A federal judge has sided with the government in a legal dispute over catch shares and fishing industry sectors brought by the state's two largest ports, Gloucester and New Bedford.
Judge Rya Zobel on Thursday threw out the suit against Amendment 16, which introduced the groundfishery regulatory regimen involving quasi-voluntary fishing cooperatives known as sectors and allocated tradeable catch shares.
Filed by the cities of Gloucester and New Bedford for a widespread coalition of fishing interests, the suit was rejected in party because Zobel found that the New England Fishery Management Council and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had managed to avoid creating a true LAPP — a limited access privilege program — or an IFQ — an individual fishing quota system when the industry was allowed to work under catch share principles with the option to continue under a restricted days-at-sea system.
She described the distinction as a "close call," but sided with the federal government, which argued in a hearing last March that the option to continue under the old days-at-sea system in what was known as the common pool produced a real option and negated the requirement within Magnuson-Stevens Act that any LAPP or IFQ regimen would need to be approved by a stakeholder's referendum to make it legal.
Zobel ruled further that the sectors did not receive equity shares of the allocated groundfishery but were instead "temporary, voluntary, fluid associations of vessels that are not issued permits."
We will update this story here at gloucestertimes.com as more information becomes available.
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Richard Gaines may be contacted at 978-283-7000 x3464 or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
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