A multiple plaintiff lawsuit brought on behalf of small boat scallopers against the National Marine Fisheries Service in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., alleges that "poor data quality is a fatal flaw in Amendment 11," which converts the lucrative scallop fishery to the catch share model next year. The plantiffsโ attorney, Patrick Flanigan cites a March 1, 2006 set of minutes from a NMFS committee meeting on data quality problems affecting the scallop amendment that contains damaging admissions. At one point, the committee discussed "continuously discovering โฆ many errors in vessel trip reports and dealer data-sets" that were beyond the NMFS ability to correct or factor into accurate catch histories. "We have no expertise or time for correcting these errors," the committee wrote. At the same time, it also acknowledged that "obviously, in order to determine the participants of limited entry, to set total allowable catches and/or allocate trips or pounds to the general category vessels based on passed history, we need to have accurate data." Flanigan argues that the admission of helpless dependence on bad data would produce "arbitrary and capricious" decisions to exclude certain permit-holders from the scallop fishery.
Last week, a number of New England groundfishermen told the Gloucester Times they faced the possibility of having their catch shares reduced in line with badly understated catch histories. NMFS spokeswoman Maggie Mooney-Seus said the agency has acknowledged the problems, but cannot make corrections in time for the onset of sector/catch share fishing next May. Mooney-Seus said Oct. 31 was the deadline for filing complaints about faulty data for rectification in time for the 2011 fishing season. She said NMFS has repeatedly raised the point "that dealer reports are designed to support stock assessments and quota monitoring, and are far less precise than what is needed for sectors."
Jimmy Ruhle, a North Carolina fisherman and critic of NMFS science, trawl capabilities and record-keeping, cracked the door to the subject when took the microphone at the meeting in Hampton, Va., to assert that "this is going to be a big, big problem." He moved to request that NMFS "initiate a complete, thorough review of vessel landing history records. A number of fishermen quickly chimed in after Ruhle, the president of the Commercial Fishermen of America.
"I am in the process of gathering information to come through with the sector allocation proposal, and in that process I needed to get the information from NMFS" Geir Monsen, who owns Seafreeze Ltd. in North Kingstown, R.I., told the council. "What Iโve got so far is the worst workmanship I ever have seen of any type of work," Monsen said. "If this record-keeping was in a commercial company, the company would be bankrupt and the people in charge of the record-keeping would be in jail for falsifying records."
Similar analysis came a number of others including Vinny Carillo of Point Pleasant, N.J. "I have some trips that are totally missing, and I have fishing vessel trip reports that have gone in (to NMFS) for my 30,000 in whiting, I have dealer reports โ electronic dealer reports, and they correlate to my 30,000 pound trips of whiting," he told the Mid-Atlantic Council. "But NMFS has absolutely no record of them โฆ there are gross inaccuracies in my landings," Carullo said.
"To go forward with sectors and catch shares without fixing the problem is totally irresponsible," Ruhle said in a telephone interview.