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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 12
August 2009
Wrung-out NE council passes groundfish Amd. 16
PORTLAND, ME – Roughly 200 exhausted people sat in a hotel meeting room June 24-25 as the New England Fishery Management Council worked its way through dozens of decisions for Amendment 16 to the federal groundfish plan. It was an awful two days.
With each successive vote, the groundfish fishery moved closer to what it will look like in 2010, when fishermen will be split between sectors and the common pool.
Newspapers far and wide began hailing the council’s actions long before the final vote, mostly painting sectors as the salvation for both fish and fishermen.
But for those who would have to fish under Amendment 16, this sweeping transformation of their world seemed surreal.
Many, in fact, were filled with anxiety, still uncertain of which way to turn, not really knowing if they’d be better off joining a sector or not. Others feared that no sector would want them – or that good friends within sectors would have fallouts trying to decide among themselves who could catch which fish.
“Once this is drawn up, there’s no going back,” said Jim Kendall of New Bedford Seafood Consulting. “Sectors were created so people could get out of days-at-sea, but there are so many questions that remain unresolved. This is a false hope and a false promise and something that I don’t think can be accomplished.”
Gib Brogan of Oceana said Oceana supported sectors. But, he said, “We have real problems with the way sectors are laid out in this amendment.”
Citing potential loopholes, weaknesses, and confusion within the sector provisions, Brogan said, “I don’t think it’s a finished product right now – not until those holes are plugged.”
Sector supporters
Even sector supporters said they knew the road ahead would be bumpy, especially since they would be chained to low total allowable catch (TAC) limits on most groundfish stocks.
But some fishermen, like those from Port Clyde, ME, expressed genuine hope that they’d be better off fishing within a sector than under what they have now – a crushing mix of days-at-sea, trip limits, and area closures that have robbed people’s ability to make business decisions about when, where, and how to fish.
Gary Libby of the Port Clyde sector said, “I think sectors are a good idea. They do help small communities. I think turning back now would be a mistake.”
Warren Doty of the Martha’s Vineyard/Dukes County Fishermen’s Association said he commended the council’s work on sectors. Vineyard fishermen had submitted one of the new sector proposals under Amendment 16 and recently agreed to team up with Downeast Maine fishermen so they could join the sector too.
“The key to sectors is you’ve moved to a hard TAC. We’ve worked under hard TACs for a long time,” Doty said, referring to fluke, squid, and other fisheries. “They can be made to work. And through our sector, we’ll be bringing hard TACs to the Vineyard (for groundfish).”
Costs
Whether they were decided or undecided about sectors, all fishermen worried about the cost, the sheer amount of money it will take to be in a sector. Most sectors will need a salaried manager and, after the federal money runs out, will need to cover their own monitoring costs.
In fact, during recent public hearings on Amendment 16, many fishermen, increasingly concerned about the finances of it all, took a step back. More than a few called on the council to scrap the whole program and go straight to individual transferable quotas (ITQs).
But because ITQs weren’t an option in Amendment 16, they couldn’t be considered during the June meeting. So, the council moved along and approved the creation of 17 new groundfish sectors and modifications to the two existing sectors.
It also approved a host of extremely restrictive measures for the common pool, provisions for recreational fishermen, and numerous other regulatory changes, many of which are detailed on the following pages of CFN.
A dissenting vote
In the end, only one council member voted against submitting Amendment 16 to the National Marine Fisheries Service for approval and implementation – David Goethel of New Hampshire.
Goethel’s concerns were sharply focused on allocation. The council voted that the 17 new sectors would be allocated quota shares based on each member’s permit history from 1996 through 2006. But it made an exception for the two existing Cape Cod groundfish sectors, allowing them to continue to use 1996-2001 to calculate their Georges Bank cod allocations.
Furthermore, in a different action, the council voted to use 2001-2006 to calculate the cod/haddock splits between commercial and recreational fishermen. Many argued against the use of this time period, favoring instead using the same 1996-2006 baseline adopted for new sectors.
Goethel was so strongly opposed to this outcome that he submitted a minority report explaining his dissenting opinion to US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.
In the report, Goethel said the votes taken by the council violated National Standard 4 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and other statutory policy by “allocating the two existing commercial fishery sectors their best five year period of Georges Bank cod and the recreational fishery its historic five-year high allocation of Gulf of Maine cod and haddock.”
These decisions, wrote Goethel, “are neither fair nor equitable. They will provide an excessive share of the fishing privileges to a select few fishermen.”
In conclusion, he said, “I believe the allocation decision is a fatal flaw in an otherwise well-developed amendment that is full of painful and very difficult decisions.”
Goethel urged the secretary to remand the Amendment 16 allocation decisions back to the council “with clear instructions to put all user groups on a level playing field and comply with congressional policy.”
Janice M. Plante
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