NEW BEDFORD — Early this year, when fishermen and elected officials joined forces and won an unprecedented relaxation of overly strict scallop limits, rather than being the end of a story, federal regulators were getting just a taste of what was to come.
The big battle began when the New England Fishery Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service rolled out and imposed Amendment 16 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, introducing "sector management" of the Northeast groundfish fishery and igniting a tinderbox of opposition.
It was fueled by a legal bombshell: The Commerce Department's inspector general revealed in great detail deep problems within fisheries law enforcement, validating years of complaints by aggrieved fishermen, particularly in the Northeast.
Before long, the umbrella agency for fisheries management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found itself embattled from without and within — and experienced a year in which its reputation was seriously bruised and its chain of command broken by the intervention of the secretary of commerce.
Read the complete story from The South Coast Today.