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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 2
October 2009
NE council resumes work on whiting amendment
PLYMOUTH, MA – Following a long lull due to workload issues, the New England Fishery Management Council has turned its attention back to small-mesh multispecies and is now fully immersed in developing a major amendment to the groundfish plan to deal with whiting, red hake, and offshore whiting.
But the matter that is most important to many whiting fishermen – limited entry – may not become part of the amendment unless industry people themselves come forward with some simple, realistic, and doable alternatives.
During its Sept. 22-24 meeting here, the council voted to prioritize – in top to bottom order – the components of the whiting amendment as follows:
Annual catch limits (ACLs) and accountability measures (AMs), now required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the very top priority;
Initial ACL specifications for 2011 and a process for setting three-year specifications beginning in 2012;
Improved reporting and vessel monitoring requirements;
Measures to minimize bycatch; and
Limited-access and catch share alternatives.
The council is under intense pressure to follow a rigid timeline to complete this amendment. Due to the ACL and AM requirement that is now part of the MSA, the council needs to approve “fully developed” proposals in January “for further analysis.” Then it must give a final nod to those proposals in April so that the analyzed alternatives can be sent out to public hearing by May 2010. The council currently is scheduled to vote on the final provisions for the whiting amendment a month later at its June meeting.
If the council stays on track, the National Marine Fisheries Service should be able to implement a final rule by May 1, 2011, the start of the groundfish fishing year.
Industry advisers
Deeply concerned that it simply would not be able to complete such a huge undertaking in the limited time available, the council, at the suggestion of its whiting committee, agreed to give its whiting industry advisers the task of developing potential limited-access and catch share alternatives for the amendment.
Council Chairman John Pappalardo of Massachusetts referred to it as a “division of labor,” with the council’s whiting committee and plan development team (PDT) working on ACLs, AMs, specifications, and bycatch measures, while industry advisers focused on limited-entry qualification criteria and potential catch share programs such as sectors or even individual transferable quotas (ITQs).
The whiting fishery already is subject to a March 25, 2003 control date, which the council reaffirmed in April of 2006.
Overwhelming events
So much has happened since 2006 when the council first asked the industry for input on a new whiting amendment during a series of scoping meetings.
Back then, numerous industry members said their first priority was to put in place a limited-entry program to prevent too many people and too much effort from being involved in the fishery, which is prone to price collapse because of an extremely limited market.
Based on those comments, the council began working on a limited-entry amendment – until it was forced by legal mandates in other fisheries to redirect its time, staff, and resources, putting the whole whiting effort on hold.
Then, the January 2007 MSA reauthorization required fishery management councils to develop ACLs and AMs for all species under rigid deadlines – 2010 or 2011 depending on whether or not the species was overfished.
And, three years later, this new requirement may once again trump the council’s ability to concentrate on what originally had been its primary goal – limited entry for the fishery.
Impossible idea?
Since the council was resuming work on whiting, many – though not all – industry members were eagerly anticipating renewed discussion of limited-entry proposals.
Knowing this, many council members were reluctant during their September meeting to speak against the possibility of getting back to the early purpose of the amendment.
However, several expressed concerns about misleading fishermen into thinking that such a program really could be fully developed within such a condensed timeframe.
Terry Stockwell of Maine said, “We’ve got to be brutally honest with ourselves. We can’t possibly get this all done in this amendment.”
Fellow council member Mary Beth Tooley of Maine said she knew the ACL/AM deadline was immoveable.
However, referring to the industry advisers and their position on limited entry, she said, “This is very important to them.”
Tooley said she felt it was “a little too premature” to drop the whole concept from the amendment.
“The whiting committee’s feeling is we’re willing to give it a shot,” she said.
As for the other issues identified as priorities, whiting committee Chairman David Goethel of New Hampshire said most of them were intertwined and needed to be worked on simultaneously. And since industry advisers would take the reins on limited-entry and catch share proposals, the committee, which met Sept. 14, supported keeping those alternatives alive in the amendment, at least for now.
“The committee knows it may run up against what is a very aggressive timeline,” he said. “But we concluded that this was the best way to proceed at the moment.”
Obstacles
Everyone at the table seemed to understand that the industry advisers had their hands full.
While limited entry in general is doable and a sector program could pass muster, the MSA now requires ITQ programs developed by the New England council to be put to an industry vote. This is a complex process that has the potential to take a lot of time.
Andy Applegate, the council’s whiting plan coordinator, admitted that any type of catch share program requiring a referendum would be difficult to achieve as part of this current amendment. However, he supported moving forward with at least some industry-supported alternatives.
“It would be silly to pretend that we could get this amendment and a referendum done by June of next year,” he said. “But I think we can make considerable progress.”
Applegate added that he would attempt to guide advisers and the committee toward advancing “simpler vs. complicated” alternatives, which would have a better chance of making it into the amendment.
What’s next?
At press time in late September, the council had not yet determined when the whiting committee or its industry advisers would hold their next meeting, but the whiting PDT was expected to meet in short order to work on several more technical provisions of the amendment, especially those related to stock status and the ACL/AM process.
As the industry advisers got down to work, council Chairman Pappalardo did have one piece of advice for them regarding the selection of potential limited-access qualification criteria.
Given that early fishery landings records are incomplete at best and extremely difficult to verify and the fact that some industry members have expressed a desire to consider fishermen with very long histories in the fishery, Pappalardo said, “I really wouldn’t encourage people to come forward with limited-access alternatives that predate 1994.”
For more information, call Applegate at (978) 465-0492 or e-mail him at <aapplegate@nefmc.org>.
Janice M. Plante
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