Maine Wins Leeway on Federal Scallop Permits in State Waters

by Laurie Schreiber

At its Sept. 26-29 meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) approved modifications requested by the state of Maine for the Northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) scallop management program. Enacted as part of Framework 23 to the Scallop Management Plan, the action will allow vessels that hold a federal permit to fish for scallops in the Northern Gulf of Maine to now also fish in state waters on a trip-by-trip basis without those catches counting against the total allowable catch for the federal area.

Fishermen, however, must declare their state-only trips. The measure was adopted to make the federal Northern Gulf of Maine scallop management program more consistent with state management programs, according to NEFMC.

NEFMC fishery analyst Dierdre Boelke said the request was made by the state of Maine as a result of the state’s work in recent years to rejuvenate scallop stocks in state waters. She said the state wanted to make sure that all vessels from Maine, including those with federal permits, have access to the recovering inshore state fishery.

The action will allow federally permitted vessels to declare intentions on a trip-by-trip basis to fish only in state waters; vessels must declare their intention before leaving on their trips. The catch taken from state waters would not count toward the overall quota, or total allowable catch, that is established by the NEMFC for combined state and federal waters in the NGOM.

The NGOM TAC is 70,000 pounds. Once the TAC is reached, scallop fishing is shut down for all vessels in the NGOM.

The NEFMC considered sub-options for the measure, which included making the action applicable only for boats home-ported in Maine; and making the action applicable for all vessels with a NGOM permit.

The NEFMC also discussed the possibility of reducing the NGOM TAC to 31,000 pounds from 70,000 pounds, in order to account for the poundage that would be taken by federally permitted vessels in state waters but which would no longer count toward the NGOM TAC.
“Right now, the federal TAC is elevated because we know that a significant portion of catch comes from state waters,” said Boelke.

There is no precise figure on just how much catch comes from state waters, she said, because the state and federal reports are hard to break down. The figure of 31,000 pounds was based on the results of the most recent federal resource survey. Still, she said, the NEFMC plan development team did not consider resetting the TAC to be an urgent matter, because the catch in the NGOM in recent years has been only 10,000 to 15,000 pounds each year, or about 15 percent to 20 percent of the 70,000-pound TAC. She said the PDT has recommended waiting until a second federal survey can be conducted, expected to occur next year.

There are about 20 active NGOM permits.

Togue Brawn, who worked for the Maine Department of Marine Resources for four years, said that the NGOM was originally created as a separate management area in order to acknowledge “the fact that the area experiences periodic booms and busts.”

Brawn continued, “The resource fluctuates dramatically and there’s reason to believe that the state resource fluctuates independently from the federal resource. That wouldn’t be a problem if the state water resource could be managed independently from the federal fishery.”
But without the change proposed in Framework 23, she said, federal management in the NGOM poses “unnecessary constraints” on the general category fisherman’s ability to participate in the recovering state water fisheries.

The DMR, she said, “made big changes to state water management. Those change are starting to bear fruit. I believe that fishermen should be able to benefit from the improvement. I don’t think they should be prevented from participating in the state water fishery just because they hold a general category permit.”

Brawn said that the current situation of basing the TAC on the federal portion of the NGOM – and then setting an “overage” figure for state-water landings – does not make sense, given the federal portion’s smaller share of landings.

Brawn said that Maine’s Cobscook Bay alone had a harvestable biomass in 2009 of more than 190,000 pounds; in 2010 that figure increased 40 percent to 287,000 pounds, she said. “And that’s just one bay,” she said. “If the federal waters of the Northern Gulf of Maine can only support a small TAC, then so be it. But I don’t think the accounting system of that TAC should prevent general category fishermen from being able to participate in a sustainably managed state water fishery. Maine is now managing state waters responsibly.”

“It’s a very important issue to number of fishermen in communities in all of the Northern Gulf of Maine area,” said the DMR’s Terry Stockwell. “This isn’t just a Maine issue. We only have a quarter of the total vessels that have these permits.”

According to information provided in the NEFMC’s discussion documents, the NGOM limited access general category program was created through Amendment 11 to the Scallop Management Plan. “The program was designed to provide continued access for vessels from Northern New England that would likely not qualify for a LAGC IFQ [individual fishing quota] permit because of the sporadic booms and busts of the scallop resource in that area,” said NEFMC documents. “Therefore, a separate limited entry program was developed for this area with a reduced possession limit (200 pounds) and no landings criteria.

In order to satisfy NMFS that this program was going to provide conservation benefit, have minimal administrative burden, and adequate enforceability several provisions were included that have caused concern for permit holders. First, the provision that all catch by NGOM vessels count against the federal TAC even if scallops were caught in state waters has been viewed as inconsistent since the TAC is supposed to be based on the federal resource only.

Second, once the NGOM TAC is reached all NGOM permitted vessels are prohibited from all scallop fishing, even in state waters. This too has been viewed as inconsistent and unfair for NGOM permitted vessels that also hold state scallop permits. To date, these issues have not been included for consideration in recent scallop actions primarily because of other demands.”
Several other actions were also finalized in Framework 23.

All limited access scallop dredge vessels and all limited access general category vessels with a dredge greater than 10 feet 6 inches must now use a turtle deflector dredge. “The new gear was designed and evaluated by industry members and academic partners for several years and is expected to substantially reduce the mortality of sea turtles that interact with the scallop dredge fishery,” according to a NEFMC release.