
Gloucester ripe for more fish processing?
When the subject turns to fishing, the consultants advising the city on economic development opportunities in Gloucester Harbor speak less and listen more.
The rules of the marketplace governing most of the terrestrial world often don’t apply in an industry dominated by shifting federal regulations, residents and industry leaders reminded Mount Auburn Associates at the last of the city’s three "Harbor Lyceums" last week.
"They won’t let us fish," said Vito Calomo of the Massachusetts Fisheries Recovery Commission, referring to the federal rules that have so much to do with the landings figures quoted by the consultants.
Anti-catch share group stifled at NH fishery forum
Last week’s two-day seminar on the dynamic potential in transforming the commonly owned resources of the sea into private, tradeable catch shares produced many concerns and worries.
But only one voice was heard against the transformation already underway in New England — and that voice was muted and constrained at that.
Food & Water Watch was the conference contrarian. A Washington-based, non-profit, consumer group, Food & Water Watch has staked out a lonely position in unequivocal opposition to privatizing common wealth and the creation of a limited-access commodities market in fisheries. That’s the expressed top priority of the Obama administration for reinventing fisheries conservation through catch shares, industry management and product availability on the world market.
Final Amendment 16 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan
The Notice of Availability was published in the Federal Register on Friday, October 23, 2009 (74 FR 54773). The comment period for this amendment ends December 22, 2009.
Questions should be directed to Tom Nies at the New England FIsheries Management Council, telephone 978-465-0492 ext.19
Fishing industry facing new catch-shares system
New England’s 400-year-old commercial fishing industry is about to plunge into a new world of rules intended to give fishermen a sense of ownership and responsibility
As regulators work out the details for the May 1 launch of a new catch-shares system, many in the industry are pushing back. Dividing the catch among fishing boats, the critics say, will speed the decline of the fleet and replace fishing families with corporate investors.
But some industry leaders, along with state and federal officials, say the backlash against the new quota system is misplaced. The real problem is the same as it’s always been, they argue: too few fish and too many boats.
Proposed Snapper-Grouper regulations would cut catches
“I mean, how can we make a living for our families and every year they’re taking something from us? But yet the tax man’s sittin’ there holding his hands out,” Ricky Rambeaut said.
Rambeaut says regulators first put a size limit on the fish, but didn’t allow time to see results. Now, he’s upset about other regulations working their way through the fishery councils that could possibly ban red snapper fishing for up to a year and put major restrictions, including a temporary moratorium, on the other nine remaining species in the snapper-grouper complex (gag, vermilion, red grouper, black grouper, snowy grouper, Warsaw grouper, black sea bass, speckled hind and golden tilefish).
To fishermen, even those who agree with the need for restrictions, this means months of hardship are ahead. To scientists working on the amendments, it means taking some hardship off the fish for long-term benefits of fishermen.
“I think a lot of times the fishermen get upset … because they see the scientists go and sample at locations that don’t make any sense. And the fishermen want to say, ‘Well, I can show you where the fish are. If you’re looking for fish, you’re looking in the wrong spot,’ ” said Sera Drevenak, policy analyst at the Pew Environmental Group, which supports the Snapper-Grouper Amendments. “But the fishery independent data has to be random and stratified. … They’re just trying to get, over a series of years, an ‘index of abundance,’ they call it.”
Some fishermen still don’t buy it. And that’s led David Heil, chairman of the South Atlantic Chapter of the Fishing Rights Alliance, to file a lawsuit challenging Amendment 16. If Amendments 17A and 17B pass, he said, he’ll file suit challenging those, too.
“They want to shut everything down. I’m not for any of it,” said Robbie Wolfe, who runs the Whipsaw charter boat out of Wrightsville Beach. “They always use that overfishing stuff because the fishermen don’t have a strong lobby.”
NOAA Contract Boat Kills Blue Whale Off Fort Bragg
Environmentalists and fishermen on California’s North Coast are calling for an independent investigation into the killing of an endangered blue whale off Fort Bragg by a mapping survey boat contracted by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
In order to stop the killing of any more whales, locals are also asking for an immediate suspension of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process that the boat was collecting habitat data for.
The 72-foot female blue whale, a new mother, perished on Monday, October 19, after being hit by the 78-foot Pacific Star, under contract to NOAA to update maps of the ocean floor
Read the complete story at California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.