U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe has come to the defense of New England's herring industry, which faces drastic cuts in next year's allowable catch, triggered by what she describes as "woefully" outdated scientific data.

In a letter dated Wednesday, the Maine Republican urged Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to quickly authorize a benchmark assessment of the herring stock to reduce the degree of uncertainty that scientists have acknowledged is behind the looming 50 percent reduction in future herring catches.

Herring is not overfished, or subject to overfishing, but the New England Fishery Management Council's Science and Statistical Committee has identified a troubling "retrospective pattern" in runs of a computer model used to profile the stock.

Erring on the side of caution, the committee has decided to advise reducing the maximum catch next year from 145,000 metric tons to 90,000 metric tons.

The degree of unreliability in the retrospective pattern was considered to range between 17 and 37 percent. But the committee rounded up to a 40 percent cut in the "acceptable biological catch," a scientific calculation of the sustainable harvest level used to set the upper level of the total allowable catch.

The signaled cut in the acceptable biological catch would force a 50 percent or greater cut in herring catches, according to David Ellenton, an owner of the major herring fishing and processing center in Gloucester, and would pose a threat to the lobster fishery, according to industry officials.

The council is expected to take up the recommendation at its November meeting in Newport, R.I.

By itself, herring from the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank constitute a $20 million industry. But herring is the bait of choice and is considered essential to the $349 million lobster fishery, which is centered in Maine and Gloucester.

In her letter, Snowe said lobstering brought $238 million into the Maine economy last year — an amount equal to 79 percent of that state's fisheries landing value.

The Science and Statistical Committee and the council have agreed on the need for an immediate benchmark assessment. Calling the situation "surreal," David Pierce, deputy director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, has urged a delay in any cutback in herring limits pending the benchmark assessment.

Meeting in Portland Tuesday, the New England Fishery Management Council's Herring Committee also urged a delay in the recommended cutback in herring harvest levels, pending the benchmark assessment.

The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 2006 shifts authority for setting acceptable biological catch levels from the council to the Science and Statistical Committee, beginning in 2011 for herring.

"I will not stand by and allow this fishery and the businesses it supports to be decimated based on information so woefully outdated that the scientists themselves complain about its applicability," Snowe wrote.

Snowe engaged Lubchenco in a memorable dialogue during confirmation hearings last winter before the Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation.

Her letter this week echoed that exchange.

"I firmly believe," she wrote, "in managing our fisheries based on strong scientific data, but I recognize — as does Magnuson-Stevens — the joint mandate to balance a requirement to achieve optimum yield from our fisheries with the need to minimize adverse economic impacts to the extent practicable.

She added a handwritten "P.S." to the bottom of her two page-single spaced letter to Lubchenco: "I appreciate your consideration of this vital issue to Maine and the industry,"

Lubchenco's office did not respond to telephone and written requests for a response.

But in January, during her confirmation hearing, Lubchenco conceded that a schism had formed between the federal fishery regulators housed in a new Atlantic regional facility in Gloucester and the fishing industry.

"It appears to be a seriously dysfunctional relationship," Lubchenco volunteered. The fix, she said, required a "new climate of trust, to have trust in the data, to have trust in the process...."

In her letter, Snowe raised a new issue — the possibility of opening an experimental "Acadian redfish" fishery to provide a volume of another desirable lobster bait.

"Before herring became the preferred bait in the lobster industry," wrote Snowe, ranking Republican member of the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and the Coast Guard, "many lobstermen used redfish in their pots. After years of overfishing followed by drastic regulatory, in 2007 redfish was removed from both NMFS' 'overfished' and 'overfishing' lists."

Snowe noted that the state of Maine has proposed an "experimental" redfish fishery.

"If found to be successful," she wrote, "this proposal could benefit the lobster and herring fisheries by diversifying the bail supply and reducing pressure on the herring stock. Furthermore, it could provide additional fishing opportunities for groundfishermen," she said.

In asking Lubchenco to expedite the benchmark survey of herring, Snowe noted that federal regulations have recently added to the overhead of lobster fishing.

With prices dropping as low as $2.50 a pound, Snowe reminded Lubchenco that "new regulations intended to protect endangered whales have imposed additional gear costs estimated at $10,000 to $15,000."

Richard Gaines can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com