Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: GOP hopeful Geoff Diehl forms fishing advisory council

August 31, 2018 — Geoff Diehl, who’s running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, announced Thursday morning the formation of his “Fishing Advisory Council.”

Diehl made the announcement on the city’s working waterfront at Bergie’s Seafood.

“Understanding the importance of fishing to our economy, I have been meeting with leaders of the industry for well over a year. It is clear that fishermen need and deserve a full-time senator who will work to revive and protect the industry,” Diehl said in a statement. “That’s why today I am pleased to announce my Fishing Advisory Council. They will be advising me on fishing and related matters that effect our local ports.”

Members include:

    • Bill Mantville, Leading Seafoods, Boston
    • John Haran, Sector 13, New Bedford
    • John Reardon, Sector 9, New Bedford
    • Mark Bergeron, Bergie’s Seafoods, New Bedford
    • Mike Orlando, Intershell International, Gloucester
    • Rob Rizzo, Eastern Fisheries, New Bedford
    • Patrick Hughes, Harbor Blue Fisheries, Fairhaven
    • Captain Dave Marciano, FV Hard Merchandise, Gloucester
    • Chris Basile, Quaterdeck Seafood, Maynard

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Court Rules Against Local Fishermen, Upholds Job-Killing Government Mandate

August 2, 2016 — The following was released by Cause of Action:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire dismissed the lawsuit filed by Plaintiffs David Goethel and Northeast Fishery Sector 13 against the U.S. Department of Commerce.

In December 2015, the Department of Commerce ordered that fishermen who fish for cod, flounder and certain other fish in the Northeast United States not only must carry National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”) enforcement contractors known as “at-sea monitors” on their vessels during fishing trips, but must pay out-of-pocket for the cost of those monitors.  This “industry funding” requirement would devastate the Northeast fishing industry, at the price of many jobs and livelihoods.  The District Court’s order allows that requirement to remain in place.

The Court found that the fishermen’s suit was untimely and that the requirement that monitors be funded by the fishermen was authorized by law.

“I am very disappointed by this decision,” said Goethel.  “I’ve made a living fishing in New England for more than 30 years, but I can’t afford to fish if I have to pay for at-sea monitors.  I’m grateful to Cause of Action Institute for joining the fight, and I hope that the rule of law will win in the end.”

“The fishermen in my sector can’t sustain this industry funding requirement,” said Northeast Fishery Sector 13 Manager John Haran. “They’ll have to try other fisheries, if they can keep fishing at all.”

“While we respect the District Court and its decision, it appears that decision is contrary to the law and facts,” said Alfred J. Lechner, Jr., President and CEO of Cause of Action Institute and a former federal judge.  “In the end, the federal government is overextending its regulatory power and is destroying an industry. We intend to study the decision and consider further action.”

Read the full release at Cause of Action

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford fishermen face ‘devastating’ cod cut

March 23, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The city’s commercial fishing industry — battered by last month’s arrest of magnate Carlos Rafael on federal conspiracy charges, last week’s drug raids on the waterfront and ongoing monitoring costs — took another punch to the gut this week, as government regulators proposed new cuts to cod catches that could take effect May 1.

“Those cuts will be devastating to the groundfishing fleet of New Bedford, and the whole New England coast,” said John Haran, manager of groundfish Sector 13.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in conjunction with the New England Fishery Management Council, released a proposed update Monday to the federal management plan for the northeastern fishery.

The proposal includes updated catch quotas and fishing limits for the fishery’s 20 groundfish stocks — including cod, flounder, haddock and more — for the next three years. The 2016 groundfish year starts May 1.

The proposal includes a new, 62-percent reduction from last year in the allowable catch for Georges Bank cod, a key species for the New Bedford fishing industry.

“Our fleet is entirely concentrated on Georges Bank West cod,” Haran said, referring to boats not only in his sector, but also in New Bedford-based sectors 7, 8 and 9.

“We also fish for Georges Bank East cod, but not as much,” said Haran, who is running for Select Board member in Dartmouth.

The proposal allows a total catch limit of 762 metric tons of Georges Bank cod in the 2016 fishing year. The total catch limit for Georges Bank haddock, by comparison, is 56,068 metric tons — an increase of 130 percent from a year ago.

Haran said the problem is that cod is a “choke species,” because once a crew reaches its quota for cod, it can no longer fish for other species, such as haddock, because everything is caught at the same time.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard-Times

Fishing industry fighting cost of at-sea monitors

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — January 28, 2016 — Fishermen are opposing new catch-monitoring costs that could take effect March 1, as a judge’s ruling this week gave the industry a setback in efforts to block the transition from government funding.

John Haran of Dartmouth, manager of a local fishery sector, said in December that transferring the regulatory costs to the fishing industry could put more than 40 local groundfishing boats out of business. Local fishing industry tycoon Carlos Rafael said the costs — potentially about $700 per monitored trip — could mean repeated expenses of $14,000 across 20 groundfishing boats in his fleet.

“If they force that down our throats, the party is over,” Rafael said Thursday, before citing a vintage song. “Good night, Irene – it’s over for everybody.”

Regulators say the per-trip costs for monitoring – when private service providers put people on commercial fishing boats to count catches of cod, haddock, and some flounder, to track quotas – could be less than $700, given industry negotiations with private contractors.

Teri Frady, spokesman at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, said Thursday that March 1 was the latest estimate for when fishermen, not the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), would begin paying the cost of at-sea monitoring.

“What we paid, as the government, the total package for a sea day was around $700 — but we don’t know what that figure is going to be when the sectors do their own contracting,” Frady said. “Recognizing the economic issues in the industry, the agency has picked up the (at-sea) cost, but now we don’t have allocation to do that.”
A group representing East Coast fishermen sued the federal government in December, in U.S. District Court in Concord, N.H., seeking to block the  transfer of payments.

Read the full story from the New Bedford Standard-Times

DON CUDDY: Fishermen fight back against government overreach

January 28, 2016 — The commercial fishermen suing the federal government over the cost of at-sea monitors had their day in federal court in Concord, New Hampshire, last Thursday. At issue is the notice to fishermen that they will henceforth be required by the National Marine Fisheries Service to pay out of pocket for the at-sea monitors that accompany them on fishing trips, an expense previously absorbed within the annual budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That agency contends that it no longer has the money to fund the program, although these monitors act as agents for the government, and it insists that the boats must now assume payment. Fishermen believe that the high cost of monitors, as much as $710 daily, is excessive, will force many to tie up their boats and result in “irreparable harm.” They also believe that, irrespective of the cost, having at-sea monitors on their boats is a government mandate and consequently should be funded by the government.

I attended the hearing with John Haran of Dartmouth, manager of Northeast Fisheries Sector XIII which includes 32 fishermen. Sector XIII is a plaintiff in the case along with New Hampshire commercial fisherman Dave Goethel.

The all-day hearing concluded without a ruling. Federal District Judge Joseph Laplante will issue a decision in his own time after deliberating on a legal case with potential ramifications not only for the fishing industry but with respect to any government agency’s attempt to increase its own power.

Steve Schwartz, an attorney with Cause of Action, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on government overreach, represents the fishermen. He told the court that the scope of an agency’s power is determined exclusively by Congress and that NOAA lacks the statutory authority to require fishermen to pay for monitors. If NOAA can force fishermen to start writing checks, “it would open the door to a whole panoply of ways that agencies can expand their powers,” he said.

Read the full opinion piece at New Bedford Standard Times

 

Costs for at-sea monitors will force many fishermen out of business.

December 18, 2015 — The following was released by the Center for Sustainable Fisheries:

The Center for Sustainable Fisheries fully supports the lawsuit filed in New Hampshire last week by Cause of Action. The Washington-based watchdog group, which focuses its attention on government overreach, is suing the federal government on behalf of our commercial fishermen in New England.

The case is crystal clear. It stems from the high cost for at-sea monitors and the insistence, by NOAA’s intransigent National Marine Fisheries Service, that fishermen must now foot the bill for monitors because the agency has run out of money. This is simply outrageous. The regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service is former New Bedford mayor John Bullard.

Beginning January 1, fishermen who are required to bring monitors on groundfish trips will be billed an estimated $710 daily for their services, an expense previously borne by our government regulators. This mandate comes down at a time that the groundfishery in New England has been declared a disaster, with landings and revenue down and fewer boats fishing. To now burden struggling fishermen with what is undoubtedly a function of government is simply unjust. Furthermore, NOAA has conducted its own study on the costs of monitoring and concluded that upwards of 60 percent of active groundfish vessels would be rendered unprofitable if forced to pay for at-sea monitors. ‘Unprofitable’ in this case meaning fishermen going out of business; deprived not only of income but a way of life.

The plaintiffs in this important case are Dave Goethel, a CSF board member and owner of the Ellen Diane, a 44-foot dayboat out of Hampton, N.H., along with Northeast Fishery Sector XIII, comprising thirty-two East Coast fishermen and managed by John Haran in New Bedford. The controversial issue has been simmering for some time. It is now in the hands of the judiciary. In arguing the case Cause of Action will present a number of legal arguments, primarily that NOAA has no authority to compel funding. It does not take a legal scholar to see which way this case should be resolved. Let us hope that justice will prevail.

View a PDF of the release

Lawsuit plaintiffs: Groundfish observer funding rule will ‘basically destroy industry overnight’

December 11, 2015 — A lawyer representing fishermen suing the federal government over a forthcoming requirement that they pay for the cost of bringing at-sea observers on their boats estimates that “more than half” of the US east coast groundfishermen will go out of business if the new rule takes effect.

Speaking to reporters on Dec. 10 about a lawsuit filed that day against the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Department of Commerce, attorney Stephen Schwartz estimated that the rule change would “basically destroy the industry overnight”.

“That’s the fishermen with downstream effects on the crews, on buyers and sellers of seafood, on restaurants with kind of rippling effects throughout the entire economy of New England,” he said.

Schwartz works for Cause of Action, a non-profit Washington, D.C.-based legal advocacy group that is representing New Hampshire groundfisherman

David Goethel as well as the non-profit industry group Sector XIII  filed suit in federal court alleging that a NOAA requirement that groundfishermen begin paying for the cost of at-sea observers on Jan. 1 — a cost that NOAA has previously borne itself — violates existing federal laws including the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

According to Sector XIII manager John Haran, the at-sea observer funding rule will accelerate the decline of the east coast groundfish industry, which has already been in decline for years, he said.

Goethel, who operates a small dayboat from New Hampshire waters, agreed.

“We can not afford to pay for this. It’s that’s simple. I would ask everybody on the call, could you afford to pay $710 to pay for someone to ride to work with you everyday. We can’t either,” Goethel said.

Haran added fishermen are not clear why the cost for the at-sea observers is so high.

“The actual observer, the person on the boat gets paid between $15 and $20 per hour. How they get to $710 from there is one of the great mysteries of this whole program,” he said. “The fishermen are expected to pay for the observers’ training, for observer company overhead, for observer company profit even though we don’t know what that profit is.”

NOAA has defended the program arguing that it needs the information provided by the observers, but doesn’t have the resources to fund it itself. 

Read the full story at Undercurrent News