Saving Seafood

DAVID GOETHAL: Fishermen’s anger justified

August 18, 2015 — Recently, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker called the requirement for fishermen to pay $710 per day for catch monitoring “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate” and continued on to call the policy “ridiculous” and “outrageous.” As a fisherman with close to 50 years experience in the fishery, I could not agree more but think your readers and editors need more context to understand the fishermen’s anger.

Philosophically, we are opposed to this idea because other industries do not pay for their monitoring. The airlines do not pay for the TSA, agribusiness does not pay for meat inspection, and pharmaceutical companies do not pay for the FDA, to name a few. These are considered functions of government and so is catch monitoring.

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

MA Gov. Baker backs fishermen’s call for NOAA to pay for monitors

August 13, 2015 — With a crystalline portrait of America’s oldest seaport serving as the backdrop, Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday attacked NOAA’s plan to force fishermen to pay for at-sea observers on their boats and reiterated his pledge to help convince the federal fishing regulator to consider science other than its own.

Baker, speaking to a crowd of about 100 near the Fishermen’s Wives Memorial on Stacy Boulevard, with the city’s Outer Harbor sparkling in the background, called the federal at-sea observer proposal “the most perfect example of an unfunded mandate I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I think it’s ridiculous and it’s outrageous,” Baker told the audience of fishermen, fishing advocates, Gloucester officials and members of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association. “If they want to send observers out on the boats, they should pay for them with their own money.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has told the commercial fishermen in the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery that it expects to run out of money to fund the at-sea observer program by Oct. 31 and then will shift the responsibility for funding it  — estimated at $600 to $800 per day for each boat that carries an observer — to the fishing permit holders.

“It’s insult to injury as far as I’m concerned,” Baker said. “And I’m sure that most of the people in the fishing industry feel the same way.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Members of Massachusetts Congressional Delegation Write to NOAA on Lobster Monitoring

WASHINGTON — August 12, 2015 (Saving Seafood) — On July 31, 5 members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation–Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and Reps. Bill Keating, Stephen Lynch, and Seth Moulton–wrote to NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Eileen Sobeck expressing concerns over the agency’s plan to expand at-sea monitoring in the lobster fishery.

Specifically, they expressed concern that, without federal funding paying for the expansion, the cost of $650-$800 per trip will be borne by the vessel operators. This, the letter claims, will cause “many workers to leave the fishery to pursue more economically viable livelihoods in other industries.” The letter also expressed concern over other issues, such as the cost of legal liability.

Read the letter here

 

JACKIE ODELL: Emergency action needed on at-sea monitoring

August 10, 2015 — The New England senators stated in their April 29, 2015, letter to NOAA Fisheries that such a directive would “avert the collapse of our fisheries and secure their healthy and stable future.” The Northeast Seafood Coalition greatly appreciates the exceptional efforts and support the groundfish industry has received from the Senate Appropriators and members of Congress throughout the Northeast on at sea monitoring. Unfortunately, we continue to bite our nails and watch the clock tick. At this time, one crucial request by the Council to NOAA Fisheries remains unanswered. Specifically, the council’s request for NOAA Fisheries to initiate an administrative action to improve the efficiency of the existing at-sea monitoring program that will reduce costs of the program for groundfish sectors, fishery-wide — without compromising compliance with regulatory requirements.

This administrative action request is logical — it follows regulatory directive — and is another attempt to reduce inefficiencies of the at-sea monitoring program and thus costs to groundfish fishermen, fishery wide. It also reflects the strong message delivered by the Senate Appropriators in their pending fiscal year 2016 funding legislation for NMFS — to work with the regional fishery programs on a transition plan to an at-sea and dockside monitoring program that is more cost-effective, accurate, and commensurate with the ex-vessel value. The Northeast Seafood Coalition strongly supports the council’s request.

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Daily Times

Read a letter from the New England Fishery Management Council to NOAA regarding at-sea monitoring

 

New Bedford Standard-Times: Catch accountability should take place at the dock

August 6, 2015 — NOAA’s denial of the New England Fishery Management Council’s June request to suspend at-sea monitoring has satisfied environmental groups, but it serves as the latest example of their inappropriate and misguided influence in management of the Northeast fisheries.

The Management Council had asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for emergency relief, as the cost of at-sea monitoring shifted from the government to the fishermen, a $700-$800 cost per trip. Fishermen and regulators alike anticipate that it will make a more trips unprofitable.

NOAA Regional Administrator John K. Bullard responded July 30 by saying the criteria for suspending the program under emergency action was not met.

According to an Aug. 3 report in the Gloucester Daily Times by reporter Sean Horgan, the campaign manager for environmental organization Oceana, Gib Brogan, said, “Currently, only 24 percent of fishing trips in the fishery carry observers on board. This proposal would have dropped it even further, seriously jeopardizing any chances of recovery for this region.”

There is more than one problem with this approach.

Read the full editorial at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

 

MONEY FOR NEW ENGLAND GROUNDFISH MONITORS TO LAST THROUGH OCTOBER

August 5, 2015 — NOAA Fisheries now says it expects to continue paying for at-sea monitoring of Northeast multispecies groundfish vessels through Oct. 31, two months longer than the federal agency initially projected.

The news that that permit holders will have at least two more months before they have to absorb the responsibility for paying for at-sea observers on their boats certainly is welcome, even if the reason for it is not.

“Due to reduced effort (by fishermen), the money is lasting longer,” Jennifer Goebel, a spokeswoman at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Gloucester, said Wednesday.

NOAA initially projected the money allotted for at-sea monitoring would run out around Aug. 31, but shrinking catch quotas, area closures and the absence of any opportunity to land cod, which remains the elemental stock for Gloucester and the region’s groundfishermen, has left NOAA with fewer vessels to monitor on far fewer trips.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

Our view: NOAA’s unfunded mandate

August 5, 2015 — NEWBURYPORT, R.I. — It is said that fisherman can be stubborn. While there’s some truth to that, they can’t compare to the hardheadedness of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which continues to insist cash-strapped captains fork over hundreds of dollars every time the agency decides to place a monitor on their boat.

The on-board monitoring program has long been controversial, with questions raised about its effectiveness and safety. What rankles the industry most, however, is NOAA’s insistence that fishermen pay for the program out of their own pockets.

 The agency has rejected at every turn the industry’s argument that this is a classic unfunded mandate, with the $700-per-trip costs likely to bankrupt some vessel owners and force others to remain in port, even when they could be fishing.

A few days ago, NOAA Fisheries denied a request by the Newburyport-based New England Fishery Management Council to suspend the monitoring program on an emergency basis.

“This was a foreseeable problem that does not justify an emergency action,” NOAA Regional Adminstrator John K. Bullard wrote to Tom Nies, executive director of the New England Fishery Management Council.

We’re amazed NOAA has finally recognized the cost of the monitoring program is a “problem” for fishermen, even if they have no intention of helping to defray the costs.

Read the full story at The Daily News of Newburyport 

Read a letter from NOAA Northeast Regional Administrator John Bullard officially rejecting the request for emergency funding

 

 

Observer program for lobster boats on the wane

July 15, 2015 — The number of scheduled observer trips aboard Cape Ann lobster boats and others throughout Massachusetts have fallen off dramatically since the contentious Gloucester meeting last month where NOAA outlined plans to increase observer coverage for the Northeast lobster fishery.

Beth Casoni, executive director of the Scituate-based Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, said her discussions with the association’s membership revealed a significant drop in the number of lobstermen being contacted to schedule observer coverage on a future trip.

“I’ve been asking every fisherman from everywhere whether they’re getting called like before and they’re all telling me the same thing, that it’s pretty quiet,” Casoni said. “We’re pretty pleased with that.”

The same is true around Cape Ann, according to Arthur “Sooky” Sawyer, longtime Gloucester fisherman and lobsterman who now serves as the president of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association.

“There hasn’t been anyone contacted around here since the meeting,” Sawyer said.

The June 4 meeting at NOAA’s regional headquarters in the Blackburn Industrial Park provided the first glimpse of the rabid opposition among lobstermen to expanding the Northeast Fisheries Observer Program throughout the New England lobstering industry and as far down the East Coast as Maryland.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

New England Fishermen to Pay $700 a Day for At Sea Monitoring

July 13, 2015 — SEABROOK, N.H. — Groundfishermen monitored by a federal agency will soon have to pay roughly $700 for their own at-sea monitors, a cost they say is “one more nail in the coffin” to put them out of business.

The announcement comes at a time when the commercial and recreational groundfishing industry is struggling because of what they feel are strict federal regulations.

“The day I really have to pay for this is the day I stop going fishing,” said David Goethel, a commercial fisherman from Hampton.

“With the at-sea monitoring heaped upon fishermen, it very well could be the tipping point for many vessels, many permit holders,” said Dr. David Pierce, acting director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fishery.

At-sea monitors keep track of how vessels are doing with meeting their groundfishing allocations set by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that sets regulations. The allocations are in place to keep groundfish stocks from going too low. Groundfish refer to species like cod, haddock and flounder which live at or near the bottom of the ocean.

The daily cost for each vessel’s at-sea monitor will likely be near $710, a figure based on what NOAA paid in fiscal year 2015 to run the monitor program, according to Teri Frady, spokesperson for NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. However, Frady said each region of fishermen, divided into “sectors,” will make its own agreement for cost with federally approved providers of monitors.

“We expect that industry funding for (at-sea monitoring) will be necessary in August,” NOAA Northeast Regional Administrator John Bullard said in a June 5 letter to state directors, including those in New Hampshire.

Read the full story at Seacoastonline.com