COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 2
October 2007
More funds available for Maine float rope exchange program
KENNEBUNK, ME – The Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation has received funding for Phase II of its Bottom Line Project, a voluntary groundline rope exchange.
The federal grant amounts to $680,3000, which is being channeled to the foundation through the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The money will supplement the rope exchange project’s existing pool of funds, according to project Manager Laura Ludwig.
The project’s original grant award in June 2006 for Phase I was $2 million, less about $200,000, which NMFS took to cover administration costs.
Late in May, the foundation conducted the first rope exchange during which 127 fishermen turned in about 140,000 pounds of floating groundline and received vouchers good for the purchase of sink rope. The vouchers were valued at $1.40 per pound of float rope turned in, meaning that the project distributed about $200,000 of its initial $1.8 million grant.
The Bottom Line Project is intended to help defray the cost many lobstermen are expected to have to shoulder if, as expected, NMFS implements a universal ban on floating groundlines – outside of exemption areas – next year.
Ludwig said that once NMFS publishes the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan final rule (see related story page 5A), the foundation will survey the entire Maine lobster industry again to determine how many lobstermen are interested in participating in Phase II of the rope exchange project.
“We expect the first rope collection will be in early 2008,” she said. “There will be multiple collections in different areas of the coast.”
Groundlines, tailers
Ludwig added that she wanted to emphasize two points.
“The Bottom Line Project is and always has been about replacing floating groundlines and tailer warps with sink rope. Lobstermen fishing singles or using float rope in their buoy lines may not bring that rope in,” she said.
And, she added, “People can elect not to participate – but the (anticipated) rule calls for a ban on floating groundlines, and the project will help some lobstermen make that switch.”
In an Aug. 24 statement on the grant, US Rep. Tom Allen (D-ME) said the federal aid was not a complete fix for the tremendous expense and operational burden lobstermen affected by the float rope ban will face.
“The issue of how to protect endangered whales without placing unnecessary and unaffordable burdens on Maine’s lobster industry remains unresolved,” he said.
Allen and other members of the state’s congressional delegation are working with state and federal officials to minimize the huge disruption the float rope ban is expected to cause in Maine.
“In the meantime, this grant is most welcome as lobstermen begin to purchase gear designed to reduce the risk of entangling large whales,” he said.
For more information on the Bottom Line Project, call Ludwig at (207) 263-5300, e-mail her at <laura@gomlf.org>, or visit the foundation’s web site at <www.gomlf.org/groundline.htm>.
Lorelei Stevens
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
