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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 6
February 2010
Scallop industry wins reconsideration of FW 21
NEW BEDFORD, MA – The scallop industry demonstrated its formidable strength in recent weeks as it mounted – and won – a relentless campaign to compel the New England Fishery Management Council to reconsider its decision on 2010 fishery specifications through Framework 21 to the federal scallop plan.
The council voted on Nov. 18 to adopt a fishing mortality (F) rate of .20 for 2010, resulting in 29 open-area days for full-time scallopers. It selected this alternative over F=.24, which would have resulted in 38 open-area days (see CFN January 2010 for full details).
Fishermen left the room visibly frustrated, but their anger intensified as the financial reality of a 29-day fishing year in open areas began to sink in.
The drive to overturn the decision went into full force just after Thanksgiving and culminated on Jan. 11 when council Chairman John Pappalardo of Massachusetts announced that the council would review and possibly reconsider Framework 21 on Jan. 27 during its three-day meeting in Portsmouth, NH. That meeting was taking place just days after Commercial Fisheries News went to press.
A remarkable sequence of events led to this point. Scallopers from Maine to North Carolina decried the council’s actions in newspaper accounts that plastered coastal communities, and this tightly knit industry unleashed its irrefutable political clout, calling on key members of Congress and state officials for help.
Elected officials responded almost immediately and put enormous pressure on the council. Many scallopers directly credited this intense political intervention for the resulting turn of events.
Diodati’s letter
Let’s pick up with the Dec. 2 letter from Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries Director Paul Diodati to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul. This was the last development reported in CFN’s January 2010 issue.
In that letter, Diodati said he was convinced that certain critical scientific information from the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) and the scallop plan development team (PDT) was “forgotten” during the November council meeting.
“I believe this omission played a key role in the council adopting an F of .20 with all its attendant consequences,” wrote Diodati.
He asked Kurkul to “take appropriate steps to account for PDT and SSC analyses of uncertainty” and set the 2010 F rate at .24 instead of .20 – or possibly allow the New England council to revisit the issue in January.
Kurkul responded to Diodati in a Dec. 21 letter of her own, stating that the SSC had provided the council with advice during the council’s September meeting and that the council had “considered this advice, and other information, in making its Framework 21 recommendations.”
Kurkul also said that the council had just submitted the framework to NMFS and “articulated” its rationale for picking .20 over .24.
“We are currently reviewing the document for compliance with the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the (scallop) FMP, and other applicable law, “ she said.
Congress
Meanwhile, scallopers turned to one of their most stalwart supporters, US Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). Frank summoned the help of 17 other members of Congress, who collectively submitted a Dec. 15 letter to Commerce Sec. Gary Locke asking that he “direct the council to reconsider its proposal for the 2010 fishing year” and, citing Diodati’s letter, ensure that all council members be “fully informed of the scientific recommendations of the SSC and PDT.”
Should the council not be able to revisit its decision, then the 18 congressmen asked Locke to “ensure an appropriate outcome.”
1,000 signatures
Industry efforts were ramping up on other fronts, too. On Dec. 18, the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) hand-delivered a letter, accompanied by pages of signatures from “over 1,000 Atlantic sea scallop fishermen, retail and wholesale seafood dealers, other scallop-dependent businesses, and their employees,” to the office of Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
FSF representatives Herman Bruce and Malvin Kvilhaug signed the letter, which told Lubchenco that the council’s decision to go with .20 “fails to balance the conservation of scallop stocks with the economic and social health of the industry, and it will cause unnecessary damage to fishing communities from Maine to North Carolina, as well as local, regional, and national economies, more generally, at precisely the wrong time.”
The FSF urged the NOAA administrator “to take immediate action to restore the six million pounds in total catch for 2010” – the poundage difference between allowing fishing mortality at .24 instead of .20 – “and to allow at least a partial additional trip into the Georges Bank access areas, where adult scallops are abundant.” Both the .20 and the .24 alternatives in Framework 21 allow four access-area trips.
Mayor Lang steps in
From the outset, New Bedford scallopers had called on Mayor Scott Lang for help.
On Dec. 31, Lang, who is known as a strong supporter of the port’s fishing community, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request directly with Commerce Sec. Gary Locke.
Lang requested copies of all “communications between NOAA and all of the council members and all third parties that may have played a role” in what Lang called an “arbitrary and capricious” decision regarding Framework 21.
More specifically, the FOIA requested “all communications of any kind, formal or informal, regarding the regulation of scallops and yellowtail flounder, specifically from Sept. 1 to Dec. 24, 2009,” including “all e-mails, all telephone records, written correspondence, and all internal correspondence,” especially those from the Nov. 3 scallop committee meeting and the Nov. 18 council meeting.
Sec. Bowles
Also on Dec. 31, Massachusetts Sec. of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles wrote his own letter – this one to Pappalardo and all council members – asking that the council “reconsider and reverse its decision to sharply reduce fishing days for sea scallopers … for 2010.”
Bowles, who said he did not believe the council’s decision was based on the “best available science,” said, “Reducing scallop fishing by 22%, as the council’s decision would do, will result in a $40 million loss to scallopers and a $200 million loss to fishing communities and onshore businesses.”
New England council
In the face of this mounting pressure, the New England council issued its own press release on Jan. 5, which began, “Recent reports in the press prompt a clear statement from the New England council about its recent activities concerning sea scallops.”
Here, the council explained that its choice of .20 for 2010 “was influenced by the high fishing mortality rates that were estimated to have occurred in 2008 and 2009,” which exceeded initial projections, and its mandate to prevent overfishing. The .20 was expected to result in additional landings and revenue from 2011 through 2016, noted the council.
The statement concluded by saying, “Few council members have expressed interest in deviating from the council’s public, inclusive, and well-understood process to revisit Framework 21.”
FSF; UMass study
A day later, the Fisheries Survival Fund expressed outrage, saying that the council was making an “unprecedented effort” to “build justification and support” for its November actions when the commonwealth of Massachusetts, the city of New Bedford, 18 members of Congress, and over 1,000 members of “the public who rely on the scallop fishery” had all asked the council for reconsideration.
On Jan. 7, Dan Georgianna, chancellor professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology, released a report called “Short Term Economic Impacts of Scallop Framework 21.”
The report concluded that Framework 21 would, indeed, result in significant economic impacts on the fleet.
“This analysis predicts substantial losses in annual revenue per full-time scallop vessel (about 25% of revenue for 2009) and substantial losses in total effects to the Northeast Region,” wrote Georgianna.
He also concluded that the “value of benefits” from the higher F of .24 “surpasses the benefits” of the .20 rate chosen by the council.
Some industry members estimated that per-vessel losses would run between $250,000 and $300,000 for full-timer scallopers.
AFM speaks up
On the same day that Georgianna released his report, Associated Fisheries of Maine (AFM) wrote to Pappalardo saying it was joining “the chorus of voices asking the New England council to reconsider its November vote.”
Spokesman Maggie Raymond said, “AFM members are vested in both the limited-access scallop fishery and the limited-access general category IFQ fishery,” and the association was concerned about Framework 21’s economic impact on both given that the .20 F would result in roughly 300,000 pounds fewer scallops being allocated to the IFQ fishery.
Gov. Patrick
On Jan. 8, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick traveled to New Bedford along with Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray and Sec. Bowles. They met with Mayor Lang and members of the fishing industry.
Two days later on Sunday, Jan. 10, Patrick met with Pappalardo in the governor’s State House office “to express his serious concerns” about the scallop cutbacks and his “disappointment” that the issue was not placed on the council’s January meeting agenda for reconsideration. Sec. Bowles attended the meeting as well.
The next day, on Jan. 11, Pappalardo announced that the council would “review and possibly reconsider” Framework 21 on Wednesday, Jan. 27, beginning at 8:30 am.
Pappalardo said, “I appreciate the concerns of all the parties who have weighed in on Framework 21. I have determined that the most appropriate way to address the issues identified by the scallop industry, the state of Massachusetts, and elected officials is to have a discussion” during the Portsmouth-based council meeting.
“I believe this is a constructive means to move forward and preserves the integrity of the fishery management process while creating an opportunity for public participation and input,” he said.
Rep. Barney Frank also issued a statement following the turn of events.
“I greatly appreciate Gov. Patrick’s leadership in working with the council chairman on this critical issue,” Frank said, “and I believe a strong scientific case will be made to the full council that will lead to a reconsideration of the November vote.” /cfn/
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