Feds Might Fund Observer Costs

by Laurie Schreiber

John Bullard, Regional Administrator, Northeast Regional Office, National Marine Fisheries Service. At the Forum meeting NSC’s Bill Karp had said there were a number of contingencies regarding federal payment for observer coverage. But Bullard later said the Feds would pay for observer coverage. Laurie Schrieber Photo

ROCKPORT—Northeast Fisheries Science Center director Bill Karp announced that the federal government might fund at-sea monitoring for the groundfish fleet this year.

Karp made the announcement during a meeting with the commercial fishing industry and others at last month’s Maine Fishermen’s Forum.

Through a NOAA news release, Karp said, “We know the cost of at-sea monitoring remains a serious concern for the groundfish industry given the condition of stocks and commensurate low quotas for next fishing year. We recognize this will be an exceptionally difficult year for fishermen so we are working on a plan to cover as much of these costs as possible at NOAA.  While this is our intent, we cannot definitively commit to this because of the high degree of uncertainty due to the potential effects of sequestration and the lack of a FY13 budget.”

The subject arose at the January meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council, when fishermen protested the idea of having to pay for observer coverage.

Ellen Goethel, who serves on the board of directors for Sector 11/12 in New Hampshire, said she was “horrified” to learn that “fishermen were going to have to pay for 50 percent of at sea monitoring costs. It’s like adding insult to injury. It’s just absolutely amazing to me that you came up with this. I think NMFS [the National Marine Fisheries Service] can find the money to pay for this. If you need that level of observers, then you need to find the money to pay for it rather than sticking it on our backs.”

Karp said that, if effort goes down, NOAA will be able to fund at-sea monitoring.  If effort remains the same, NOAA will fund at-sea monitoring by using funds currently slated for research to develop electronic monitoring in the Northeast.

In September 2012, the U.S. Department of Commerce declared a commercial fishery failure in the Northeast groundfish fishery for the 2013 fishing season, which begins May 1.