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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 5
January 2007
Scallop Amd. 13 to extend observer program
GLOUCESTER, MA – The scallop industry-funded observer program should be permanently back on track next spring after the New England Fishery Management Council officially incorporates a mechanism to certify observer service providers into the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan (FMP).
At its Nov. 14-16 meeting here, the council voted to initiate Amendment 13 to the FMP for the sole purpose of extending the industry program that’s currently operating under emergency action.
“Clearly observer coverage is critical and we need to do everything possible to keep that observer coverage going,” said Massachusetts council representative David Pierce.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) implemented a180-day emergency action on June 16, 2006 to institute the industry-funded program and then in mid-December extended the emergency regulations for another 180 days, the maximum allowed under secretarial emergency action.
The extension is expected to buy the council enough time to officially fold the program into the FMP, but the timing will be tight. The extended emergency action is now scheduled to expire on June 11, 2007 – just before next year’s scallop access-area program gets underway.
As a result, the council may try to tweak the program to improve it a bit but essentially decided to stick with the existing structure as drafted by NMFS in the emergency action to avoid possible delays.
“We appreciate the council moving forward on this,” said attorney David Frulla on behalf of the Fisheries Survival Fund.
Complicated history
Scallop fishermen began paying for their own observer coverage in 1999. However, half way through 2004, NMFS discovered that, for complicated legal reasons, it couldn’t renew the sole-source contract it had in place with the observer provider. Without the contract, industry had no way to directly pay for observer coverage.
NMFS reverted to funding scallop observers itself but in early 2006 found that it had nowhere near enough money to finance an adequate level of coverage for the fishery.
According to NMFS, observer coverage in the scallop fishery is “necessary” to monitor finfish bycatch, especially yellowtail flounder, and interactions with threatened and endangered species, namely sea turtles.
As a result, NMFS took emergency action to implement an observer service provider certification mechanism and reinstitute the industry-funded program.
The scallop FMP sets aside 1% of the annual access-area total allowable catch (TAC) and 1% of the open-area days-at-sea to help industry defray the cost of paying for observers.
The program outlined under the emergency action and proposed under Amendment 13 uses these set-aside provisions.
Modifications
Several industry members told the council they wanted to see changes to improve the industry-funded observer program and asked that the list of “frameworkable” items in the FMP be expanded to include observer issues, which the council agreed to do.
That way, even if changes can’t be made in Amendment 13 because of timing, modifications might be possible under Framework Adjustment 19, which the council will develop in the year ahead to set days-at-sea and TACs for the 2008 and 2009 fishing years.
Cost concerns were raised by industry throughout the council discussion, especially regarding inequities for smaller vessels, which often have a hard time harvesting enough scallops to pay for the observer out of the extra set-aside allocation because they are less efficient than larger vessels and simply catch fewer scallops.
Frulla urged the council to allow industry to first discuss the issue on its own.
“I think we can find ways to make this work better,” he said. “There may be a lot of creative things we can do to spread the costs around. We just can’t say what they are right now.”
James Fletcher of the North Carolina-based United National Fishermen’s Association also asked, “Does this open the door for renegotiating the cost of the observers?”
The answer was no, but the subject clearly rubbed a sore spot for many in the audience.
“We’ve had some cases, especially in the open areas, where the observers have made way more money than the crew, especially on the smaller boats,” said Fletcher.
The observers themselves only receive a portion of the $775-per-day cost that vessel owners pay for scallop observer coverage, but given the level of contention over the steep cost of observer coverage in general, the topic probably won’t be put to bed anytime soon.
The council is expected to cast its final vote on Amendment 13 during its Feb. 6-8 meeting.
Janice M. Plante
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