Tag Archives: Daniel Georgianna
‘It’s the big guys that want it’: New Bedford scallopers leery of leasing proposal
“A typical full-time [Limited Access] scallop vessel harvests its annual scallop allocation in approximately 70 days, leaving vessels inactive and tied to the dock more than 80 percent of the year,” the organization wrote in a July 2020 letter to the NEFMC. “The only growth option is to buy another permit, which means buying another vessel. “Although one vessel could easily harvest the allocation of two LA permits, the fleet has no flexibility to do so,” it continues. “In the absence of a leasing program, smaller, independent owner/operators are not able to grow their operations in reasonable increments.” But to Manuel Vieira, owner and captain of The Guidance, arguments revolving around flexibility were merely pretty words. “They say there will be flexibility because that’s what they think the [council] wants to hear,” Vieira said in Portuguese. “But it won’t pan out well for the little guy.”Video, >click to read< 15:39
America’s biggest scallopers want changes to regulations preventing consolidation
“The bottom line is this proposal is about global control, from the switch to the fish to the dish,” said Alan Cass, a former New Bedford scalloper who began his career as a deckhand and retired as a boat owner. “The resource will be at the mercy of a consolidated effort by these corporations to control ocean-to-table and economically injure the small entities in this industry.” For nearly 30 years, scallopers like Cass and his son, who followed him into the industry, have gone to sea under a set of regulations that limit both the amount of scallops that can be harvested each year and the share of that harvest that belongs to the industry’s biggest players. Roy Enoksen, the president of Eastern Fisheries and a co-owner of the nation’s largest scallop fleet, said leasing would allow him to stack scallop allocations onto more efficient vessels and save on maintenance costs. >click to read< 13:10
Mitchell warns of ‘potentially consequential’ impacts if leasing is approved
Mayor Jon Mitchell is “deeply concerned”,,, “There is no denying that there will be costs and impacts associated with the leasing program,” Mitchell wrote. “The playing field will be tilted on day one, perhaps irrevocably so, and the transformation of the scallop fishery from a ‘community fishery’ to a ‘corporate fishery’ may become all but inevitable.” The Scallopers Campaign, the lobbying effort behind the leasing proposal, commissioned a study in 2021 by Alaska-based consulting firm Northern Economics, which concluded leasing could collectively reduce annual costs for vessel owners by about $12 million. Listen to the video. >Click to read< 08:55
Sector IX Responds to NOAA Groundfish Ban
Sector IX sent a 15 page response to John Bullard and NOAA on Saturday after the governing agency banned the sector from groundfishing two weeks ago. The documents sent to NOAA’s Northeast Regional Administrator by Sector IX President Virginia Martins included a six page letter that outlined the grievances with the decision as well as biographies of the new board members and the agenda of an Oct. 26 meeting between the sector and the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office. click here to read the story 22:33
