Saving Seafood

NOAA cancels surveys, angering fishermen

August 10, 2020 — A week after announcing the Aug. 14 redeployment of at-sea monitors aboard Northeast groundfish vessels, NOAA Fisheries said it is canceling four fisheries and ecosystem surveys over COVID-19 safety concerns for its staff.

“After much deliberation, we determined we will not be able to move forward with these surveys while effectively minimizing risk and meeting core survey objectives,” NOAA Fisheries said in a statement.

The cancellation of the surveys further angered fishing stakeholders already incensed by what they regard as NOAA Fisheries’s insensitivity toward health concerns of commercial fishermen in the push to redeploy at-sea monitors while the pandemic continues.

“NOAA doesn’t have anybody working in its offices and has canceled much of its on-the-water field work out of safety concerns for its staff,” Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, said Thursday. “Data is very important. Monitoring is very important. But at some point, NOAA has to understand that the lives of fishermen and their families don’t come second. That has to be a top priority.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Public hearings slated for fish monitoring amendment

July 15, 2020 — With COVID-19 still looming, the New England Fishery Management Council has crafted an array of digital alternatives to help commercial fishermen understand the options contained in the long-discussed and critical Amendment 23 that will set monitoring levels in the groundfish fishery.

The council, which expects to take final action on the measure at its September meeting, has moved the Amendment 23 public hearings to online webinars and has produced an online tutorial to help the webinar uninitiated participate and develop informed comment. It plans a narrated digital presentation on the measure and has scheduled “Amendment 23 outreach office hours” when fishermen can call in or participate via webinar with questions for council staff.

Given the complexities of the measure, however, fishing stakeholders said the council should continue to search for a way to safely hold at least some of the remaining public hearings in person to accommodate industry members not as well versed with the digital world.

“This is such an important and significant action that we hope the council will do everything possible to hold traditional public hearings, but with safe distancing and all the other precautions we need to take,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition. “Taking it all online might be fair to some members of the industry, but not to all.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishing sectors, nonprofits seek federal pandemic aid

May 1, 2020 — Fishing stakeholders are urging Congress to expand federal assistance in the next round of funding to include fishing-related nonprofit associations and Northeast fishing sectors to help them keep their employees working during the pandemic.

In a letter to the respective chairmen of the U.S. House and Senate small business committees, stakeholders called on lawmakers to redress inequities toward many non-profits that have been precluded from sharing in benefits — specifically the Paycheck Protection Program — contained in the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

“Our primary principle concern is for the equitable treatment of the Northeast groundfish industry sectors organized pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(5), and for those U.S. fishing industry trade associations organized pursuant to IRS section 501(c)(6),” the stakeholders stated in the letter.

Those associations include the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, the Fishing Partnership Support Services and other fishing nonprofit organizations.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Brouhaha brewing over fish monitoring

January 27, 2020 — The New England Fishery Management Council is set to resume action on the contentious groundfish monitoring amendment next week, but the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition is questioning whether the council is rushing its own process and operating with incomplete information.

The council, scheduled to meet for three days next week in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, will return Wednesday to the arduous task of completing Amendment 23, which will set monitoring levels for vessels operating within the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery.

Those monitoring levels ultimately will dictate the magnitude of monitoring costs the industry will bear in future fishing seasons. The current draft of the amendment includes four alternatives that call for groundfish monitoring coverage levels of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%.

The council, which has been working on the amendment for nearly three years, faces two pivotal tasks on Wednesday: It must approve a full range of monitoring coverage alternatives and it must approve a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and accompanying analyses in advance of sending both out for public comment.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Fishing Money found for at-sea monitors

January 8, 2020 — In late December, on the doorstep to the Christmas holidays, New England’s groundfishermen received an early present.

As part of a $1.4 trillion spending package, the U.S. Senate passed a $79.4 billion appropriations bill that includes another $10.3 million for NOAA Fisheries — once again secured by New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen — to fully fund at-sea monitoring in the Northeast groundfish fishery for the 2020 fishing season that begins May 1.

When President Donald Trump signed the bill into law the next day, the mandated shouldering of the full financial weight of at-sea monitoring by the groundfish industry — at a cost of up to $700 per day per vessel — had been deferred for at least another fishing season.

“This is obviously very good news for our commercial groundfishermen,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition. “At-sea monitoring has become such a huge financial issue for everyone in the fishery.”

It was the third consecutive year that Shaheen, a ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, bailed out the groundfish industry on at-sea monitoring. Shaheen secured the first $10.3 million in the 2018 appropriations process that fully funded at-sea monitoring during the current fishing season.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Statement from the Northeast Seafood Coalition on FY 2020 Appropriations and At-Sea Monitoring Funding

January 3, 2020 — The following was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:

Calendar year 2020 has begun with some positive news for commercial groundfish fishermen.

Thanks to the hard work of Senator Shaheen and fellow members of Congress, full funding has once again been secured through the FY 2020 federal appropriations legislation to cover at-sea monitoring (ASM) expenses for commercial groundfish fishermen!

Even better, for the first time, this legislation includes specific directives for NOAA Fisheries to improve the quality and utility of ASM and other fishery dependent data for the purpose of improving groundfish stock abundance estimates, along with the necessary funding to support implementation of these directives. 

It has become clear that the future of the groundfish fishery depends on improving the apparent limitations of current stock assessments given their disconnect with the observations of fishermen on the water.  It is likewise clear that until an understanding of true stock abundance is achieved, the groundfish fishery will not be sustainable under the financial burden of ASM expenses.   

Consequently, securing this funding and these Congressional directives has been among the top priorities of the Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC), and so we are profoundly grateful to Senator Shaheen for her effective leadership and enduring commitment to our fishery.

Our work is not over.  Senator Shaheen’s appropriations legislation also directs NOAA to submit to her Committee a ‘spend plan’ for these funds.  It is critical that NOAA Fisheries strictly adheres to the intent and directives of Congress and does not seek to misuse these funds to pursue their own objectives.  NSC will be watching this closely.

Finally, it is critical that NOAA Fisheries and the New England Fishery Management Council understand that there is absolutely nothing in Senator Shaheen’s appropriations legislation suggesting that it was intended to support any specific measures to revise the monitoring program as are being contemplated within ongoing development of Amendment 23.   NSC will be vigorous in objecting to any misrepresentations of Congressional intent in this regard.

For additional information contact Jackie Odell, Executive Director, Northeast Seafood Coalition, Cell (978) 836-7999, jackie@northeastseafoodcoalition.org

Cod could choke catch of other fish

December 19, 2019 — It’s been a long road to setting final groundfish catch limits for the next three years in the Northeast Multispecies groundfishery and the journey isn’t quite over yet.

The New England Fishery Management Council approved the management framework that sets Northeast multispecies groundfish catch limits for 2020-2022 earlier this month. And local groundfishermen are looking at significant increases in several flounder stocks, American plaice and haddock.

But the state of the cod fishery in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank remains a point of contention.

“Overall, it’s pretty rosy,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition. “But the real issue is codfish, with catch limits that are going to be limiting and constricting when fishermen try to target other stocks.”

The council approved a 32% cut to Georges Bank cod to 1,073 metric tons per season and slashed the annual catch limit for Gulf of Maine cod by 24% to 275 metric tons per season.

Fishing stakeholders say those cuts reflect the continuing deep divide between what fishermen are seeing with cod on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine and what NOAA Fisheries scientists include in their projections and assessments.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Groundfishermen not hooked by monitoring alternatives

June 12, 2019 — For more than two years, the New England Fishery Management Council has worked on an intricate groundfish monitoring amendment that could have wide-scale economic and regulatory consequences for groundfishermen.

It has been a thorny, winding path that involves a host of groundfish committees, plan development teams and assorted staff within the far-flung fisheries regulatory landscape. Now a group of groundfishermen are weighing in. And they are not pleased.

Today, the council, meeting for the second of its three days in Portland, Maine, is expected to finalize the range of alternatives for revising monitoring programs when the amendment — named Amendment 23 — goes out for public comment, probably late in the fall.

In a letter to the council, groundfishermen from across New England criticized the process for developing the amendment by framing the issue within a simple cost/benefit analysis.

They claim the process for fashioning the amendment still has not identified what the revised monitoring programs will cost the groundfish industry that ultimately will be responsible for paying for it.

“That’s an extremely important issue, since they’re the ones paying for it,” said Jackie Odell, the executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition. “These are industry-funded programs.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Fishing industry wins EPA exemption for deck wash

December 11, 2018 — Gloucester fishermen and their contemporaries across the nation, following years of uncertainty, finally caught a break in the new federal law regulating incidental deck discharges from fishing vessels.

A provision within the new Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, signed into law last week by President Donald Trump as part of an omnibus Coast Guard bill, exempts commercial fishing vessels of all sizes and other vessels up to 79 feet in length from having to obtain a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency to cover incidental deck wash.

“Specifically, discharges incidental to the normal operation, except for ballast water, from small vessels (i.e., less than 79 feet in length) and commercial fishing vessels of all sizes no longer require National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit coverage,” the EPA said in its statement about the new law. “Thus, permit coverage for any vessel covered under the (Small Vessel General Permit) is automatically terminated.”

Commercial fishermen have operated under a series of temporary exemptions since the initial regulations were enacted in 2009 for commercial non-fishing vessels. But if forced to comply with the existing regulations, fishing vessels larger than 79 feet would have faced regulations dealing with 27 different types of discharges — including routine discharges such as deck wash, fish hold effluent and greywater.

The permanent exemption, according to industry stakeholders, removes an impediment that might have economically sunk commercial fishing nationwide.

“It could have killed the industry,” said Vito Giacalone, policy director for the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, which worked with Washington-based consultant Glenn Delaney to help build a network of commercial fishing interests to change to obtain the permanent exemption. “It’s been a ticking time bomb for the entire fishing industry in the U.S. This is such a game-changer.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

New England Council to Take up Issue of New Bedford Sectors IX and VII on Wednesday

April 17, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The New England Fisheries Management Council will take up the issue of the operations plans submitted by sector IX and sector VII, which represent the majority of groundfish vessels in New Bedford.

Many of these vessels, which were formerly members of Sector IX, have been prohibited from fishing until Sector IX came up with an acceptable mechanism to account for the illegal fishing and overages done by vessels belonging to Carlos Rafael that were in the sector.

The sector was strongly criticized by NMFS for failure to have an adequate plan to account for overharvests, to do proper record keeping, and to then take necessary steps to payback fish that was illegally harvested.

Instead of coming to an agreement, on the last day for filing sector membership, the vessels in Sector IX decamped en masse to Sector VII, which otherwise would have been shut down.

Sector VII vessels that have come from Sector IX still won’t be able to fish until a plan to pay back illegal harvests has been approved, but the vessels hope that by moving to an operating sector they may be able to lease their quotas.

Sector VII has written the council to say that for many years they have shared a sector manager with sector VIII, another sector in New Bedford. They said that with reduced catches, it was no longer viable for them to operate as a stand alone sector.

Sector manager Linda McCann wrote that they have one vessel groundfishing, and six vessels fishing for monkfish, and this is too small an amount of activity to sustain a separate sector.

She says the plan to merge with sector 8 was developed months ago, and communicated to NMFS.

She says “We didn’t realize we needed to justify to the fishing world why these internal decisions were made, or how we handle our internal business affairs.  However, we feel compelled to do so in sight of recent politics, attacks and mischaracterizations of facts. Let us be clear, the decisions made to merge sector 7 membership into sector 8 has nothing to do with the sector 9 situation of the Carlos Rafael situation. “

Another letter, from the Northeast Seafood Coalition urges the council to set clear goals.

“As many Council members are painfully aware, the 28 offenses to which Mr. Rafael pled guilty and is now incarcerated for have created enormous turmoil throughout the fishery and the region. Part of the turmoil concerns the broader fishery management implications of starting a new fishing year with such a significant portion of the fishery’s sub-ACL not being made available to the fishery.

NSC recommends that the Council provide the Agency with their primary objectives and request the Agency use their administrative authority to consult with the respective sector boards to achieve the stated objectives.

NSC recommends the following objectives:

  • ACE overages be identified and paid back to the system. The timing and result of the resolution shall be consistent with a result that would have been possible had the 2018 NEF Sector 9 roster been the same as 2017.
  • Conditional upon resolution of the NEF Sector IX overages, ensure the groundfish sector system has access to the ACE associated with permits that are enrolled in NEF Sector VII.
  • Work with the NEF Sector VII to ensure the conditions they’ve listed in their March 26, 2018 letter are met and upheld.”

This story was originally published by Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.