N.E. council chief seeks new probe

The chairman of the New England Fishery Management Council has asked the U.S. Secretary of Commerce for an independent management consultant's study and analysis of the relationships between the council, the regional executive and the federal fisheries science center at Woods Hole.

While carefully lauding the federal system of regulating fisheries — which has been under fierce attack by multiple niches of the industry and a growing chorus from Congress — John Pappalardo conceded that "our region's bureaucracy is unable to efficiently meet its expanded obligations."

Pappalardo also admitted to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke that "our bureaucracy is often driven by process and protocol rather than by mission and outcome."

He asked Locke — the cog in the bureaucracy between President Obama and Jane Lubchenco, the assistant secretary for oceans and fisheries, who supervises Regional Administrator Patricia Kurkul — to support funding for an "established management consultant" who would review the relationship between the trio of federal agencies responsible for the strained relationship with the industry and make recommendations.

Pappalardo's decision to send the letter in recent days — undated, its sending was reported first yesterday on the industry Internet daily, Saving Seafood — surprised Richard Canastra, a leading industry figure and co-owner of the New Bedford and Boston display auctions.

Canastra said he was approached by an environmental group in the fall with the proposal that the two chronically feuding camps — fishermen and environmental fish defenders — together ask for an independent study of the way the federal government regulates fishing in the fractious New England region.

"Then," said Canastra, "Pappalardo came forward with the letter."

Pappalardo is employed by the Cape Cod Hook Fishermen's Association, one of the two small New England fishing groups to be supported generously by grants from environmental organizations — including the Environmental Defense Fund, whose staffer Sally McGee, is in her third term as a member of the New England council.

Under McGee's chairmanship of the Scallop Committee, the council last month approved cutbacks in fishermen's access to the healthy stocks of scallops, sparking a protest letter organized by Congressman Barney Frank and a bipartisan coalition of legislators from up and down the Atlantic Coast.

The constraints were estimated to deny the industry the opportunity to harvest about 6 million pounds of scallops — the nation's top cash seafood — worth about $40 million.

According to an internal 2005 EDF document obtained by the Times, the environmental non-profit corporation considered a previous commerce secretary's appointment of McGee to the council in 2003 as a linchpin of a political strategy to "work the regulatory process from the inside, making aggressive use of our hard-won seat on the council (for McGee)."

A group of more than 1,000 scallop industry figures, organized by the Fishermen's Survival Fund of Fairhaven, wrote to Lubchenco last week to express dismay at the decision of the council to limit scalloping next year.

And a scallop boat owner, Harriet Didriksen, wrote to an industry meeting in New Bedford last Friday that the goal should be to seek an adjustment of the catch limit voted by the council based on the more liberal catch limit recommendation of the Science and Statistical Committee — the body empowered by the 2006 revision of the Magnuson-Stevens Act to set the ceiling on annual catch limits.

The Pappalardo letter did not discuss the SSC, which is independent of the Northeast Science Center; the center produces the stock surveys that are used in decisions of all kinds by the federal, political, regional bodies.

In her letter, Didriksen accused McGee of having "her own agenda as an employee of EDF." McGee and Pappalardo could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The SSC and the council have not settled into a stable or comfortable relationship since Congress, under pressure from environmental lobbyists, moved the authority to set the catch ceilings from the council to the more insulated SSC.

The council balked at an earlier conservative catch limit for herring set by the SSC, and the new arrangement also came under criticism by officials of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition after the SSC approved a pollock withdrawal of barely one third the catch from 2008.

Vito Giacalone, the architect of the 13 fishing cooperative business structures known as sectors that will work under a new allocation system next year, warned that the extreme cutback in the allowable catch of pollock could serve as a "circuit-breaker" and shut down the experiment in catch share management almost before it begins.

He declined comment yesterday on the Pappalardo letter.

In writing to Commerce Secretary Locke, Pappalardo implied that the increasing workload was taking its toll on the council, a grassroots body of gubernatorial appointees, some state officials, industry and environmental representatives, that makes much policy in concert with the Science and Statistical Committee,

Pappalardo wrote that "one important area to be addressed is the communication and coordination among these institutions" — the council, the National Marine Fisheries Service's Gloucester regional offices, which govern fisheries from Maine through the Carolinas, and the Northeast Science Center in Woods Hole.

"The leaders of each entity have repeatedly acknowledged significant challenges with inter-organizational communications, but these challenges appear to be increasing rather than improving.

He added, that "it is time to evaluate our current system, identify inefficiencies and implement appropriate solutions."

Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-2893-7000, x3464, or via e-mail at rgaines@gloucestertiems.com.

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Fisheries official wants analysis of strained industry relationships

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