State and Local

AUGUSTA, Maine — April 8, 2013 —  A proposal to allow fishermen to keep and sell lobsters they scoop up in trawling nets has rekindled an old debate between those who hope to revive Maine's groundfishing industry and lobstermen who guard the state's most valuable fishery.

Sen. Anne Haskell, D-Portland, the sponsor of L.D. 1097, said the bill would permit trawlers to land "incidentally caught" lobsters, known as bycatch, in some federally regulated waters and sell them at the Portland Fish Exchange.

Haskell submitted a similar proposal in 2007. It was soundly defeated as lobstermen argued that drag gear indiscriminately harms lobsters and endangers the large females that are considered the lifeblood of the fishery.

On Monday, Haskell's latest bill drew fierce opposition from lobstermen, who said at a public hearing that groundfish boats would target lobster, damage the product and undercut conservation efforts.

"I am deeply saddened to be here before you on this bill," said David Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen's Association. "Not only does this proposal seek to undo one of the pillars of lobster conservation, but this issue is divisive for Maine's fishing industry."

Still, the bill may have some momentum. The LePage administration is backing it, as is Portland Mayor Michael Brennan. Both argued Monday that the bill is a lifeline to the groundfish industry, which Haskell said is "hanging by a thread" because of reduced catch quotas imposed by the federal government. 

Meredith Mendelson, deputy commissioner for the Department of Marine Resources, told lawmakers that lobsters are already being caught in federal waters, then landed and sold in other states. That includes Maine-based vessels that fish in three federally regulated zones and are allowed to land drag-caught lobsters.

Haskell's bill would allow landings of drag-caught lobsters only from Area 3, a federally regulated zone that extends from Maine to the mid-Atlantic states and begins about 40 miles off the Maine coast. The bill includes measures to track the speed of boats to ensure that landings don't come from Area 1 or Area 2, which are closer to shore.

Read the full story from the Portland Press Herald

AUGUSTA, Maine (WCSH – NEWS CENTER) — April 8, 2013 — Maine's Ground Fishermen are once again pushing to keep and sell the lobsters they pull in with their fishing catch at sea.

It is an issue that has divided two fisheries for years, pitting ground fishermen against Lobstermen. This year is no different with Lobstermen being adamantly opposed to it. They say they have worked hard to conserve their natural resource and allowing fishermen to keep lobsters will harm what they've worked hard to protect.

Read the full story and watch the video at WCSH Portland

SURRY, Maine — April 8, 2013 — Maine Marine Patrol Officer Brent Chasse succinctly sums up the challenges facing him and his fellow conservation officers during the 10-week elver season, which began in late March and stretches until May 31.

“Money brings greed,” Chasse said before starting an evening patrol of popular elver-fishing spots in Ellsworth, Surry and Orland on Friday night. “There was a time when if you made a couple hundred dollars a night, it was a good night. Now, you might make $100,000 in a night if you get really lucky and know what you’re doing.”

Two years ago, the price of elvers, or glass eels, was about $185 a pound. Last year, the price topped $2,000 a pound, and on Friday night, one optimistic veteran elver fisherman said he expected the price to rise again, perhaps to $3,000 a pound, within a week or so.

With the lure of a potentially huge payday, and the reality that there are fewer than 40 marine patrol officers checking hundreds of fishermen and countless tidal waters across the state each night, some choose to ignore the law and try their luck by fishing illegally.

The state has limited the number of elver fishing licenses it issues in order to comply with management rules imposed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. That limit is 774 licenses, and recent controversy has revolved around the Passamaquoddy Tribe’s issuance of 575 licenses of their own, which state officials say have put Maine out of compliance with existing regulations.

Even if a poacher is caught, Chasse said that many continue fishing, or indicate that they’ve been fishing illegally for quite some time.

“Quite often there is [an attitude] that [getting caught] is just a cost of doing business for these guys,” Chasse said. “Last year I wrote a guy four different summons, four different violations in one morning. … He had roughly $4,500 in fines, right there. I wrote him the four summons and I said, ‘Is it safe to assume that you’re still ahead in this game?’ He just looked at me and smiled.”

Later that season, Chasse said he caught up with the fisherman again — and more fines were added to his ledger.

“I’m not sure by the end of the season that he was still ahead,” Chasse said.

As marine patrol officers and legal elver fishermen will say, there are plenty of people skulking around in the dark, eager to exploit the resource or those involved in the industry.

Chasse said the marine patrol received word last year that members of MS-13, a notorious street gang that has been targeted by federal and international authorities, was intending to target elver buyers.

Chasse explained that the buyers typically conduct a cash business, and that most of the buying takes place late at night. The fact that some buyers might have as much as $250,000 in cash on hand did not go unnoticed by the international gang, and the marine patrol and elver fishermen took the reports seriously.

On Friday night, elver fishermen in Orland were still talking about the MS-13 reports, and quizzed Chasse, eager to hear if he’d heard any fresh news about a new threat.

Chasse shook his head, but admitted he wouldn’t be surprised if reports began again as the season picked up pace after a cold, slow beginning.

Read the full story from Bangor Daily News

April 8, 2013 — A community forum billed by organizers as “Coming together to support our fishermen and the port of Gloucester” planned for Wednesday is aimed at developing a “comprehensive” solution for holding off or effectively dealing with a series of dire May 1 cod limit cuts that many see as sounding a virtual death knell for Gloucester’s and the Northeast’s groundfishing industry.

Organizer Valerie Nelson, a former city councilor and Gloucester port activist, says she hopes the open community forum — set for Wednesday at 7 p.m. at The Gloucester House restaurant on Seven Seas Wharf off Rogers Street — “can help build good strategic thinking, and momentum going forward.”

The forum comes as fishing’s May 1 “day of reckoning” over reportedly low fish stocks, as NOAA regional administrator John Bullard has termed it, draws near. Despite pressure to extend the current fishing year’s Gulf of Maine cod limits for a second year under the Magnuson-Stevens Act — limits that have included a 22-percent landing limit cut from 2011, Bullard has held to plans to implement an additional 77-percent Gulf of Maine cod cut for the new fishing year, a figure many fishermen fear will barely cover their bycatch and will essentially stop any targeted fishing for cod in 2013 or 2014.

NOAA’s new limits for the 2013 year, which dawns 23 days from today, include drastic cuts in yellowtail flounder limits and in other stocks as well.

Nelson said the Wednesday forum will include a discussion of issues related to the science that has brought about the new NOAA limits — and has drawn extensive credibility questions from the fishing community. But the forum will also aim to develop a strategy in pushing for comprehensive solutions — including the idea of fishing boats sidelined after May 1 to join NOAA researchers in cooperative efforts to developing more viable stock assessments. NOAA officials have thus far resisted any assessment input by rank-and-file fishermen despite calls to do so from officials up to and including former U.S. Sen. John Kerry, now Secretary of State.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — April 7, 2013 — A large turnout is likely Monday when a legislative committee holds a public hearing on a proposed law to allow fishermen to keep lobsters they inadvertently snag in their nets in offshore waters and bring them to Portland.

It’s now illegal for boats that go after cod, haddock and other groundfish to bring their lobster by-catch to shore in Maine, although it’s legal to do so in Massachusetts.

Bill supporters say allowing fishermen to keep lobsters would bring more fishing boats to Portland and help maintain port businesses that serve the fishing industry.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe

April 5, 2013 — Reuters photographer, Dylan Martinez, recently spent a few days in the once-busy fishing port of Whitby. Now just 200 people are employed in fishing; the fleet is down to only a few boats. Things aren't looking good for Locker – one of the last remaining trawler men in the area.

A combination of crippling fishing quotas, climate change and overfishing has all but crushed the local fishing industry. Global warming has expanded fish habitats northward, causing fish stocks to sometimes disappear for weeks on end. Boats return from sea with largely empty nets, and the atmosphere, dour.

Read the full story and view the photos at Boston.com

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — April 5, 2013 — Virginia will begin its largest-ever oyster replenishment initiative in May.

The initiative will use $2 million in state funds to provide habitat on public oyster grounds in the James, York and Rappahannock rivers and elsewhere in the Chesapeake Bay, including Pocomoke and Tangier sounds.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission said Thursday that the summer-long replenishment program will involve shucking houses providing shells to Omega Protein, which operates a menhaden fleet out of Reedville.

The shells will be stored at Omega’s plant and then spread on state-owned public oyster grounds to provide habitat so naturally occurring oyster larvae can attach to the shells.
They’ll reach market size in approximately three years.

An anticipated 1 million bushels of shells will be spread on the grounds. That equals 1 billion shells or enough to fill about 4,000 dump trucks.

Read the full story at the Richmond Times-Dispatch

April 5, 2013 — A group of more than 60 state lawmakers, including many with districts far from the sea, asked Gov. Deval Patrick Thursday to appeal directly to President Obama, his personal friend from their Chicago days, to grant emergency relief from impending cutbacks in commercial fishery landings widely feared to render the commercial fishing industry “non-viable.”

The letter was drafted and circulated for supporting signatures by Sen. Bruce Tarr and Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, both of Gloucester

The letter to Patrick asserted that the Magnuson-Stevens Act allows “interim actions” such as those proposed and emphasized that they “would still reduce catch and mortality rates but would not devastate the industry.”

The letter thanked Patrick for initiating the request for a formal declaration that the Northeast groundfishery, centered in Gloucester and New Bedford but extending from Maine to New York State, had failed.

Such a legal finding was made in writing in September by Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank, but a $150 million disaster relief appropriation was killed in the House at the tail end of the lame duck session of the 112th Congress. The disaster declaration request from Patrick had been made 11 months earlier, and was followed by similar pleas from the governors of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York.

The Massachusetts state senators and representatives said Thursday that presidential intervention is appropriate and required due to the vacancies at the top of the Commerce Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Read the letter to Governor Patrick here

New Bedford, Mass., — April 4, 2013 — In September 2013, the Working Waterfront Festival will mark its tenth anniversary. To celebrate, it is presenting Portholes, a series of free, monthly programs designed to engage residents and members of commercial fishing communities in conversations about critical issues facing the working waterfront. Each month's programming centers around a theme. Programming during the month of April explores the theme Sustainability:

Tuesday April 9
Sustainable Seafood Cooking with Henry Bousquet
Greater New Bedford Voc-Tech High School, 7PM

Chef and culinary arts instructor Henry Bousquet will share family-friendly approaches to cooking abundant species including Pollock, Redfish and Spiny Dogfish.  The audience will be invited to taste his creations and take home recipes.  A special thanks to BASE and Marder Trawling for donated seafood.

Thursday April 11
Red Gold
National Park, 7:30 PM

Filmmakers Ben Knight and Travis Rummel spent 70 days in Bristol Bay documenting the growing unrest among native, commercial and sport fishermen who oppose the proposed Pebble Mine which could destroy the two largest remaining sockeye salmon runs on the planet. The open-pit and underground Pebble Mine could require the largest dam ever constructed to contain toxic runoff from mine waste. Red Gold is a portrait of a unique way of life that would not exist if the salmon didn't return with Bristol Bay's tide. A discussion will follow the screening.

Friday April 19
The Fish Belong to the People
National Park, 7:00 PM

The Fish Belong to the People follows a group of family fishermen in Port Clyde, Maine as they work to save their fishing grounds from government, market structure, and themselves. With each passing season their way of life has slowly been extinguished by old ways of doing business that favors the most efficient and destructive ways of fishing over sustainability.

Sponsors:

Greater New Bedford Voc-Tech High School

MA Humanities

National Park Service

City of New Bedford

Working Waterfront Festival

New Bedford Guide

Medium Studio

WBSM

For more information:

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times