Tag Archives: federal disaster aid
Salmon disaster relief applications for permit-holders due August 24
Federal disaster aid is on the way for some commercial fishing permit-holders in Haines and throughout the state, though many may be too wrapped up in the current season to apply for it right away. Applications for crew and subsistence users are currently available online. Unique applications for permit-holders and processors from the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission were mailed out on June 26 and are due August 24. Once completed the application can be mailed back to the commission or uploaded online. There’s also aid for vessel crew, and those applications are not due until September 28, but they may be harder to find. They’ll also need an affidavit from the permit holder or vessel owner they worked with to apply. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:10
Federal aid for Louisiana fisheries delivered after nearly four years
After a long wait, Louisiana’s fisheries finally will receive $58 million in federal aid to offset disaster impacts, U.S. Rep. Garret Graves announced. “There is no excuse for the bureaucracy to take four years for the disaster relief we secured to actually be made available, but these funds will be invaluable,” he said in the announcement. “We have promised the seafood industry we would not stop our fight to bring them relief while working to reform the broken fisheries disaster process. We will continue to work with our fishing community to cut through the red tape and make this program functional.” He also pointed out the state’s seafood industry endured the impacts of Hurricane Ida in 2021 and other disasters, in addition to the rise in inflation, high fuel prices, and supply chain problems, among other issues. >>click to read<< 09:54
Updated – Letter: Gulf Seafood industry hampered by spillway opening
Gulf seafood harvesters need federal disaster recovery funding to ease the suffering caused by the opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway.,, In a letter to the U.S. secretary of commerce, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant stated that 70% of the Mississippi Sound’s already imperiled oyster population is estimated to be dead, with the crab catch down by 35%. Shrimp season in Mississippi, which usually begins in June, will also be affected. >click to read<14:36
Gov. Edwards Requests Federal Disaster Declaration for Flooded Fisheries – >click to read<
Not wanting to be left out of the bin three money.
“The first round was money distributed by the federal government to permit holders who caught 5,000 pounds of ground fish in either 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013,” explained Claire Fitzgerald, policy analyst for the Chatham-based Cape Cod Commercial Fisherman’s Alliance. However, there was a second larger “bin” of $8.3 million, and the net was cast wider; permit holders who caught 3,000 pounds of ground fish, in either 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012 were eligible. But many local permit holders, who switched their targeted fish, or didn’t land a lot of cod, were left out. With the final $6.7 million (bin 3) about to be allotted the Alliance was worried the field was tipping towards the bigger ports of New Bedford and Gloucester Read the rest here 09:07
Massachusetts Lawmakers to help small-boat fishermen qualify for third round of federal disaster aid
This is for the third installment of designed in 2012 to help fishermen catch some of the dollars they lost under significant cuts to groundfish catch allocations. The initial proposal limited recipients to only those fishermen who caught at least 20,000 pounds of fish each year for the last three years, said Rep. Jim Cantwell, the Democrat who represents two fishing communities in Marshfield and Scituate. National Marine Fisheries Service allocated in February $8.3 million of a $32.8 million federal groundfish disaster aid package to,,, Read the rest here 10:13
Common sense and disaster relief – Paul Cohan, Gloucester
15 Gloucester shoreside businesses to receive disaster aid
Those Gloucester businesses comprise precisely half of the 30 Massachusetts businesses that will receive groundfish disaster aid. Collectively, they will receive by far the largest portion of the $750,000 set aside to assist shoreside businesses affected by the federally declared groundfish disaster now grinding through its third year. Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken said the city’s success in garnering more than half of the available aid earmarked for businesses underlined the city’s prominence at the epicenter of the groundfish disaster, both on the water and on the waterfront. “These businesses (listed) were severely impacted by the groundfish disaster declared in 2012,” Romeo Theken said. Read the rest here 08:07
Fish aid plans may leave out buybacks, buyouts
Bullard, however, said that the re-aligned philosophy of how to best spend the remaining $10 million would not necessarily spell the end of planning a buyout or buyback program to help the fishery over the long haul. “We don’t want to give up on the (the buyback or buyout) and want to keep thinking about how it may work,” Bullard said. “But there is more of a feeling now that perhaps we should use the majority of those funds for other purposes.” Read the rest here 11:42
Tierney sets talks on fisheries here with House panel chief
The federal disaster aid to fishermen and industry stakeholders is in the pipeline, and now much of the industry’s attention — here and across the rest of the coastal United States — has turned to the…Read more here if you can get by the pay-wall 06:47
The fate of the $150 million in federal disaster aid still in limbo at year’s end
The Christmas season will come and go before fishermen and fishing communities discover the fate of the $150 million in federal disaster aid they seek in the final fiscal 2014 federal budget. Read more @GDT 08:25
