Expanded Observer Coverage Will Impact Industry Pocketbook

by Laurie Schreiber

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – Fishery managers want to be able to hire more at-sea observers to monitor certain fisheries. But the federal government doesn’t have the money to cover the entire cost of increased monitoring programs. A plan is now in the works to have the respective fishing industries contribute to the difference.

Last fall, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) presented a proposal to the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) and the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (MAFMC) to take the lead on the development of an Industry-Funded Monitoring Omnibus Amendment, which would establish a clear delineation of costs for monitoring between the industry and NMFS. NMFS and the two councils convened a plan development team/fishery management action team (PDT/FMAT) to develop the amendment.

The omnibus aims to find a mechanism that will allow industry to contribute to observer costs, and will allow NMFS to approve expanded observer coverage in concept, whether or not it has the money to pay for it. The omnibus will not automatically allow for higher coverage levels in the fisheries. Instead, it will establish a tool that NMFS and the councils can use to provide additional monitoring in the fisheries when funding becomes available.

“This means that in years when there is no additional funding to cover NMFS infrastructure costs,” above funding already required for standard bycatch reporting, “the tools developed in this action would not be used and there would be no additional monitoring coverage, even if industry is able to fully fund their cost responsibilities,” NMFS said.

At the NEFMC’s January meeting, fishermen and other expressed concern about the timetable for the omnibus, which is scheduled to be implemented by Jan. 1, 2015, and about the potential costs to the fishing industry.

“We’re in business,” said Jeff Kaelin, a staffer tasked with government relations responsibilities at Cape May, N.J.-based Lund’s Fisheries. “We’re making investments around real numbers. Kaelin continued, “We said we’d be willing to pay for two years for observers, to demonstrate we’re fishing clean. We don’t know what those costs are.”

Ron Smolowitz of the Fairhaven, Mass.-based Fisheries Survival Fund, a scallop industry association, said the scallop and groundfish industries also have concerns about the omnibus. A lot of focus has been on herring,” said Smolowitz. “The scallop industry doesn’t want to get thrown off the bus. We have lots of questions about numbers and costs.”Smolowitz called for a workshop to be set up for the scallop and groundfish industries and the PDT/FMAT.

The goal of the omnibus amendment is to increase monitoring or other types of data collection in some fisheries. Monitoring and data collection programs help managers to assess the amount and type of catch, monitor annual catch limits, and/or provide other information for management.

Among Amendment 5’s measures was a requirement for 100-percent observer coverage on Category A and Category B vessels, coupled with an industry contribution of a target maximum of $325 per day toward observer costs.

Amendment 14 to the mackerel, squid, and butterfish plan would also have 100 percent observer coverage on midwater trawl mackerel and Tier 1, 2 and 3 small-mesh bottom trawl mackerel vessels; and would require industry contributions of $325 per day.

There is significant overlap between the mackerel and herring fisheries. The fisheries co-occur, particularly during January through April, a time that vessels often participate in both fisheries.

At past meetings, most non-industry stakeholders – including tuna and recreational fishermen, environmentalists, and river herring interests – have supported 100 percent observer coverage on Category A and B vessels – the 45 or so limited access directed vessels that catch about 97 percent of the fish.

Legal constraints against cost-sharing between NMFS and the fishing industry include the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA), which “prohibits augmenting or improperly shifting congressional appropriations.”

“When Congress appropriates money for observer coverage, NMFS cannot obligate funding for a monitoring program if the total costs to fund that program and existing monitoring programs exceeds its appropriations for that purpose,” NMFS said.

In addition, NMFS said, another federal law called the Miscellaneous Receipts Statute requires federal employees to deposit money received on behalf of the government into the general treasury.

“This means that if NMFS could accept funds from the industry, NMFS would be required to direct those funds to the Treasury and would not be able to reserve them to pay for monitoring in the Northeast,” NMFS said.

An additional option under consideration would provide instructions for how costs to the provider for observer time and travel to a scheduled deployment that doesn't sail and was not cancelled by the vessel prior to the sail time, would be charged to the industry.

The PDT/FMAT is considering alternatives to address the problem of what to do when federal funding is not sufficient to cover NMFS’ costs to support the council’s desired coverage level for a given management plan.

In January, NMFS chief John Bullard said his agency is swamped by demands on its budget. Referring to demand for observer coverage in the groundfish fishery, Bullard said, “In an ideal world, the at-sea portion of observer coverage should be picked up by healthy industries. I don’t think the groundfish fishery meets any definition of healthy industry. And so we have picked up the at-sea portion of those costs. That’s a very high-priority demand of observer costs, on top of SBRM [Standard Bycatch Reporting Methodology], that come out of the science center budget. The industry is not in better shape. It’s in worse shape, and so that’s another claim on the science center.”

“There are more demands than there are resources. We can only provide services for which we have the funds. We can’t print money.”

The Anti-Deficiency Act “doesn’t say you can’t require regulated entities to pay for certain parts of the activity that’s being regulated,” said Gene Martin, the northeast section chief with NOAA’s Office of General Counsel. “One of the problems this omnibus amendment is trying to address, and that brings into play the Anti-Deficiency Act, is the cost-sharing aspect, and deciding what is fundamentally a government responsibility versus what isn’t fundamentally a government activity. For instance, all of our regulations require some additional costs” –such as gear changes and safety requirements. “The particular problem with cost-sharing is determining what part is something the government is charged to do under the law, versus what isn’t….With the amendment, we’ve deciding a split of responsibility exists.”

Smolowitz suggested that some of the problems around observer costs could be remedied by electronic data collection systems on vessels. Currently, he said, several dozen scallop vessels have electronic data collection systems. The industry, and managers, would do well to study electronic monitoring technology and protocols as a potential replacement for observers, he said.

“There’s nothing about that in this omnibus amendment, and I think we’re missing the boat, if we’re talking about costs,” Smolowitz said.

“Let’s keep going,” said Steve Weiner, with the Coalition for Atlantic Herring’s Orderly, Informed and Responsible Long Term Development (CHOIR), a coalition of commercial and recreational fishermen and ecotourism companies calling for conservation and accountability in the herring fishery. “You need to move forward. This has all the earmarks of further stalling. I know there is legitimate concern with other fisheries. When you make something an omnibus, that’s the danger. You’re going to lose total credibility if we don’t keep this thing moving forward.”

“We need 100 percent observers on the trawlers, because I still hear a lot of stuff that you people don’t hear,” said Maine fisherman Glen Robbins, owner of the purse seiner Western Sea. Robbins added that, for smaller vessels such as his, he’d rather see camera systems.

Information related to discards in a fishery can be collected and monitored in a variety of ways, but the primary sources of information on discards are at-sea fishery observers, recreational fisheries surveys, and fishing vessel trip reports.

In addition to these sources of information, there are several new and developing technologies that could one day be used to collect information related to discards, and these include electronic video monitoring, image capture and processing, and other specialized monitoring programs.