NMFS extends sector deadline

The National Marine Fisheries Service — for the second time — has extended the deadline for New England commercial groundfishermen to join one of 16 fishing cooperatives now in the late stages of organization and work under the new catch share system of hard quotas and negotiable rights set to begin May 1.

According to a letter to multispecies permitholders, the fishermen now have until April 30 to decide whether to join a cooperative "sector" and participate in the region's venture into catch share fishing, the new system championed by Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The previous joining deadline was Nov. 20.

Lubchenco last month announced the national catch share policy, which encourages the policy wherever possible. The draft policy is now in a lengthy public comment phase.

The letter announcing the addition time for fishermen to join sectors and avoid fishing in a common pool of individuals working under restrictive effort controls was posted on Dec. 23 by Patricia Kurkul, the Gloucester-based regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, the fisheries' agency within NOAA.

Kurkul gave only cryptic reasoning for the decision to push back the sector-joining deadline a second time.

The initial deadline had been Sept. 1. But after the New England Fishery Management Council at its September meeting made radical cutbacks in the fishing opportunities for the roughly half the permit-holders who had not yet signed up to fish in one of the sectors, Kurkul extended the joining deadline to Nov. 20.

By allowing fishermen to choose to fish outside the sectors/catch share model, the government avoided the need to put the issue of instituting the catch share system to an industry referendum.

In her letter, Kurkul alluded to "additional discussions with the industry." She used similar language in a letter last fall that asked the council to curb fishing opportunities of the common poolers.

But Jackie Odell, executive director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition — the region's largest industry group and the organizing platform for 12 of the 15 sectors either formed or forming to begin catch-share-fishing in the spring, said she neither asked for the extension nor was informed of the decision to push back the sector-joining deadline before the Kurkul letter went out on Dec. 23.

"Can we take advantage of this? Yes," she said.

But Odell also decried the "confusion and lack or certainty" in the federal administration of the transition to sectors. She also noted that, when her organization sought a later joining deadline in November, the coalition was turned down.

Kurkul was on vacation along with most of the staff last week and couldn't be reached. Her deputy, Chris Mantzaris, said Kurkul's "additional discussions with industry" had meant only that there had been some general discussion at council meetings of the need to extend the deadlines for joining sectors.

But Maggie Raymond, executive of the Associated Fisheries of Maine, which has organized a sector, said she asked Kurkul for a later deadline.

"We have three or four people who are purchasing permits and vessels, and they would be stranded if not given the opportunity to register," Raymond said.

She said her group's "Sustainable Harvest Sector" now has 93 permits enrolled.

With nearly 500 permits signed up in its 12 sectors, the Northeast Seafood Coalition has been allocated about two thirds of all the fish authorized under catch shares for the new fishing year.

Raymond's group's sector has about one-third of the haddock allocation for the region, but otherwise has between 7.5 percent and 16.5 percent of the other stocks.

The common pool has been allocated 22 percent of the Southern New England yellowtail total allowable catch, but otherwise the common poolers will be able to land no more than 5 percent of any stock.

Meanwhile, the two small sectors that are heavily subsidized by environmental groups — one on Cape Cod, the other in Port Clyde, Maine — generally have minor allocations except for the 28 percent of the Georges Bank cod allocation that went to the Georges Bank Cod Fixed Gear Sector.

The allocations were made based on the comparative catch histories on permit from 1996-2006, except for the allocations to the Cape Cod sector, which was given a shorter, five-year measure of fishing activity that had the effect of expanding the size of the allocation.

Kurkul also extended the deadline for filing requests for corrections in allocation grants. The original deadline of Oct. 31 was pushed back to Jan. 1. Kurkul has acknowledged that allocation grants were faulty in some cases because of data retrieval and data submission inaccuracies.

The corrections would not apply until the 2011 fishing year. By the first deadline, 58 permitholders had filed applications for corrected allocations.

Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or via e-mail at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.

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