Lobstermen Crab and Fin Fishermen Shut Out of Georges

continuted from October 2016 Homepage

The actions on these closures in this area of canyons and sea mounts had been going on for a year. “No details of what was being done were available until a few days before the public announcement of the official designation by President Obama in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2016. It was all done behind closed doors,” said Eric Reid, a Rhode Island seafood dealer.

Reid said he had offered an alternative to the proposed closures at a town meeting in Providence, R.I., on Sept. 14, 2015, where the Georges Bank area closures were first publicly discussed. It was the only public meeting on these monuments. Rather than close these areas, Reid suggested instead a larger closure, 25,000-square-mile area with no Georges Bank canyons included, in depths above 900 meters (3,000 feet). The edge of Georges Bank, where the canyons are located, drops off rapidly to 5,000+ feet. “The Reid proposal was a reasonable alternative,” said Terry Stockwell, NEFMC chairman.

In the background to the final designation presented on Sept. 14, 2016 was the trade-off with the fishing industry supporters, including Reid, who challenged the proposed area brought forward for the ENGOs by Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal. “Fishermen got the size of Blumenthal’s plan down to 43% of the original Canyon area closure. The closure around the so-called sea mounts east of the selected canyons is much less valuable fishing ground,” said Reid.

The NEFMC will be discussing the Georges Bank Canyon and Sea Mount closures at their Sept. 20-22 meeting. Included will be discussions around the choice of a process that could have included the Magnuson-Stevens Act rather than the Antiquities Act.

The Georges Bank designation also has come at a time when a recent 87,500-acre Antiquities Act land designation was made in Aroostook County; another is in the works in Hawaii and a third is proposed off the coast of California. Through the Antiquities Act, the president has the discretion and the exclusive right to protect land. Given the congressional opposition this president has seen these last eight years, some observers have said he had few other options to make good on his commitment to be remembered for his efforts with the environment.

The Obama administration has joined with 60 other nations in an effort to clean up the oceans, which have for decades been both neglected and abused. Cited among the problems the 60 nations hope to address are ocean dumping and the resultant floating “garbage patches,” plastic micro particles in suspension from decomposing plastic garbage, chemical pollution, agricultural nitrogen runoff, ocean acidity, ocean temperatures, unregistered/illegal fishing and the restoration of fish stocks.

Borden pointed out that there is additionally a National Ocean Policy mandated by White House executive order being developed and nearly complete in the northeast United States.

Regardless of the president’s legacy concerns or end-of-term ENGO turf battle, fishermen said they were left out of what is by law—The Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976—supposed to be a public process for the management of a public resource.

“I’m sure there will be a lot of unhappy fishermen who will have every right to be,” said Stockwell.