Saving Seafood

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

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

Court Says Antibiotic Use in Chilean Fisheries Should be Public Knowledge

September 20, 2015 — The organization Oceana won a landmark case last week against the Chilean government. The appeal, which went up against the National Fisheries and Agricultural Services (Sernapesca) found the judges unanimously decided that the Council for Transparency had to release its data regarding antibiotic usage in Chilean salmon.

The lawsuit began some time back, when reports were released that showed staggeringly high amounts of antibiotic usage within Chilean salmon fisheries. Salmon in Chile is susceptible to a disease called Piscirickettsiosis which can cause hemorrhaging, organ failure and death in salmon. A report by Reuters earlier this year showed Costco, along with a number of U.S. chains, had cut the amount of Chilean salmon it was buying in favor of salmon from Norway – which generally uses fewer antibiotics (although it should be noted that numbers for last year’s antibiotic use were not available from Norway).

However, those within the industry contest this accusation. They say the antibiotics used save these fish and heal them from the bacteria. They maintain that the fish are then weaned off these medications until no traces remain, before being shipped to market. Ricardo Garcia, the chief executive at Camanchaca, a large salmon producer in Chile, told Reuters that, “The final product consumers eat has no antibiotics.”

Read the full story at Care2

 

Navy, environmental groups settle lawsuit, limiting some training that harms whales in Pacific

September 14, 2015 — HONOLULU (AP) — The Navy agreed to limit its use of sonar and other training that inadvertently harms whales, dolphins and other marine mammals off Hawaii and California in a settlement with environmental groups approved Monday.

A centerpiece of the agreement signed by a federal judge in Honolulu includes limits or bans on mid-frequency active sonar and explosives in specified areas around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California, Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said.

Sonar at a great distance can disrupt feeding and communication of marine mammals, and it can cause deafness or death at a closer distance, Henkin said.

In some cases, training exercises can kill. Four dolphins died in 2011 in San Diego when they got too close to an explosives training exercise, he said.

The Navy estimated it could inadvertently kill 155 whales and dolphins off Hawaii and Southern California, mostly from explosives. It estimated it could cause more than 11,000 serious injuries off the East Coast and 2,000 off Hawaii and Southern California.

Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight, a U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman, said the settlement preserves key testing and training.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News and World Report 

 

Consumers and Lawmakers Take Steps to End Forced Labor in Fishing

WASHINGTON — September 13, 2015 — Federal lawmakers, State Department officials, fishing and pet food companies, and class-action lawyers are stepping up efforts to combat forced labor at sea.

Last week, a group of consumers filed a class-action lawsuit in California against Mars, accusing the company, among the biggest producers of seafood-based pet food in the world, of failing to disclose its dependence on forced labor. A similar lawsuit was filed in late August against Nestlé, also a major producer of seafood-based pet food.

Several lawmakers have also begun trying to address the problem. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, proposed legislation in August aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in corporate supply chains. The bill requires larger companies to report in their financial filings what they are doing to prevent the use of trafficked workers.

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who introduced similar legislation in the House,  sent a letter last week to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, which monitors the oceans, urging the agency to focus not just on illegal fishing but also on preventing “trafficking and slavery in the fishing industry.”

Texas Attorney General Files Oyster Lawsuit Against Chambers Liberty County Navigation District and STORM

August 5, 2015 — GALVESTON, Texas — Storm clouds circling Galveston Bay have collided releasing what promises to be a hurricane of paperwork, legal wrangling and an inevitable end to the “Battle for the Bay” that has for more than a year compromised oyster production, damaged businesses and hurt the American oyster consumer.

On the final day of July, the Texas Attorney General’s office, on behalf of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), filed a lawsuit naming Chamber-Liberty Counties Navigation District (CLCND) and Sustainable Texas Oyster Resource Management (STORM) as attempting to circumvent the state’s sole authority and jurisdiction to regulate the conservation and harvesting of oysters, mussels, and clams from state waters by executing an unauthorized lease.

According to the petition filed by Texas Assistant Attorney General Craig Pritzlaff, the CLCND and STORM have entered into an illegal lease on more than 23,000 acres of submerged lands and waters within Galveston Bay which the State legislature has vested the TPWD with sole authority and jurisdiction to regulate. By granting the lease, the District and its Commissioners subverted, preempted and interfered with the state’s regulatory and conservation programs.

The District and STORM have asserted unlawful possession over oysters in state waters and STORM is attempting to exclude entities from lawfully harvesting oysters. Through the lawsuit, the state is looking to void the lease and seeks restitution from STORM and the District.

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood Institute Newsroom