Industry braces for fishing rules

A decision could come as soon as today limiting fisherman to as few as 20 days at sea in a year.
By JOHN RICHARDSON Staff Writer March 31, 2009

Federal regulators are about to finalize new commercial fishing restrictions that some fear could be a fatal blow to Maine's groundfishing fleet.
The National Marine Fisheries Service might decide as soon as today whether to move forward with a January proposal that would effectively give Maine boats as few as 20 days at sea during the fishing year that begins May 1.

The proposal would cut fishing time by about 60 percent -- the average boat now has 48 days a year -- to relieve pressure on fish populations that have yet to rebound from overfishing.
"We're all just kind of waiting to see what's going to happen," said Bert Jongerden, general manager of the Portland Fish Exchange, a city-owned auction house where about 70 Maine boats sell their catches.

New England's congressional representatives, state officials and members of the groundfish industry have been pushing hard for less-severe restrictions, including an 18 percent reduction in fishing days.
Conservation groups have urged the agency to make the deep cuts now so that fish populations can recover and even more painful cutbacks aren't needed in future years.
New rules are usually finalized at least a month before the start of the season, which means a decision could be announced today or tomorrow. However, a final announcement could be delayed a week or two because of the unusually high stakes and a change in leadership at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NMFS' parent agency.

Jane Lubchenco, an Oregon ecology professor appointed by President Obama, spent much of her first full week as NOAA administrator reviewing the arguments for and against the proposed rules. On March 23, she met separately with representatives of the New England fishing industry and conservation advocates. The following day, she met with members of the congressional delegations from Maine and other New England states.

"The rules prevented her from giving us any feedback about what direction she was going in," said Jim Odlin, who owns three Portland-based fishing boats and attended the meeting with Lubchenco in Washington, D.C.

Odlin said he and others told Lubchenco that what's left of the industry is struggling to stay in business until next year, when a whole new management system with quotas and catch limits is scheduled to take effect.
"I told her we need a bridge, not a cliff, to get us to 2010," Odlin said. "I don't know any business that can withstand (a 60 percent cut), especially after they've been weakened as much as they have."
Even if the proposed rules go through, Congress could step in to help the industry, Odlin said. Maine's two senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, have co-sponsored a bill that would overturn the proposed rules.
Conservation groups, on the other hand, told Lubchenco that backing off restrictions would make matters worse in the long run. Catching more fish than scientists recommend would trigger deeper cutbacks in the coming years because of legal deadlines for rebuilding the fishery and further declines in the populations, they said.
"It would actually create a crisis situation in 2010," said John Williamson, a Portland-based representative for the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group, who attended the meeting with Lubchenco last week. "The only sure route to recovery for the groundfishing industry is to rebuild the stocks."

The proposed rules would cut fishing days across the board by 20 percent. But anyone fishing off the Maine coast would be charged two days for every one day at sea, effectively cutting the remaining fishing time to give added protection to fish there.
"I pretty strongly suspect there are going to be some changes from the original proposed rule, but they may not be ones that the industry considers helpful," said Terry Stockwell, a deputy commissioner in the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the state agency that oversees fisheries. "There's lots of speculation about what it might be. I have no clue."


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