Dead in the Water

Documentary filmmaker and Gloucester native
David Wittkower

by Mike Crowe

David Wittkower, who has lived in California for 30 years, was visiting Gloucester, Mass., when he noticed there were fewer fishing boats along the waterfront than he remembered when growing up there. Gloucester means fishing, now and throughout American history. It is the nearest port to the one of the world’s greatest fishing grounds on Georges Bank. The bank is located in what is arguably the world’s greatest, diverse and dynamic marine resource, the Gulf of Maine.

Wittkower talked to people along the waterfront. They told him about the effects of federal fishing regulations on the local fishing industry and the community, which have been interwoven for centuries – interwoven like few, if any, others in the nation.

The result? Wittkower’s documentary, called Dead in the Water. Released in 2017, it remains current as coastal fishing communities continue to struggle with the political process.

Wittkower had produced a dozen films. He was looking for a new project and dove in. The territory was familiar and this film features real people. These are individuals who have fished their whole lives, who thoroughly understand fishing, have worked in the industry, are descendants of those who did the same, and who engaged with the federal regulatory process from the beginning, hoping to make whatever came out of that process better. In the end, they are individuals who have been screwed for their efforts, knowledge and integrity.

There is more to the story of what is happening to the fishing industry in America. The efforts to consolidate and privatize the fisheries resource is embedded in the federal regulatory process, according to several interviewed in the film. The federal goal is not stated as being privatization. But people interviewed in the film said private corporate money and influence are apparent at both NOAA fisheries and the fisheries management councils.

Russell Sherman has been a Gloucester ground fisherman for 40 years. “The fact that we are independent fishermen, for part of the people in this country, doesn’t go down well,” he said. “So we have been consolidated out of the picture.” Sherman said federal management strategy amounts to concentrating the resource into a few hands, privatizing the oldest natural resource held in common, then doling out allocations. The process, he said, “was crooked.”

You can count on two hands the number of vessels left (in Gloucester),” said Northeast Seafood Coalition Executive Director Jackie O’Dell. Fisheries management, regulations and assessments have reduced the local fleet by 76 percent, she said. The result? “You’re seeing a crumbling of our infrastructure and crumbling support businesses following the destruction of family fishing businesses,” she said.

NOAA Fisheries is the latest iteration of the federal fisheries management bureaucracy. It is under the NOAA umbrella, which is under the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is under the authority of the U.S Congress. Under NOAA Fisheries are nine regional councils. One of them is the New England Fisheries Management Council. O’Dell and others in the film noted that New England has seen the most severe federal regulations and the most devastating economic damage from them.

Steve Ouelette, an Admiralty Law attorney with offices in Gloucester, said that those with the most to gain from the demise of the industry are companies that want to extract oil and gas from under George’s Bank. Ouelette added, “PEW Charitable Trusts, the biggest in the country, spends tens of millions of dollars every year and has done everything it can to shut down fisheries.”

“NOAA is very powerful,” said Senator Bruce Tarr, the minority leader of the Massachusetts Senate. “In my opinion, the agency operates with very little oversight and certainly very little intervention.”

“It is not a democratic or transparent process,” said Niaz Dorry director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and the National Family Farm Alliance. Dorry drew parallels between the industrialization and consolidation of farming in America and the federally led process underway in commercial fishing. “Groups like the Environmental Defense Fund play a big role in suggesting privatization to save the fish. While globally fish are not being saved and EDF is complicitous. EDF promotes market driven strategies that give fishing the rights to corporations. We’ve seen what that strategy has brought in banking and housing crashes”, she said.

Dead in the Water has won a half dozen domestic and international film awards, including Winner at the 2017 Kodiak Film Awards. A trailer for Dead in the Water can be seen at fishermensvoice.com. Links to related news articles are also available.

Wittkower is scheduling viewings of the documentary. Colleges and university venues have been particularly responsive, he noted. Wittkowr can be reached by email at: ctch22@aol.com