Ocean Health Part of Planning Process

by Laurie Schreiber

BELFAST – Can the ocean’s ecosystem, thrown off balance by human exploitation, be returned to health through careful management?

That was a primary question at the latest meeting of the Northeast Regional Planning Body (NRPB), which remains on track to come up with a plan to better protect the ocean and coast through interdjurisdictional coordination and opportunities to enhance the regulatory process through agency cooperation.

NRPB has been meting since November 2012, in response to a 2010 presidential executive order to establish a national ocean policy.

This time around, though, participants wondered why there were few fishermen – one of Maine’s primary users of the ocean – among the 25 participants at the Oct. 8 round-table discussion. One was a lobster fisherman and one was a sea plant harvester. Department of Marine Resources (DMR) deputy commissioner Meredith Mendelson was also present.

Other participants included environmental and community activitists, a spokesperson for right whale monitoring, a merchant mariner, state and federal government officials, and others.

The Maine Department of Agricultural, Conservation and Forestry’s Coastal Program administrator, Kathleen Leyden, who co-chaired the meeting, said the chairs had invited key fishery leaders. All agreed that more outreach should be done to bring fishermen into the process.

“It’s something we’ve struggled with throughout this process,” said Mendelson. “It’s not unique to the fishing industry – but it’s somewhat magnified there.”

The ocean planning process, said Mendelson, is somewhat vague in its early stages, whereas fisheries management usually involves a reaction to an immediate problem. “The luxury of planning feels somewhat foreign in that context. So I think that’s the reality of engaging the harvester sector.”

The group agreed that this type of process is generally carried out by people who are paid by their various entities to attend meetings as part of their job. This appeared to be the case at the recent meeting. Others, such as fishermen, must take a day off from work to attend meetings.

“The process has a tremendous amount to do with who you hear from,” said Curtis Bohlen, director of the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership. “One thing we’ve learned, working with a lot of constituents across a wide range of groups, is they generally don’t come to meetings. The people who go to meetings are the people who are paid. If you want to talk with people who are working on the boats, you go to the boats. You don’t ask them to come to you. That affects the kind of input you get.” Ultimately, said Bohlen, the process needs to be about relationships with constituents. “When most of us engage with the regulatory process, it’s through formal meetings. But that doesn’t work all that well. We need to do better.”

NRPB (neoceanplanning.org) aims to characterize the ecosystem, economy and cultural resources with baseline data and maps, and other information; to support existing restoration and conservation programs; to better coordinate such programs; and to develop a regional ocean science plan. NRPB is overseeing three activities—data gathering and sector engagement, agency coordination, and communications and outreach.

Throughout the northeast, the body comprises approximately 125 participants from tribes, federal and state agencies, industry groups, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and interested citizens.

According to NRPB’s mission statement, “The ocean and the livelihoods it supports are vital to New England. People in New England greatly value our ocean heritage and are seeking basic needs from the ocean—jobs, food, energy, and recreation, among others—in new and increasingly complex ways. At the same time, environmental changes are affecting the health of the ocean and its creatures. Ocean planning is a way to meet these challenges. Government agencies and stakeholders can work together to anticipate needs, set priorities, and make decisions from a regional perspective.”

The planning process is overseen by the Northeast Regional Ocean Council (NROC), formed in 2005 by the governors of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to serve as a forum for the development of ocean management goals, priorities, and solutions.

NROC Ocean Planning Director John Weber, said the deadline for drafting a plan is 2016. To that end, NROC has set up a northeast ocean data portal (northeastoceandata.org), where data and maps are being input to help understand ocean uses and develop solutions. The project calls for a collaborative process and access to a wide range of data on environmental, socioeconomic, and regulatory parameters.

“The data have been scattered among different sources and difficult to access,” according to information from NRPB. “The NRPB has set up an ocean data website to bring together key types of data on ocean uses and the environment, as a tool for ocean planning from the Gulf of Maine to Long Island Sound. The website provides user-friendly access to maps, data, tools, and information needed for regional ocean planning.”

Some commercial fishery maps are on the website. The maps are subject to further input.

A September 2013 report, commissioned by NROC to determine how New England fishing industries, including party/charter boats, use ocean space (“Commercial Fisheries Spatial Characterization”), says the process of mapping commercial fisheries was complicated by a variety of factors, including the natural environment, interaction between fisheries, regional differences in species and fishing effort distribution, patterns of individual fishermen based on weather, fishery regulations, or personal preference, target species population and habitat requirements, seasonal variations in species distribution, weather, gear type, management decisions, linkages to fishing ports and communities, and socioeconomic considerations.

Maps were drawn up using existing Vessel Monitoring System and Vessel Trip Report data sets, which were limited in themselves, especially in certain important areas – lobster, tuna, charter boats and community sensitivity, the report says.

“Some fishermen declined to review maps with the project team,” the report says. “Reasons given included time constraints, conflicting obligations, meeting overload, and direct skepticism toward the project itself. One fisherman even cited ‘map meeting fatigue’ from prior efforts. NROC should recognize the participant limitations inherent in this type of project, and how that may affect resulting products.”

The project was viewed by some fishermen as part of mapping efforts conducted by other entities, such as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). “This misconception fueled skepticism over data and distrust about possible links to wind farm siting, or to development authorities,” the report says.

Data in the maps don’t reflect historic fishing activity; VMS data do not show fishing activity prior to 2006 and VTR data sets begin in 1997.

The group is focused on federal, not state, waters. It’s also focused on controversial activities. Much discussion revolves around permitting and leasing for development activities such as offshore energy, offshore aquaculture, and the extraction of materials, particularly sand for beach nourishment.

The goal is not to make it easier to conduct those activities, Weber said, but to rationalize management in light of ocean inhabitants and their habitat, as well as human users.

One of the activities gaining steam in these days of sea level rise comes from coastal communities, interested in beach nourishment to protect against encroachment, said Weber.

Friendship lobster fisherman Richard Nelson said his interest in the NRPB proceedings was partly spurred by Norwegian company Statoil’s proposed wind energy project off Maine. Public hearings for that project “were not responsive,” Nelson said. “I came here thinking about ocean planning as an alternative. How will we get energy in the future; how I, as a fisherman, can participate and add my own thoughts to this in a more effective way? And the more we progressed, we seemed to be getting closer to the original attitude that BOEM” – the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a regulatory authority on the Statoil proposal – “is just going to do what they always did. So I’m asking you to explain: How much of an alternative will this be for me as a stakeholder and fisherman?”

Replied Weber, “This is going to address your points, recognizing that we have to work inside the existing box. But there are ways to improve the way we do business within that box.”

Nelson said he was onboard with the idea of gathering data, a useful project for all stakeholders. “But down the road, when decisions are finally being made, can I, as a stakeholder, still participate” in the decision-making process?

“Yes, there are opportunities,” said Weber.

Nelson said he’s heard that promise before, but is dissatisfied with the reality; commenters don’t seem to have much sway, he indicated.

Bohlen agreed, saying, “It’s a deeply unsatisfying process. The information doesn’t fit into the framework that’s been built. Whose knowledge counts as data and whose does not? How do we integrate more informal information more effectively? We’re looking at a balancing process.”

“These processes are, in fact, designed to get to ‘yes,’ and not to get to ‘no,” said Vivian Newman, speaking as an interested citizen from Thomaston. “And for that reason, it’s scary.”

Ron Huber, executive director of Friends of Penobscot Bay, said a lack of public notification for regulatory agencies’ preapplication procedures is an example of citizen exclusion.

In general, said Weber, the idea behind the ocean plan is not merely to provide guidance but be a rigorous, long-term planning document that will help stakeholders figure out how to use the information in practical ways.

“There are new and emerging uses in the ocean, and in some places they’ve been extraordinarily controversial,” said Weber. “The objective is not to streamline the approach to issuing permits, but to say, ‘How are we going to work through these issues? What kind of data are we going to ask for?’”

Nelson said it’s important for Maine to have a voice as a sub-region: “Our goals might be different than if we lived on Cape Cod. How do we influence the process down the road? How do we make sure these agencies are going to listen to us as the Maine advisory people?”

Robert LaBelle, science advisor to BOEM, said BOEM is acting to improve its process for getting input from the public. For example, with sand, “BOEM is trying to avoid a first-come, first-served line of folks waiting for sand,” LaBelle said. “We ‘re trying to get regional input on what the region needs for offshore sand.”

Said Bohlen, “The process matters a tremendous amount with regard to how and when you coordinate with local communities.”

Folks said historic data should be included.

“Current conditions from Long Island to the Gulf of Maine are in degraded state,” said Steve Miller, director of the Islesboro Islands Trust. “So it seems what we often are encountering is a failure to recognize and incorporate into the decision-making process historic information about the viability of species diversity. I understand that’s not always available. Still, it’s critical information. So when you’re talking about baseline data, one of the places we need to spend time thinking about is historic information, especially related to species diversity and habitat.”

Related to that, Miller said, there should be a way to consider restoration value. He cited as an example the restoration of species with dam removals.

Barbara Vickery, Director of Conservation Programs with the Nature Conservancy said also to be considered is the way the same data can be interpreted in different ways.

Mark Dittrick, a spokesperson of the North Atlantic Right Whale BEACON, (Binational Early Alert Coastal Network), said another hot topic is seismic testing. He said he has seen significant community opposition to seismic testing off Florida but, “The sense we got was that input didn’t count for much.” He added, “I think at some point we have to deal with seismic testing in the northeast. It’s new and it’s upcoming, here. It’s already been happening in the south.”

“It’s a very controversial issue. The voices who spoke against it was were not ignored,” said LaBelle. The NRPB might work to get a general look about what the public thinks about seismic testing, he said. However, once an application has been filed, the federal agency must respond within a certain period of time.

Nick Napoli, Northeast Regional Ocean Council’s (NROC) Ocean Planning Project Manager, said NRPB participants – agencies, industry, academic institutions, NGOs, etc. – are pulling together data on marine mammals, sea turtles, birds and fish in the northeast, with an eye toward characterizing distribution and abundance. One of the options for advancing the plans, he said, includes crafting an ecosystem-based approach to identify ecologically important areas, rather than focusing on hotspots or individual species.

Bohlen suggested looking at habitat characteristics that are generative in general for high diversity, possessing high long-term value regardless of what species are present.

“Judging by changes happening on the Maine coast now, the species listed now might be the wrong list 20 years from now,” said Bohlen. “I think we need to think about this in a dynamic way, rather than looking back just at what was here before.”