News Letter
Hello All,
Earlier this month Kevin Debbis, Gary Hatch and I drove to Silver Spring
MD to meet with Dr Balsiger. In fact many of Noaa's top officials were
there to listen to our grievances. They were Dale Jones of Law
Enforcement, Pat Kurkul, Jim Balsiger, Tom Gleason, Emily Menashes, and
Galen Tromble, policy writer. There were several GenCat scallopers from
the mid -atlantic as well as Greg Duckworth and Terry Mulvey and his crew
to discuss enforcement. Unfortunately, their discussions were limited due
to several ongoing lawsuits so many of us chose to make sure our
grievances were heard, several of them were actually taking notes. I am
not sure if anything actually came of this meeting, but one can hope that
one more squeak in the wheel will get us the grease we need, not just
"greased". Several of us followed up with letters to Dr Balsiger (mine
attached) and also to our states senatorial representatives. If you are,
or "were" in the GenCat scallop fishery, I would urge you to make calls or
write letters to your elected reps.
Thank You.
Good Morning Dr. Balsiger,
I want to thank you for taking the time to
meet with our group of concerned scallop fishermen set up between David
Tedford and yourself, inviting many of us the chance to attend on
Wednesday afternoon. I am pleased to see that you and other top staff at
NOAA, including Pat Kurkul are willing to sit for two hours, knowing that
much heated and passionate emotion may be directed at yourselves. That
actually helps to renew my belief in the public service aspects of your
agency which many feel have been forgotten.
Many of us have strong and legitimate problems with the current course of
action the NE Council and NMFS has taken, especially regarding the rushed
implementation of quota's for the small boat scallop fishery thru
Amendment 11, but mostly the unfairness of the setting of our TAC/quota.
This is putting undue hardship on our fleet, which is especially hard to
bear when we are not close to overfishing this resource, in fact well
under the industry self imposed buffers, and in economic times that make
finding new jobs impossible, leaving many in a deep hole of debt,
unemployed, and losing everything. We are a hard working and proud group
of fishermen who give much to our communities, looking to simply survive,
and can if given a fair share, which AMD 11 takes from us. We do not
appreciate the reverse Robin-Hood scheme that is taking from the small and
poor owner/ operator and giving to the rich fleet owner, 94.5% vs. 4.5% is
an excessive split. I feel our GenCat fleet more closely represents what
the scallop industry used to be, smaller boats, ruled by weather, without
enough horsepower to inflict damage on resource or habitat, unlike the new
"efficient" fleet that is being touted as successful that MSA pushes
toward, let alone what you will get after consolidation.
You heard much of my issues the other day regarding where this AMD11 falls
far short of satisfying the 10 National Standards of MSA, and I appreciate
your listening. I do sincerely hope that you and your staff will make
every effort to find a mechanism to institute an emergency action (or
whatever action may be appropriate) to halt the final implementation of
Amendment 11 to the scallop plan until we can find resolution to the
inequities and inaccuracies we laid out for your consideration. If I may
give one more point, if this is to be the model for other NE fisheries
"catch shares", you have a train wreck in progress. This must move at a
slower pace so that all may be fleshed out and considered so the Law of
Unintended Consequence may not rule. Also we all MUST find a way to
mitigate the impacts of MSA 2006 until it may be rewritten for
reauthorization.
We will also be discussing these issues with our senatorial and
congressional leaders, looking for relief before it is too late.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Michael L. Marchetti
Pres. Eastern New England Scallop Assoc.
3119 Post Road, Wakefield RI 02879
(401) 742-7028
fvcaptainrobert@aol.com
Visits
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News And Other Important
Information
News / Items of Interest / Meetings
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National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE
NE REGION
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Fishery Council Approves Sea Scallop
Management Rules and Important Sea Turtle
Conservation
Measures
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Council Report
September 2009
An update published by the New England Fishery Management Council
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Scallop Advisory Panel Meeting
9/15/09.
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New
rules may force scallop fisherman to old ways - GloucesterTimes.com,
Gloucester, MA
Read...
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New England Fishery
Management Council News Release
Read.....
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Federal Register /Vol. 74,
No. 85 /Tuesday, May 5, 2009 / Proposed Rules
Read.......
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Obama Administration
Officials to Hold Ocean Policy Task Force Public Meeting in Providence,
RI, on September 24, 2009
Read.............
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Mid-Atlantic lawsuit targets
NMFS' history of flawed
data Read More......
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Annual Survey Shows High
Numbers of Seed Scallops on Georges Bank, Low Numbers in Mid-Atlantic
Read More....
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From this site you can see
what meetings are coming up – what materials are available by meeting –
and link to recent scallop related actions. NEFMC website.
Read More ...
Useful Links
EBCS MARINE SURVEY
James E. Hilton -
Certified Master Marine Surveyor - U.S.S.A
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