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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 9
May 2006
Hard course set for 2006 groundfish year
MYSTIC, CT - The New England Fishery Management Council reaffirmed its decision to stick by the current version of Framework Adjustment 42 to the groundfish plan, despite extraordinary efforts by the Northeast Seafood Coalition and the Massachusetts ports of Gloucester and New Bedford to gain support for an alternative.
The council made that clear by a lopsided vote at its April 5 meeting and the framework is now under review by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
Concurrently, on April 13, NMFS published an “emergency interim final rule” to quickly cut back fishing effort beginning May 1, the start of the 2006 fishing year.
The emergency measures, which will stay in place until Framework 42 is implemented later this summer, triggered an uproar.
The days leading up to these momentous actions were marked by turmoil and even panic as industry representatives and supporters scrambled to make their concerns known and to identify less painful options.
Here’s a recap of how events unfolded.
Ports join hands
In mid-January, the mayors of New Bedford and Gloucester, along with state representatives and Brian Rothschild of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology, came together in support of the Northeast Seafood Coalition’s cod cap proposal as an alternative for Framework 42 (see CFN March 2006 for cod cap and Framework 42 details).
On Feb. 1, the New England council adopted Alternative B2 for Framework 42, which contained 2-for-1 days-at-sea counting in large portions of the Gulf of Maine and Southern New England. The council picked this path over Alternative E, which relied on “the 24-hour clock” where each day or partial day fished was counted as 24 hours.
The mayors, Rothschild, coalition members, and numerous supporters attended this critical February meeting and urged the council to at least analyze the cod cap proposal.
The council agreed, but only after it voted to submit Framework 42 to NMFS with Alternative B2.
Emergency action
At the tail end of March, NMFS announced “proposed” emergency measures for May 1, which included across-the-board counting of days-at-sea at the rate of 1.4-to-1.
Fishermen almost everywhere, even those who quietly supported the council’s choice of Alternative B2, were stunned.
The announcement brought the ports of New Bedford and Gloucester together once again.
At a press conference on March 29, the mayors, coalition leaders, and numerous others called on NMFS to replace the 1.4-to-1 counting with the 24-hour clock, at least until Framework 42 was implemented. At that point they still hoped the framework could be replaced with the coalition’s cod cap proposal.
Meanwhile, the council staff wrapped up the necessary analysis of Framework 42 with Alternative B2 and submitted the document to NMFS for review and approval.
Cod cap analysis
By the time the council met again April 4-5 in Mystic, CT, word was out that the coalition’s cod cap proposal, which included numerous other measures to address rebuilding of several groundfish stocks, would not meet the council’s fishing mortality objectives – unless the number of vessels that fished in the inshore cod blocks was dramatically cut back.
Council groundfish plan coordinator and groundfish plan development team Chairman Tom Nies explained it this way.
“To ballpark it, you’d have to limit the participants to one-quarter to one-half of the boats that fished in the area in 2004 in order for this to meet the fishing mortality objectives for most stocks,” he said.
Even at that, Nies said the cod cap proposal would still fall short on white hake.
“It may be possible to meet the white hake objectives with a trip limit of less than 1,000 pounds per day-at-sea,” Nies said.
He further added that the overall success of the cod program might depend on “who” participates because some fishermen who traditionally work in the inshore Gulf of Maine catch less cod than others.
Calomo fights on
Given the outcome of the analysis, few council members were ready to support advancing the cod cap proposal for the 2006 fishing year.
However, Vito Calomo, executive director of the Massachusetts Fisheries Recovery Commission, continued to make a big push for it.
“We either let overfishing take place or we stop fishing altogether,” he said. “These are extreme positions. You don’t achieve the balance in Framework 42. The fishermen will be gone forever. The infrastructure will never be the same. It will destroy a way of life that’s been carried on for 400 years.”
Calomo, who has been both a fisherman and council member himself, concluded, “I beg you through all of the hats I have worn in my life that you consider the industry’s proposal. I think you need to take a good hard look at what you’re doing here.”
Keep concept alive
Nonetheless, no one moved to put the coalition proposal on the table as a substitute for Framework 42.
Massachusetts council member David Pierce, however, didn’t want to see the proposal go by the wayside.
“This analysis has borne some fruit. It was worthwhile for the council to have it done,” he said.
“We should not abandon this strategy for the future. We need to keep it in our back pocket possibly for fishing year 2007-2008,” Pierce said.
Vito Giacalone of the Northeast Seafood Coalition also urged the council to consider it for 2007.
And he thanked the council for the opportunity to have the proposal analyzed.
“The Northeast Seafood Coalition appreciates all the effort everyone put into this,” he said.
Reject Framework 42
New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, who spoke on behalf of the ports of New Bedford and Gloucester, as well as the coalition, still urged the council to ask the secretary of commerce to reject Framework 42 “because of disproportionate economic impacts on Massachusetts” and conduct further analysis of alternatives.
He also asked the council to consider holding “economic impact meetings” in New Bedford and Gloucester so it would have “a more balanced view with conservation.”
Lang said, “We still put conservation first but it has to be balanced with the economic realities. Otherwise, we’ll have the collapse of the fishing industry.”
24-hour clock?
Building on the call by New Bedford and Gloucester to replace NMFS’s initial blanket 1.4-to-1 days-at-sea counting emergency measures with the 24-hour clock, Maine council member Jim Odlin moved to put Framework 42 back on the council agenda in June, but only to reconsider the 24-hour clock as a replacement for B2.
This prompted Pierce to quickly move to substitute that motion with one that would allow the council to consider any existing alternative in June. As it turned out, that prospect made the council even more reluctant to take any action at all.
“This opens it up way too far,” said Connecticut council member Sally McGee.
Pierce’s motion failed. Then the council members who initially opposed the 24-hour clock due to safety concerns took a strong stand against reconsideration.
“I will not sit here and vote on something that is going to drown people, and that’s what I think this is going to do,” said New Hampshire council member David Goethel. “We had the debate. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
But council member Phil Ruhle of Rhode Island wasn’t so sure.
“This (the 24-hour clock) has safety ramifications, but the 2-for-1 counting has them too,” he said. “The problem I have is we don’t accomplish the goal with B2. The analysis might say so, but in reality it won’t.”
Too much delay
Rip Cunningham, chairman of the council’s groundfish committee, wasn’t necessarily opposed to the 24-hour clock, but he expressed several concerns over the prospect of changing course since Framework 42 was under NMFS review.
As for supplanting B2 with the 24-hour clock, he said, “It’s not just a minor substitution of one over the other. It’s a substantial rewrite of the document that was submitted.”
Cunningham further worried the delay might force NMFS to impose another emergency action, which might be even more severe.
Plus, he said, “Ninety-five percent of the testimony (in February) was against the 24-hour clock because of safety concerns. Is that something we’re supposed to forget?”
NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul also expressed reservations about the February testimony, which is all part of the record.
“We did hear some very compelling evidence at the last council meeting that this had serious safety concerns. You’ll have to overcome that,” she said.
As for timing, Kurkul said, “By the June meeting, we could have a proposed rule out for Framework 42” as originally submitted by the council with B2.
Given the complexity involved, the council in the end voted 3-14 against the reconsideration idea. The vote served to reaffirm the council’s decision to stand by B2 for the 2006 fishing year.
Janice M. Plante
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