September 11, 2015 — WESTON, Mass. — It probably isn’t going to be the so-called Gloucester Plan that dictates which Massachusetts-based fishermen receive shares of the approximately $6 million in the final installment of federal fishing disaster aid, according to state fisheries officials.
Massachusetts Fish & Game Commissioner George Peterson said Thursday he anticipates the final spending plan, which the state expects to submit to NOAA Fisheries for approval by Oct. 1, will be much closer to the plan put forward by a cadre of Cape Cod fishermen, legislators and stakeholders at last Friday’s contentious meeting of the disaster aid working group in New Bedford.
That plan, with a lower standard of qualifying criteria needed to share in the assistance than the initial recommendations by the city of Gloucester and the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, would provide assistance to any fisherman who landed at least 10,000 pounds of groundfish in any of the fishing years from 2010 to 2014 or who had one vessel trip with an at-sea monitor aboard in 2014.
“After the public hearing and a lot of comment, we think it’s a better plan, a more inclusive plan,” Peterson said.
Peterson said he expects the state Division of Marine Fisheries, which he oversees, will provide him, Secretary of Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton and Gov. Charlie Baker with the final draft proposal of the distribution plan sometime at “the beginning of next week.”
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times