Senators and congressmen from New England and New York have now appealed to the U.S. Commerce Department to ease groundfish catch limits scheduled to tighten next week at the same time a new sector management system is put in place.
In a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke this week, the senators of Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and New York plus 13 Northeastern congressmen, including John Tierney, D-Mass., warned of an industry collapse if limits on certain "choke" species are not increased.
The appeal, crafted by Congressman Barney Frank and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, bypassed the nation's top ocean administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration head Jane Lubchenco, and went directly to the cabinet-level commerce secretary, citing a section of statute the lawmakers say gives him authority to make emergency changes.
Lubchenco has refused to delay the implementation of the sector system and has not responded to calls for increased catch limits.
The new annual catch limits, effective May 1, were developed independently of the catch share-based sector system being introduced at the same time.
But the industry and even regulators expect the simultaneous arrival of slashed catch limits and sectors to result in widespread bankruptcies, unemployment and consolidation of the fleet.
Under the new system, once a sector cooperative catches more than its allocation of any one of 19 groundfish species — either intentionally or through bycatch — the entire sector is shut down.
With the allowable catch for some fish set to be cut to fractions of 2009 levels — such as a 75 percent reduction in pollock and 61 percent cut in winter flounder, the lawnmakers' letter states — these "choke stocks" are expected to bring fishing to a halt by summer.
"Some fishermen have informed us that last year with a single pass of their trawl they landed more of one species, pollock, than they were allocated for the entire 2010 fishing year," the letter to Locke indicates. "We cannot expect fishermen to operate in an environment where quite literally the first tow they make could be their last."
The letter does not request a specific level of catch increase, but for an emergency regulation "increasing the (allowable catch limits) of groundfish — especially the five choke stocks — sufficient to minimize the risk of the failure of the sector management system while still preventing overfishing from occurring."
It calls for a meeting with Locke "as soon as possible" to discuss a detailed remedy.
An earlier draft of the letter obtained by the Times earlier this week requested catch limits to be maintained at 2009 levels.
The letter notes that the New England groundfish landings had at one point generated as much as $313 million annually, but by 2007 were down to $92 million. And that because of management measures designed to protect the weakest stocks, 2007 also saw only 27 percent of the total allowable catch for the 19 groundfish species harvested.
On top of the catch increases, the letter calls for a permit buyback plan, crew retraining programs and a loan program "to help mitigate the expected economic hardships that occur within the fishery."
On Friday, the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, the industry group sponsoring 12 sectors, applauded the lawmakers for their appeal to Locke.
"The letter speaks directly and, obviously, with much greater authority to a fundamental flaw we have repeatedly raised with NOAA regarding the setting of annual catch limits (acLs)," coalition executive director Jackie Odell said in a statement. "The ACLs for a number of stocks were set too far below the overfishing limits to sustain our fishery and the sector system."
Marjorie Mooney-Seus, a spokeswoman for NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, said the agency "will consider the recommendations from Congress carefully and will respond to them directly."
Julie Wormser, the New England oceans policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund who met with a trio of Gloucester fishermen earlier this year at the Times, said she supports lawmakers' efforts to help fishermen, and added regulators should always work to update stock estimates — as they now are with pollock — so catch limits aren't set too low.
But she cautioned against allowing more fishing on stocks that still need protection.
"If these stocks really are overfished, and you increase the catch limits, you make the problem worse next year," she said.
In addition to Frank and Tierney, Massachusetts lawmakers to sign the letter are U.S. Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown and Congressmen Michael Capuano and James McGovern.
The other U.S. senators to sign include New York Democrats Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Snowe, New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, and Rhode Island Democrats Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse.
The other congressmen to sign are Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., Michael Michaud, D-Maine, Paul Hodes, D-N.H., Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, James Langevin, D-R.I., Joe Courtney, D-Conn., Peter King, R-N.Y., Timothy Bishop, D-N.Y., and Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H.
Some Associated Press material was included in this story by Patrick Anderson. He can be reached at 978-2830-7000 x3455, or panderson@gloucestertimes.com.
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