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 36 Number 4
December 2008
Citizens work to protect Gloucester industry
GLOUCESTER, MA – Citizens for Gloucester Harbor, a new working waterfront advocacy group made up of private individuals and organizations, has come together with the goal of preserving the Designated Port Area (DPA) restrictions in places where many of the city’s seafood-related businesses are located.
With new political leadership at City Hall, there is mounting pressure to seek state-level action to change the DPA zoning status and allow nonseafood-related waterfront development, including the construction of a Marriott Hotel on the site where Clarence Birdseye invented flash-freezing.
Steve Parkes, founder of Pigeon Cove Seafoods and one of the organizers of Citizens for Gloucester Harbor, emphasized that the group’s goal is not to stop progress.
“Instead, we want to help the city, state, and local property owners attract marine-related businesses and institutions to our waterfront,” he said.
Calling the city’s centuries-old relationship to the seafaring industry “the soul of Gloucester,” the citizen’s group is urging other residents to “participate and contribute to a harbor that will provide quality jobs and build on our strengths, interests, and capacities as a community.”
Public forum
The group is planning to hold a public event on Dec. 8 starting at 7 pm at City Hall that it’s calling “Fresh Ideas for Our Harbor: A Community Forum.”
According to Citizens for Gloucester Harbor, the goal is to better explain the port’s seafaring heritage, current fishing economy, and its concerns and goals.
In addition to several knowledgeable and notable speakers, the citizens’ group will use a powerful audio-visual aid to get its message across – an extraordinary film titled “Gloucester Harbor: Insuring the Future,” created by Henry Ferrini of Ferrini Productions, Gordon Baird, and Marcia Hart.
Beautifully shot and expertly edited, the film intersperses active scenes of commercial fishing boats, fish offloading, ice loading, net mending, processing lines, and much more, with comments from a wide range of individuals about the economic value and promising future of the city as a fishing port.
Among those featured in the film are: veteran fisherman Russell Sherman; restaurateur Lenny Linquata; attorney Ken Riaf; contractor Russell Hobbs; Ocean Alliance CEO Ian Kerr; naval architect Damon Cummings; long-time fishermen’s advocate Angela Sanfilippo; boat designer Phil Bolger; fisherman/researcher Richard Taylor; young fisherman Charlie Williams; Lynn Klotz of the Gloucester Biotechnology Initiative; and even actor John C. Reilly, famous for roles in such recent movies as “Talladega Nights” and “A Prairie Home Companion.”
Much to offer
In the film, economist Valerie Nelson explains that not only is Gloucester growing as a fishing port even as other ports in the region decline, but researchers are teaming up with industry people to create innovative business ventures.
She uses Neptune’s Harvest as a case in point. The rapidly growing division of Ocean Crest Seafoods Inc. now employs 45 people to make organic fertilizer out of fish waste.
“The idea for this product came from the University of Massachusetts marine research station in Hodgkin’s Cove,” she said. “This is the kind of example of the combination of the academic research skills and the business acumen that resides here in Gloucester and makes it a great working waterfront.”
Also in the film, Molly Lutcavage, director of the Large Pelagics Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, is shown testifying at a public meeting on the potential for Gloucester to attract marine scientists.
“Gloucester can also serve as a center for marine biotechnology and marine cooperative fisheries research,” she said. “People like myself would consider it a fantastic place to move our studies to if there were opportunities.”
A 10-minute version of the film can be viewed online at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBybGEpNtZ8>. For more information on the Citizens for Gloucester Harbor public forum, e-mail <citizensforgloucesterharbor@yahoo.com> or call Ann Banks at (978) 283-0505.
Lorelei Stevens
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
