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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 1
September 2009
Sector update: NMFS to pay for monitoring;
sets ’11 data deadline
GLOUCESTER, MA – In late July and early August, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued several significant notices related to groundfish sectors and how they will operate in the future under Amendment 16 to the federal groundfish plan.
On July 27, the agency sent out a letter to permit holders announcing that it expects to be able to cover “all or at least most” of the dockside monitoring costs for groundfish sectors for the 2010 fishing year. It will be the first year of operations for 17 brand new sectors, which will join the two existing but modified Cape Cod groundfish sectors (see CFN August 2009 for details).
“We have set aside $1.2 million that will be made available to sectors to defray the costs of dockside monitoring,” said NMFS.
The exact amount available to each sector will be determined after final sector rosters and operations’ plans are submitted to the agency. The deadline for that landmark event is Sept. 1.
The New England Fishery Management Council, which approved Amendment 16 in late June, called for a 50% dockside monitoring rate in 2010. Assuming it approves the 50% rate, NMFS said it expected to have enough money to fund the program on its own.
However, the agency also warned, “If funding should prove to be insufficient, any additional costs will have to be borne by the sectors.”
Sectors should receive their dockside monitoring funds in “early calendar year 2010,” in time to “conduct final negotiations with the dockside monitor providers before the fishing year begins on May 1.”
NMFS added that “some funds” would be available “to subsidize at-sea monitoring costs, including equipment, training, and data quality assurance (and) quality control.”
And in 2011 …
While some fishermen were still trying to decide whether or not even to join a sector for 2010, NMFS put out a separate notice for 2011.
According to the notice, anyone who has landings-data problems that could affect their future status should formally bring those concerns to the agency’s attention in writing postmarked or e-mailed by Oct. 31.
Said NMFS, “If you are considering participating in the Northeast Multispecies Sector Program for fishing year 2011 and you have identified errors in the summarized data used to calculate your potential sector contribution (PSC), you may submit a written request to … NMFS for review and possible correction of the data.”
NMFS explained that it was imposing the Oct. 31 deadline because it needed to finish processing these requests by Dec. 31, 2009.
The agency added that it would continue to accept PSC data review requests after the deadline but warned that it might not be able to process late requests in time for use in 2011.
“If those corrections are not made in time for fishing year 2011,” NMFS said, “they will be made for 2012.”
Data correction requests should be mailed to: NMFS, FSO Data Correction Requests, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930-2276.
Requests can be e-mailed to: <FSO.DATA.CORRECTIONS@NOAA.GOV>. Enter “FSO Data Correction Requests” and your vessel’s six-digit permit number in the subject line of the e-mail.
For help in submitting a request, call the Fisheries Statistics Office at (978) 675-2160. And anyone with questions about sector management in general can call NMFS at (978) 281-9315.
Sector news
NMFS also has been putting out a considerable amount of sector information on its Northeast Region web site, including a periodic newsletter called “Sector News.”
For general sector information, visit <www.nero.noaa.gov/sfd/sfdmultisector.html>. To view the latest issue of “Sector News,” visit <www.nero.noaa.gov/sfd/sectordocs/SectorNewsVol2July2009.pdf>. /cfn/
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