State and Local

November 13, 2013 — It took a big ugly fish to pull together Wisconsin’s polar-opposite U.S. senators.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, and Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, last week joined 14 other Great Lakes senators in urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to find a fast fix to the Asian carp invasion.

“It is imperative that the Corps continue its evaluation process … so that we can move very quickly on a comprehensive approach to best protect the environmental and economic health of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River,” the senators wrote in a letter.

Congress moving quickly? Sounds good to us. Let’s hope this flash of bipartisan cooperation spawns more.

The senators sent their letter just a day after scientists announced the discovery of Asian carp DNA in Sturgeon Bay. That doesn’t prove the monster fish has reached Wisconsin’s Great Lakes waters. It’s possible, for example, the material arrived in the droppings of birds that ate the carp elsewhere.

Read the full story at the Wisconsin State Journal

November 13, 2013 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s summer flounder, scup and black sea bass board has initiated a change in the way states may be allowed to manage fluke (also known as summer flounder) and black sea bass. Currently, these species are regulated regionally by the commission with individual states implementing management plans that meet commission guidelines.

This approach has created difficulties for some states as fishing overages have occurred, particularly in New York, due to fact that state shares and limits have not reflected the local abundance of the fish and their availability to recreational fishermen. Consequently, in recent years, minimum sizes in New York have been up to an inch and a half larger than those in neighboring states.

Draft Addendum XXIV will come before the board in December at a joint meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. The initiative includes options that allow for the averaging of harvest estimates, mandatory regions, and the sharing of unused quota.

What does this mean for recreational summer flounder fishing in Rhode Island?

“It will all depend on how the managers want to adjust the allocation,” said Jason McNamee, marine biologist at DEM, “but I guess from my perspective we will remain largely unchanged, as we would be one of the areas where there are indications that the population has moved, or expanded to. So if the managers base their allocation scenarios on where the fish are, we should be OK. If they base it on something else, that could lead to reductions for us. It's tough to tell where things will end up.”

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — November 12, 2013 — The Massachusetts Fishermen's Partnership will conduct a public meeting Nov. 18 to inform fishermen, their families and their community about new options for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

The Fishing Partnership will be joined by members of Health Care for All to field questions and help in enrolling in a health care plan.

The meeting is set for 6 p.m. at the Fishing Partnership office, 114 MacArthur Drive.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Read information on the November 12 forum in Chatham, Mass.

Read information on the November 13 forum in Plymouth, Mass.

Read information on the November 18 forum in New Bedford, Mass.

Read information on the November 21 forum in Gloucester, Mass.

November 10, 2013 — Is it a case of modern day slavery? Bad working conditions? Or just sour grapes over pay? Allegations are flying about distress on the docks from the crew of some Honolulu fishing vessels.

Honolulu's fishing fleet can be floating gold mines. Their catch can net a six-figure haul at the fish auction after just days at sea. They're raking it in, we're eating it up.

But for the workers on board some ships, this is no luxury cruise.

"When we started hearing her story we felt it had all the hallmarks of human trafficking," said Soo Sun Choe, of immigrant-rights advocates Pacific Gateway Center, referring allegations brought forth to them by the relative of some of the crew.

From her and others, there are allegations of hunger, thirst, untreated illness and injury, unpaid or low paid wages, abuse and even suspicious death.

"There are bed bugs, workers are often not fed on time, when they pull into the harbor they may be asking others for food," Choe said. "This is actually the second or third case coming to us within the past year."
KHON2's Action Line has also heard about alleged victims from advocates on their behalf who are crying out for help.

"I feel like they are slaves because they cannot go out, they do not have any money like everybody," said T. Robinson, who wants to be identified publically by only her first initial to avoid what she fears will be retaliation from powerful business and political officials in her native Kiribas. "When they work they're supposed to get paid but they don't get paid."

She shows us contracts written in English for crew from Kiribas who don't speak English, paystubs that deduct from the few hundred dollars a month wage to whittle down to nearly nothing when payday finally comes after more than two years

Read the full story and watch the video from KHON-TV

November 11, 2013 — A storm that brought high winds, high water and high surf caused flooding to communities along the coast of Western Alaska this weekend. At least two communities have made disaster declarations. Listen to the audio from Alaska Public Media

November 8, 2013 — Peconic Bay scallops,  Long Island's own sweet, nutty, briny mollusks, are here. According to Ken Homan, owner of Braun Seafood in Cutchogue, "the season opened on Monday and we're starting to see the first harvests."

In the coming weeks, restaurants and fish markets all over Long Island will be offering this delicacy. If you’re heading east for this weekend’s Taste North Fork festival, you can get a jump start.

At 18 Bay (23 N. Ferry Rd., Shelter Island, 631-749-0053), Adam Kopels and Elizabeth Ronzetti are making a crudo with sliced scallops and pickled pumpkin with rice wine vinegar, coriander and juniper, among other aromatic seasonings.

Read the full story at Newsday 

November 11, 2013 — Maine’s lucrative elver fishery is facing some big changes, including smaller catch quotas and a new swipe-card monitoring system that state officials hope will help manage the resource while reducing the poaching of baby eels that fetched up to $2,000 a pound last season.

Both changes follow the state’s promise to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission last month that it will find ways to reduce the 2014 harvest between 25 percent and 40 percent. In the background is a recently uncovered welfare and tax fraud investigation that specifically targets elver fishermen, many of whom are members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe. Records obtained by the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram show that the investigation is scheduled to conclude at the end of January, about two months before the next season.

State officials have refused to comment on the fraud initiative, which involves three state agencies reviewing catch records and tax filings from 2010 to 2013 to determine whether any elver fishermen who received welfare benefits have failed to report income. It’s unclear what motivated the special investigation or how much money the state is devoting to the initiative.

A spokesman for the Passamaquoddys worried recently that the initiative specifically targeted his tribe, but was generally supportive of the investigation. Representatives for the tribe have not returned calls seeking comment since the Maine Sunday Telegram published the story Nov. 3. State officials have also declined to comment, citing advice from Office of the Attorney General not to discuss an investigative matter.

Tensions between the Passamaquoddys and the state have been simmering since last year, when the tribe cited its sovereign nation status and issued 575 licenses, far more than the 433 that the state certified. The industry is bracing for another clash between the tribe and state officials, who in April sent wardens and police officers to Pembroke to seize fishing nets and equipment from Passamaquoddy fishermen whose licenses weren’t certified with the state.

The conflict abated after the administration of Gov. Paul LePage and tribal leaders agreed to enter negotiations at the end of the 76-day season.

However, a long-term settlement hasn’t been reached and the Passamaquoddys still believe that their plan to manage the elver fishery is sufficient, a signal that tensions could reignite next year over an industry that was worth nearly $40 million in 2012 and $33 million this year.

Read the full story from the Portland Press Herald

BOSTON — November 8, 2013 — The continuing war over striped bass has entered a new battle on Beacon Hill with a renewed effort to eventually make the lucrative catch off limits for commercial fishermen.

A bill filed by Rep. Walter Timilty, D-Milton, would limit commercial licenses to fishermen who could demonstrate they've caught and sold more than 1,000 pounds of striped bass annually over the last five years on record.

Fishermen who meet that standard would be allowed to keep their striped bass licenses until 2025, when commercial licenses for the fish would no longer be issued.

A group of some 10 concerned Cape and Island commercial fishermen, clad in fishing caps and sweatshirts, joined with Rep. Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown, on Wednesday to oppose the bill before the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture.

“Let's make no mistake about it. This bill exterminates the commercial fishery by 2025,” said Darren Saletta, a Chatham resident and founder of the Massachusetts Commercial Striped Bass Association.

Saletta and his group were pitted against members of Stripers Forever, a nonprofit group with a mission of conserving striped bass. The group unsuccessfully pushed for a commercial ban in 2010. Maine, Connecticut and New Hampshire ban commercial fishing of striped bass.

“We do not seek through this bill to further the economic harm that legitimate (commercial) fishermen are currently facing, but we want to get rid of people who sell a few striped bass to pay for the cost of their gas, bait and tackle,” Mike Spinney, a Stripers Forever policy coordinator, told the committee.

Under the bill, commercial fishermen who can demonstrate a legitimate reason for failing to reach the required 1,000 pounds could seek hardship relief from the state Division of Marine Fisheries.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times 

 

November 6, 2013 — A former New York-state commercial fishermen turned Kenai River fishing guide is leading a drive to ban set-net fishing in Cook Inlet south of Anchorage and near other urban centers.

Joe Connors and the Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance (ACFA) say the use of indiscriminate setnets threatens king salmon in the Kenai River and other fish elsewhere. The group Wednesday presented Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell with the paperwork necessary to gain approval for a ballot initiative, which would allow voters next year to vote on whether to ban "setnet fishing in the five, urban, non-subsistence areas of Alaska."

"This ballot measure would not affect set nets in the 90 percent of the state that is designated a subsistence or rural area," a press release from the Alliance said. "Set nets are less intrusive and a reasonable means of fishing in low population areas. However, ACFA believes it is time that set nets are banned in the urban, highly populated centers of Alaska."

The Kenai Peninsula is ground zero for the battle.

Connors, a former University of Alaska Anchorage professor, and others contend that setnets off the river's mouth are doing to Kenai kings what setnets in New York’s Hudson River did to shad — wiping them out.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch

PORTSMOUTH, Va. — November 8, 2013 — The body of a man who fell overboard from a fishing vessel in the Chesapeake Bay has been recovered.

Omega Protein said the Virginia Marine Police recovered the body of 32-year-old Bernard Redmond of Lancaster on Thursday in coordination with the Coast Guard.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post