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ELLSWORTH — The
new groundfishing rules are in effect, there’s
been no official approval from the federal judge
who ordered their creation, and plans to change
them are already in the works.
Indeed, U.S. Sen.
Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was demanding changes to
the rule package, known as Amendment 13, almost as
soon as it was published last week.
At a meeting April
29 with Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher,
administrator of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, Snowe demanded the
suspension of requirements that all vessels return
to post by May 1 prior to beginning the new
fishing year under the new rules.
By Friday, the
National Marine Fisheries Service had lifted the
requirement that fishermen return to port by
Saturday, and Snowe applauded the change.
“It was simply
inconceivable to me that NOAA could have
implemented a rule that would have been both
costly and potentially dangerous,” she said in an
April 30 statement.
However, that was
just the first of many concerns Snowe and others
have with the new rules.
A five-day advance
reporting requirement for vessels heading to the
eastern edge of Georges Bank has raised the ire of
large vessel owners. Snowe objected the provision
to Lautenbacher. She also called for changes to
Special Access Programs and B Day initiatives,
which would allow for more fishing opportunities
for fishermen close to Maine’s coast. Those
programs allow limited additional groundfishing in
areas geographically inaccessible to smaller Maine
boats. Snowe demanded that NOAA use emergency
regulations to make changes quickly.
“I understand the
normal rule making process can take several months
to complete, and those are several months we do
not have,” she said in a statement following her
April 29 meeting with Lautenbacher.
However, changes
to Amendment 13 rules come with risks attached.
Maine Marine
Resources Commissioner George Lapointe said the
court order that led to the creation of the new
regulations still hangs over any considerations.
While U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler
still has to be satisfied that the new rules meet
the standards of federal sustainable fisheries
laws, even if she approves, any future change that
alters the effect of the rules could be used to
send the whole fishery back into court.
“This is a
Brave-New-World situation,” Lapointe said. He
added, that means any changes would probably be
made slowly and deliberately. He said the
standards required for any change necessitate
time-consuming analysis. That’s not to say there
isn’t leeway for change. He said there are
specific changes that could be allowed in an
effort to make the rules workable but “don’t
functionally change the nature of the fishery.”
For instance, the
five-day advance reporting requirement could be
shortened, as long as the fisheries observers are
still getting on the boats with adequate frequency
to satisfy Kessler’s order. Lapointe said he heard
from some fishermen in Portland last Thursday that
some fisheries with observer coverage have only a
half-day notification requirement.
National Marine
Fisheries Service spokesman Teri Frady agreed
there is the potential to reduce the five-day
window in the future. But she said the service
wanted to be sure the rules would provide the
observer coverage required by Kessler.
“When we get into
court, we want to be able to say we’ve done our
job,” she said.
Indeed, it was the
inability to make that defense that got the
service into trouble in 2001 when Kessler ruled it
had been violating sustainable fisheries laws by
not implementing rules that maintained a specific
sustainable relationship between stock size and
harvest levels of groundfish.
“We needed about a
40- to 45-percent reduction of harvest rate,”
Frady said. The new rules are designed to make
that change.
At the basic level
of calculating permitted fishing days, a
determination is made using the maximum fishing
days used in a single fishing year between 1996
and 2001. Using that as a base figure under the
new rules, 60 percent of that number will be A
days, 40 percent will be B days, and the
difference between the days fished and permitted
days from the base year will be allocated as C
days.
Those types of
days have specific uses. A days may be used for
any groundfish as before Amendment 13, B days must
be used in Special Access Programs or on fish
stocks that are designated significantly rebuilt,
and C days may not be used.
Frady said C days
are unlikely to be usable in the near future but
they do act to allow access to a rebuilt fishery
for fishermen who may have been phasing out of
groundfishing.
“Days in the
freezer,” is how Lapointe referred to them. He
said their value is “predicated on the council
allowing access to them as stocks recover.”
Frady explained
that B days are further divided into two
categories: One can be fished in Special Access
Programs such as the Yellowtail and winter
flounder areas on Georges Bank and southern New
England waters, respectively, the other is
reserved for rebuilt stocks. Frady said there are
no fish stocks with that designation yet. She said
more access programs would be worked on by the New
England Fisheries Management Council in future
“frameworking” sessions.
The new rules
allow for the leasing and permanent transfer of
permitted fishing days, a controversial change
that some fishermen and regulators feel could lead
to greater consolidation of the industry. They
also allow for Sector Allocation, in which a quota
would be designated for a group of fishermen to
catch. So far, only Cape Cod hook fishermen have been recognized as a legitimate sector that will be
responsible for managing its own share of the
groundfishery.
Among other new
rules are the specific standards for operating
under the U.S./Canada Resource Sharing
Understanding, where Georges Bank fish stocks pay
no heed to the international boundary.
The area is
divided into an eastern and a western area.
Vessels fishing there must use an approved vessel
monitoring system, inform the fisheries observer
program five days before embarking on a trip to
fish there, must only fish one of the two areas on
a specific trip, must make detailed daily catch
reports and must adhere to gear and catch limits.
Frady said the
reason for the complex rules is that the area has
a specific Total Allowable Catch (TAC) which must be monitored carefully under the terms of the agreement with
Canada.
Once the TAC for the year has been reached, the areas will be closed.
Fishermen have
complained that the program is too complex and
won’t be used. Lapointe said the proof would have
to be in the use of the new program.
“I think we need
to let the stew cook a bit,” he said.
“One big
accomplishment of the service is that this rule
was developed through the council process,” Frady
said of the regulation stew. Although the rules
have come in for some criticism, and not every
fisherman or conservationist is delighted by the
entire final result, “few will be able to claim
they weren’t heard,” she said. |
