By Richard Gaines
Gloucester Times Staff writer

The U.S. senators from Maine and Massachusetts have urged the federal government to put off ordering any new groundfishing restrictions for next year until a required comprehensive stock assessment can be published and reviewed.

The senators — Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, and Democrats Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts — issued their joint request for a postponement of additional fishing cutbacks in a letter dated Friday to Dr. James Balsiger, acting assistant administrator of fisheries for the Department of Commerce.

Initiated by Snowe, the letter notes that the New England Fisheries Management Council is moving forward in the development of new fishing restrictions before the release of a benchmark stock assessment, peer reviewed by independent scientists, of the 19 species of groundfish caught by boats from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts ports.

Under the timetable, the senators said, the environmental impact statement for modifications of the fishing restrictions issued in 2004 under Amendment 13, to be called Amendment 16, would be required by next month, “at least two months before the benchmark assessment is available.”

The alleged “cart before the horse” approach of issuing restrictions before knowing the status of the fishery “clearly … violates the terms of Amendment 13,” the letter states. Amendment 13 is the court-ordered management plan issued under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which establishes the federal system of managing and conserving the fisheries.

Balsiger’s spokeswoman Terri Frade told the Times, “We received the letter, we’re reviewing the letter and we’ll be responding.”

Frade also said, however, “As far as I can tell, we’re on schedule” for the stock assessment and possible issuance of additional fishing restrictions for 2009.

The stock assessment is scheduled for release in August. But the senators note the schedule for changes to Amendment 13 in Amendment 16 “requires drafting an environmental impact statement for public review by June.”

“Clearly, the schedule for development of Amendment 16 violates the terms of Amendment 13 by failing to base any adjustments on the findings of a 2008 peer-reviewed benchmark assessment,” the senators wrote.

By making new restrictions based on old data before the status of the fishery is updated, the senators said the federal government was placing “the industry in a state of double jeopardy.”

The first jeopardy was bad enough, the senators wrote.

“Regulatory mandates have reduced Maine’s groundfish fleet to less than half the vessels that were fishing in 1994, and shoreside jobs in fish processing and wholesaling have declined by over 40 percent in the same period,” Snowe, Collins and their colleagues from Massachusetts wrote.

Snowe, who initiated the letter, is the ranking Republican member of the Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard.

“Between 2000 and 2005,” Kennedy and Kerry added about their state’s fishery, “the number of active limited access vessels in Massachusetts with groundfish income fell by 30 percent, and the enactment (additional restrictions in 2006) led to an 18 percent loss for Massachusetts groundfish vessels.”

They noted that the management council, an appointed body of fisheries officials and stakeholders, which advises the enforcing authority, the National Marine Fisheries Service, is now “considering slashing fishermen’s days at sea by as much as an additional 70 percent based on insufficient, outdated data.”

Ann-Margaret Ferrante, a Gloucester attorney active in fishery issues, said yesterday the senators’ argument was sound.

“It only makes sense that 2008 regulations be predicated on 2008 data, not outdated information from 2005,” she said.

Philip Ruhle, a Rhode Island commercial fisherman and member of an industry panel that advises the fisheries service on gear used in its biannual trawl surveys, said he believes the assessment is “biased” by faulty trawling equipment. He noted that officials have conceded having difficulties making consistent contact with the ocean bottom — without which it is impossible to collect the targeted fish.

Last month, Ruhle and three colleagues on the Trawl Survey Advisory Panel wrote to Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher, the undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, to complain that the Northeast Fisheries Science Center — the research arm of the fisheries service — was ignoring valid scientific advice and how to conduct the most accurate trawl surveys.

Specifically, Ruhle and his colleagues from Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey reported that the science center decided against using two types of trawl gear, one for the rocky bottoms north of Georges Bank and one for the flatter bottoms to the south.

“Using only part of the panel’s recommendation (the ”’rockhopper”) is insufficient to provide credible, repeatable accurate surveys necessary.”

In an e-mail to Ruhle on April 29, Lautenbacher promised to “dig into all your concerns.”

The complaint from the four senators comes on the heels of a protracted dispute over the use of $14.3 million earmarked by Kennedy and Kerry in December for economic relief to the state’s groundfishermen, whose ability to work was constrained by restrictions issued under Amendment 13.

The fisheries service argued against direct aid to fishermen and proposed using the money to reduce capacity by buying them out but conceded in the end and allowed the state to distribute most of the money to fishermen.

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