Saving Seafood

The West Coast Groundfish Recovery: The Best Fish News You Haven’t Heard Yet

December 16, 2015 — Monterey, California, used to be an epicenter in the West Coast commercial fishing industry. But these days the city’s waterfront is full of restaurants serving shrimp and tilapia imported from China. And it’s not the only place doing so.

Many small ports around the United States have fallen into disrepair as more Americans consume imported, often farmed seafood. But there’s also an evolution taking place in commercial fishing in some small port towns that might just bring them back to life.

Cities up and down the West Coast once relied heavily on local “groundfish,” such as rockfish, sand dabs, and petrale sole. But the groundfish fishery saw a dramatic decline by 2000, and although many of the fish themselves have come back, the industry hasn’t recovered. Now, a public-private partnership is working to bring access to local fish in small port communities. And it’s a change that could benefit fishermen and women and the environment, and help small port towns rebuild more robust, stable, and diversified economies.

The Dark Days

Guiseppe “Joe” Pennisi, a third generation Monterey fisherman, has been running a boat since he was 18. He saw the West Coast ground fishery begin to grow in 1987 and balloon to hit 11,000 vessels by 2000. That was the year the federal government declared the coast of Oregon, Washington, and California an “economic disaster” due to groundfish stocks collapsing.

At the time, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program moved most species of West Coast groundfish on to their red “Avoid” list, and by 2005, the nonprofits Oceana and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service for failing to protect groundfish.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Fishermen File Suit in N.H. Against NOAA Over Observers

December 9, 2015 — The following is an excerpt from a story published today in the Boston Globe. The plaintiffs in this lawsuit are David Goethel, who has been a fisherman for over 30 years and has served two terms on the New England Fishery Management Council, and Northeast Sector 13, a nonprofit organization comprised of 20 active groundfishermen who are permitted in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia. They are represented in the lawsuit by Cause of Action, a government accountability organization committed to ensuring that decisions made by federal agencies are open, honest, and fair. 

A group of fishermen in the region filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in federal district court in Concord, N.H., arguing that the agency violated their rights by forcing them to pay for a controversial program that requires government-trained monitors on their vessels to observe their catch.

The fishermen, who in the coming weeks will be required to pay hundreds of dollars every time an observer accompanies them to sea, argue that the costs are too much to bear and will put many of them out of business. 

They’re asking the court to prevent the regulations from taking effect when the federal dollars now subsidizing the program run out early next year. 

“I’m extremely fearful that I won’t be able to do what I love and provide for my family if I’m forced to pay,” said David Goethel, one of the plaintiffs, who for 30 years has been fishing for cod and other bottom-dwelling fish out of Hampton, N.H. “I’m doing this not only to protect myself, but to stand up for others out there like me whose livelihoods are in serious jeopardy.” 

The lawsuit alleges that, by forcing fishermen to pay for the monitors, regulators have violated their Constitutional rights and that their actions are “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”

It adds that agency officials are “acting in excess of any statutory authority granted by Congress” and “improperly infringing on Congress’s exclusive taxation authority.”

As a result, the fishermen claim, the government’s authority to require the payments are “void and unenforceable.”

Fishing officials acknowledge that requiring the fishermen to pay for the so-called “at-sea monitoring” program will increase the hardship of fishermen who are already struggling with major cuts to their quotas. A federal report this year found that the costs could cause 59 percent of the region’s groundfishing fleet to lose money.

But agency officials have said that NOAA no longer has the money to pay for the program, and that by law, the fishermen were supposed to start paying for the observers three years ago.

The government has defrayed the costs because of the industry’s financial turmoil, said John Bullard, the agency’s regional administrator. In February, the agency told fishermen they would have to start paying later this year.

Bullard declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“NOAA Fisheries does not discuss ongoing litigation,” he said. “Independent of any litigation, we appreciate the challenge that paying for at-sea monitoring raises for fishermen.”

He and others noted that the fishermen may end up paying less than they expect for the observer program.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe  

Read the Legal Memo here 

Read the Complaint here

Rhode Island’s Groundfish Economic Assistance Program Now Accepting Applications

December 10, 2015 — The following was released by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management:

A new federal funding opportunity is available for Rhode Island fishermen through the Groundfish Disaster Economic Assistance Program, a direct-aid disbursement plan funded by the NOAA in response to the September 12, 2012 Northeast Multispecies (groundfish) disaster declaration by the Acting Secretary of Commerce. The groundfish disaster was declared for the 2013 fishing year in the states of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and New York. 

On May 28, 2014 the state fishery directors from Rhode Island and other affected states, in partnership with NOAA, announced a three-part framework for the distribution of $32.8 million in federal disaster aid monies to the New England groundfish industry. Rhode Island has completed the distribution of about $1.4 million to 43 pre-qualified federally permitted commercial groundfishermen (phase one) and this week began accepting applications for phase two of this framework.  In this phase, Rhode Island will distribute $519,656 for additional assistance to the Rhode Island commercial groundfish industry.

This state-specific program will be used by DEM to mitigate economic hardship experienced by the commercial groundfish industry not previously addressed by the phase one aid to qualified federal permit holders. This objective responds to cumulative economic impacts, which include lost harvest opportunities because of reduced quota allocations, high costs to operate within a sector, past debt incurred to survive the management program, and added investment needed to continue in sector programs, all of which have contributed to decreased revenue for a significant portion of the industry. 

Phase two of Rhode Island’s aid disbursement, the Groundfish Disaster Economic Assistance Program, extends direct-aid payments beyond the federal permit holders, to the captains and crew members who worked aboard the 43 vessels during the same four-year period when the reduced quotas were having the most impact on the commercial industry. It also extends direct-aid payments to the for-hire permit holders who were active in the groundfish fishery during the same period, as well as captains and crew associated with those permitted vessels, thereby addressing the impacts incurred by that sector of the groundfish industry.

Rhode Island’s Groundfish Disaster Economic Assistance program addresses the restoration and sustainability of the State’s commercial groundfish industry by also providing direct aid for the administration of RI-based sectors, which play a central role in the management program and are in need of financial support to remain viable. It is the goal of this disaster aid to ensure the needs and interests of the groundfish community are being met so that we can promote long-term stability in the Rhode Island commercial fishing industry. Additional information and applications can be found online at www.dem.ri.gov/groundfish.htm. Interested applicants should contact the program administrator, Amy MacKown, at 401-782-4492 or amy.mackown@dem.ri.gov. The deadline to submit an application is January 15th.

Alaska working on flatfish tax fix to capture foregone revenue

December 9, 2015 — A state tax rate glitch let groundfish trawlers off the hook for more than $10 million of fishery taxes in the last half decade, and there’s no concrete fix just yet.

The fishery resource landing tax taxes groundfish based on ex-vessel price. Processors turn flatfish caught as bycatch into low-value fishmeal, so the only known ex-vessel price for certain flatfish species is artificially low. Nine species have this price uncertainty, but most flatfish volume comes from yellowfin sole and Atka mackerel.

By only having an ex-vessel value based on the price paid for bycatch turned into fishmeal, the state has no idea what the ex-vessel value is for the direct flatfish fishery that has annual harvests measured in hundreds of thousands of metric tons.

According to state research estimates, the state has lost out on $1.8 million to $2.5 million per year, or more than $10 million over the last five years. Researchers haven’t yet looked back further due to paucity of data, but the fishery resource landing tax has existed since 1994.

Lori Swanson, assistant executive director of groundfish trawler group Groundfish Forum, did not say whether the industry knew it had been underpaying since the tax’s birth.

“They pay what the state tells them to pay,” she said.

The state doesn’t really know

The Department of Revenue, however, hasn’t been calculating a realistic view of fleet’s tax rate, and is only starting to rework the system. The state began this tax specifically for factory trawlers and catcher-processors, but overlooked a systemic flaw from the beginning.

“It’s actually two things,” said Kurt Iverson, a research analyst with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “First, a very small amount of the total harvest is in the (Commercial Operator’s Annual Report), and on top of that, that harvest is not representative of a true ex-vessel valuation because it’s coming in as bycatch.”

Anna Kim, the Department of Revenue chief of revenue operations, said she can’t speculate why the issue went for so long without being noticed. Iverson said the problem isn’t intentional. The Department of Revenue simply attached the tax to shoreside sales, which don’t happen for some species.

Read the full story at Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

Pacific Seafood sues government calling fishery quota restrictions illegal

December 8, 2015 — California-based groundfish catcher and processor Pacific Seafood Group has sued the US government seeking to overturn what they say are “illegal” regulations that threaten the company’s future.

A company subsidiary, Pacific Choice Seafoods, which operates a processing plant as well as vessels that fish the Pacific Coast groundfish limited-entry trawl fishery, filed suit on Dec. 4 in a northern California federal court against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and its ultimate overseer, US commerce secretary Penny Pritzker.

The company wants the court to overturn four NMFS regulations established in 2010 upon recommendation of the Pacific Fishery Management Council that set up an individual fishing quota (IFQ) system for the fishery.

This includes a measure known as the “aggregate control limit” which restricts the amount of quota shares permit holders can possess to 2.7% of all quota shares held by all permit holders in the fishery, according to the lawsuit. The rules stated that quota holders had to divest shares in excess of the limit by Nov. 30, 2015.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Federal funding for at-sea monitoring likely to extend into 2016

December 2, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

We are pleased to announce an update on the status of federal funding for at-sea monitors in the New England Groundfish fishery. We have been informed that industry has facilitated an initial agreement among the three at-sea monitoring contract providers that may allow the remaining contract funds remaining to cover at-sea monitors after December 31 across the fleet, until those funds are expended, through sub-contracting arrangements. 

We have continued to track the expenditures of the three at-sea monitoring contract providers through the month of November and, as we anticipated, two of the contract providers have been on target to expend all monies by December 31, 2015. However, the third contract provider continues to spend funds at a slower rate because this company provides observers for only a small percent of the fleet (approximately 2% of the effort). 

Approximately $200K is currently available on this at-sea monitoring provider’s contract. This would allow for approximately 250 to 300 sea days of at-sea monitoring. (A “sea day” is a calendar day that the monitor spends at sea on a covered fishing trip. The rate at which those days will be used depends on how much fishing occurs.)

Following the use of the remaining 250-300 sea days of at-sea monitoring, the industry will be required to begin paying for all at-sea monitoring. We anticipate this occurring in early 2016. 

It is important to note that if the subcontracting arrangement the industry has negotiated is not effective, the transition of costs would occur as previously announced. NOAA cannot compel the companies to enter into such an arrangement, nor would it be equitable for NOAA to continue to cover only a portion of the fleet while requiring the rest of the fleet to pick up observer costs.