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March 17, 2011 | 10:14 AM | By

The escalating war over catch shares: a timeline

This post replaces a January 28th post. It will be updated and moved to the top of the blog as new events surface.

Heather Goldstone

More than half of New England's groundfish fleet has stayed at dock this season, citing the new catch shares management system as the reason and sparking a heated political battle.

The first year of catch shares, at a glance:

May 1st, 2010: The New England groundfish fishery adopts catch shares.
May 7th, 2010: New Bedford joins a federal lawsuit contesting the legality of the system.
August 29th, 2010: Four months into the fishing season, 60% of the fleet is at dock.
November 5th, 2010: Governor Deval Patrick requests emergency action by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to increase catch limits and provide financial aid to fishermen.
January 7th, 2011: Sec. Locke denies Gov. Patrick’s request.
January 24th, 2011: Ten environmental groups send a letter thanking Secretary Locke for his decision.
January 25-27th, 2011: The New England Fisheries Management Council votes to further review catch limits and the impacts of catch shares on fleet diversity.
January 27th, 2011: Sec. Locke denies a request by Gov. Patrick to widen the scope of a federal investigation into abusive treatment of New England fishermen by federal law enforcement.
January 27th, 2011: The New Bedford City Council calls for Sec. Locke’s resignation.
January 31st, 2011: Senator Scott Brown introduces a bill to require independently prepared, annual fisheries impact reviews.
January 31st, 2011: Gov. Patrick asks Pres. Obama to intervene on behalf of fishermen.
February 9th, 2011: Federal regulators propose raising catch limits for yellowtail flounder and 11 other species for the 2011 fishing season.
February 22nd, 2011: Sen. Kerry requests a private meeting with Sec. Locke and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco
February 28th, 2011: Proposed increases in catch limits for 12 groundfish stocks included in the New England Fisheries Management Council’s proposed rule, Framework 45.
March 8th, 2011: Federal fisheries chief Eric Schwaab defends catch shares before Congress and says fisheries’ prospects are looking up.
March 17th, 2011: Sec. Locke announces several actions requested by Mass. politicians, including financial aid for fishermen, extended filing period for law enforcement complaints, and an audit of penalty funds.

Massachusetts is home to two of the nations most lucrative fishing ports – New Bedford and Gloucester. So Massachusetts politicians will, of course, stand up for their fishermen. And New England has never been known for overly cordial fisherman-regulator relations. But the fight seems to have escalated to a new level in recent months. Here’s the run-down.

May 1st, 2010: The New England multi-species groundfish fishery (fifteen species including cod, haddock, and flounder) becomes one of the first in the nation to transition to a management scheme known as catch shares, or sectors. Under the new system, a total catch limit is set for a given species or group of species. Fishermen are allotted a portion of the catch and can choose to fish their share, or sell or lease it to another fisherman.

May 7th, 2010: New Bedford joins a federal lawsuit contesting the legality of the catch shares system.

August 29st, 2010: Four months into the catch shares experiment, the new management scheme is “working just the way both its detractors and its supporters believed it would.” 60% of the fleet is sitting at the dock; fishermen have decided it’s more cost effective to sell their catch shares and wait for prices to rise. In a three-part series on the topic, the New Bedford Standard Times says there could be severe financial repercussions for businesses that support the fishing industry.

November 5th, 2010: Governor Deval Patrick submits a reanalysis of federal regulators’ data on fisheries stocks and economic impacts to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke with a request for emergency action to increase groundfish catch limits and provide financial aid to fishermen who fear they are being put out of business by the catch shares management system.

January 7th, 2011: Secretary Locke denies Governor Patrick’s request to raise groundfish quotas and provide financial aid, saying that such a move would require new scientific data (not just a different analysis) and stronger evidence of economic hardship.

January 24th, 2011: Ten environmental groups, including Conservation Law Foundation, Oceana, Environment Massachusetts, National Resources Defense Council, and Pew Environment Group, send a letter to Secretary Locke thanking him for “the professional demeanor and objective consideration of the issues that NOAA and [National Marine Fisheries Service] staffs have displayed throughout this process.”

January 26th, 2011: In a somewhat unorthodox move, New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang took his own fishery advisory council to the New Hampshire hotel where the New England Fisheries Management Council was convening and scheduled a presentation down the hall and immediately following the Council’s own meeting; most of the Council members attended Lang’s presentation of fishermen’s complaints.

January 27th, 2011: The New England Fishery Management Council votes to have their Science and Statistical Committee review the independent analysis commissioned by Gov. Patrick, bringing the report into the regulatory process. In response to complaints that catch shares is driving small fishermen out of business and consolidating the fishing industry in the hands of a few big businesses, the Council also agrees to study the system’s impacts on the diversity of the fishing fleet, but only after the completion of the first full year under catch shares.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Adaptation, catch shares, NOAA
February 4, 2011 | 11:57 AM | By

NOAA to preserve a piece of fishing history

NOAA

The Edna G. - a 54-foot wooden-hulled Eastern-rig trawler that sank off the coast of Gloucester in 1988 - has been granted protection as an historic site.

NOAA has decided to preserve a piece of New England’s groundfishing heritage, but not by raising catch limits. It’s listing the shipwreck of a mid-century groundfish trawler, the Edna G., on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Edna G. was listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to its exceptional importance as a remarkably intact example of 20th century fishing technology,” said Craig MacDonald, superintendent, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. “The shipwreck represents a rapidly disappearing watercraft variety emblematic of the region’s maritime traditions.”

According to a NOAA press release, the 54-foot trawler was launched in North Carolina in July 1956 and fished off the Carolina and Virginia coasts until 1974, when new owners moved it to New England. The vessel sank mysteriously on June 30, 1988, off Gloucester, Massachusetts – in an area now part of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. The two men aboard were setting out the trawl net when a strange noise alerted them to the fact that the engine room was, for reasons that remain unknown, rapidly filling with water. The men abandoned ship and were rescued, but the Edna G. made its way to seafloor some 300 feet below. And there it has remained.

A 2003 survey using a remote-controlled underwater robot equipped with a hi-definition camera confirmed that the Edna G.’s wooden hull, wheelhouse and trawl winch all remain intact. Maritime archaeologist Matthew Lawrence says the Edna G. is a particularly good example of the Eastern-rig draggers – usually wooden-hulled fishing boats with a side-deployed trawling net – that replaced hook-and-line dory fishing in the 1920′s and remained popular in New England until the rise of metal-hulled stern trawlers in the 1970′s and 80′s.

FILED UNDER: NOAA
February 1, 2011 | 12:56 PM | By

Gov. Patrick takes fishermen’s woes to President

The political battle over catch limits for New England’s groundfish fleet continues to escalate. In a personal letter to President Obama, Governor Deval Patrick has asks that the President “intervene to set your Department of Commerce and its agencies on a course of cooperation and consideration” but stops short of asking for Commerce Secretary Gary Locke’s resignation (as requested by the New Bedford city council last week). Here’s the full letter:

Dear Mr. President:

I write to express my extraordinary frustration with the lack of responsiveness the Commonwealth has experienced with the U.S. Department of Commerce and its agencies on the challenges facing our fishing families in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts fishing industry is a vital part of our history and economy, employing approximately 80,000 people in fisheries and related shore side businesses and generating $4.4 billion in sales. Gloucester is America’s oldest seaport and, since 2000, New Bedford has been the number one port for landings value in the United States.

But our fishing communities face severe challenges, and are currently suffering great hardship, as a result of well intended but often ill-conceived and poorly executed efforts by federal regulators to constrain the fishing harvest and rebuild our fish stocks. Over the last decade, the Northeast groundfish fleet has been reduced by nearly 60 percent, and this decline shows no sign of ending. The small fisherman is in danger of disappearing altogether, and with him would go a way of life.

In the face of these challenges, however, we have found the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Marine Fisheries Service unwilling to partner with us to find creative solutions that can balance the need for a vibrant fishing community with maintaining a sustainable fishery.

We have worked hard to offer solutions and have been repeatedly rebuffed. We were denied the modest funding required for a collaborative groundfish stock assessment to resolve disagreements over the state of our fisheries resource. We were denied a request to raise catch limits within the Department’s own conservation limits. We were denied economic assistance to help small fishermen hurt by the poorly planned transition to the new “catch shares” regulatory system. We were denied a simple request to allow for 45 days the consideration of new cases submitted by fishermen who believe they were mistreated by an enforcement system found by the Department’s own Inspector General to be out of control.

Government’s role as a regulator of our vital fisheries resources depends on fundamental trust between regulators and fishermen. Commerce’s intransigence and disrespect toward the working men and women who harvest our seafood, and their representatives in elected office, imperils that fundamental relationship.

The fishing families of Massachusetts deserve better.

I ask respectfully that you intervene to set your Department of Commerce and its agencies on a course of cooperation and consideration with regard to the fishing industry in Massachusetts and the coastal communities that depend on it for sustenance and identity.

Thank you for your personal attention to this matter, which is of such great importance to Massachusetts fisherman and their families, and for your leadership on all the issues that face this great nation.

Sincerely,

Deval Patrick
Governor

FILED UNDER: Adaptation, catch shares, NOAA
December 20, 2010 | 1:39 PM | By

Newsmaker of the year: NOAA’s Lubchenco

Nature magazine bestows the dubious honor of “Newsmaker of the Year” on Jane Lubchenco, the relatively new and now embattled head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

NOAA

Jane Lubchenco has faced the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history and enacted highly controversial new fisheries regulations since she took the reins at NOAA in 2009.

Going slow does not come easily to the NOAA leader. As a celebrated scientist and vocal conservationist, she made her name urging other researchers to speak out on issues of public importance, a stance that not all of her academic colleagues were comfortable with. Now, at an age when many of her cohort are easing back, she is taking on the most ambitious challenge of her career: reorienting how the nation responds to pressing environmental problems such as dwindling fish stocks, rising seas and a changing climate. She has bold plans to strengthen scientific research at NOAA, make it more relevant to society and improve the health of ecosystems and coastal communities.

But the path has not been smooth for Lubchenco, who took over the agency in troubled times. With the economy in a nose dive and many coastal communities struggling, NOAA’s policies to limit fishing have proved so contentious that members of US President Barack Obama’s own party called for Lubchenco to resign. And the oil-spill disaster has severely tested her political skills. Some of her natural constituency — scientists and environmentalists — have accused her of quashing independent researchers, suppressing information and misleading the public.

FILED UNDER: 2010 in review, NOAA
November 9, 2010 | 12:22 PM | By

Hot October, on land and at sea

Courtesy of Dan Satterfield

Meteorologist Dan Satterfield beats NOAA to the punch and sums up October’s unusual heat:

The incredible warmth globally this year has continued into October across America. Almost the entire 48 states were above normal in October. The Mountain West and the North were the warmest. This warmth also shows up in the temperature extremes. Nationwide, there were 1544 new record highs in October. Only 321 record lows were set.

Image from NOAA-ESRL

This map compares the average sea surface temperature for the month of October to the long-term average. La Nina shows up as a large patch of colder-than-average (blue) water int eh equatorial Pacific.

What makes this even more incredible is the strong La Nina in the Pacific right now. La Nina’s are (in many, but not all) ways the opposite of El Nino. Look at the ocean temperatures on the image from the Earth System Research Laboratory.

A large area of colder than normal water is cooling the air over the Pacific Ocean. This actually cools the planet down some (about 0.1° C). El Nino’s warm us up about the same amount.

In spite of this, 2010 may end up being the warmest year globally on record. With the La Nina in full bore, we still set 8 record highs for every record low in October.

FILED UNDER: Human Impacts, extreme weather, NOAA
November 1, 2010 | 11:34 AM | By

The longest haul

Courtesy of NOAA

NOAA’s Dr. Stephanie Oakes prepares the CPR for another deployment.

NOAA scientists onboard the Okeanos Explorer say they’re conducting what they believe to be the longest plankton (and plastic) sampling on record – 5,100 miles in two parts:

Sailing from Guam en route to Hawaii in late August, the Okeanos Explorer team conducted the first leg of the plankton sampling, or “transect,” by towing behind the ship a continuous plankton recorder (CPR) outfitted by the NOAA Fisheries Service Narragansett Laboratory. This device filters plankton from the water onto rolling silk screens that can later be analyzed in the lab.

The ship towed the CPR for 14 days more than 3,100 miles to collect data on the species composition of phytoplankton and zooplankton. After a layover in Hawaii, the ship departed Oct. 19 for San Francisco with NOAA’s Dr. Stephanie Oakes leading the next phase of the sampling mission.

For the second leg of the sampling mission, NOAA researchers have also teamed up with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego to study plastic marine debris as they cross the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a large area in the North Pacific Ocean known for accumulations of plastic marine debris.

It’s not every day that ocean scientists get to set a world record. Has anybody called Guiness yet?

FILED UNDER: Ocean Change, NOAA, plastic pollution
September 27, 2010 | 8:03 PM | By

The government’s newest stealth weapon

Heather Goldstone

No, it’s not a bomber. It’s a fish finder. A really big one. Okay, fine. So it’s not just a fish finder. It’s NOAA’s newest fisheries research boat, the Henry B. Bigelow.

The Bigelow is five years old (check out this heart-stopping video of the launch back in July 2005), but made it’s first visit to its unofficial home port – that’s Woods Hole – last week. I spent an hour and a half touring the boat that crew members say is the next generation of fisheries research. Gone are the days of lugging around 50lb baskets of fish and (gasp!) writing down how many of what species was caught. On the Bigelow, fish are transported from the net to the dissecting table by conveyer belt, and all data is entered directly into the computer system via touch screens and key pads.

Heather Goldstone

Computer screens above dissection stations.

But as high-tech as that all is, the real next-gen stuff is below the water. Chuck Byrne, vessel coordinator for NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, explained that every aspect of the Bigelow was designed to be ultra quiet (for a 209 ft research boat). The hull and the propeller were both cutting edge Navy designs. Pipes make frequent turns to keep the sound of moving water from propagating any significant distance. And anything that vibrates sits on vibration-absorbing rubber pads called ‘resiliant mounts’ (there are at least 400 on board).

The result is pretty dramatic. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what an older fisheries boat, the Delaware II, sounds like to underwater microphones:

Now, here’s the Bigelow recorded by microphones on the same settings, the same distance away:

Pretty quiet, huh? But why does a fisheries boat need to be quiet? Researchers are hoping to replace some of their conventional fish surveys (which kill fish) with non-invasive sonar surveys, essentially using beefed up versions of the fish finders available at West Marine to find, count, and track fish populations.

In the words of the immortal Elmer Fudd: Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting fish.

FILED UNDER: NOAA