June 7, 2015
LOBSTERING…..THE LAST
SHOE TO DROP
The current brouhaha over NOAA’s
proposal to install monitors on lobster boats is a bogus, blatant attempt to put the little guy out of
business. While the EPA is hell bent on
putting thousands of coal miners out of work , NOAA is methodically destroying all that remains of
the fishing industry, the successful small boat lobsterman.
Every day hundreds of lobstermen, small businesses all, employers, consumers and
producers, ply their trade in a
dangerous environment. These fishermen
are a rare and vanishing breed. Fiercely
independent, already severely regulated with serious capital invested in
sophisticated boats and fishing gear, they don’t need this dubious, soon-to-be mandated “monitor millstone”, along for the ride.
From a marine liability standpoint, a
young neophyte seasick monitor, face down in the scuppers, is the last added
responsibility experienced lobstermen want on their small boats, while traps
and related gear are hauled, serviced and hastily set out on the fly. At best, it is a busy, dangerous, confined,
rolling, pitching, working platform, even for the veteran experienced
fisherman.
Protection and Indemnity (P&I)
insurance for these “observers”, mandated by NOAA, will put lobsterman out of
business. This is the elephant in the
room that will kill the industry.
Exorbitant costs, P & I
coverage for inexperienced
observers (as a class, if available?) will
shut the industry down. (I speak from personal
experience; my agency insured
Gloucester’s fishing fleet in the ‘70s and ‘80s. ) Add NOAA’s ($800+) daily surcharge for an
observer, and the total cost destroys any incentive for the lobster fisherman.
Fifty years ago when I worked briefly
for the then Fish and Wildlife Service statistics branch on Elm Street, I
witnessed the beginning of the monitoring (observer) program. Former fishermen, recruited by NOAA ,
employed as the agency’s law enforcement officers, carrying
shoulder holstered weapons imposed their will on fellow civilian
fishermen (often their former civilian
shipmates) in the execution of their policing duties. As a port agent frequently collecting flawed
statistical information from “cooperating fishermen”, I witnessed the beginning
of this monitoring debacle now finally being imposed on lobstermen.
This proposed monitor program by NOAA
is a charade, carefully orchestrated to put the fishermen out of business. It’s all about big money, saving endangered
monitor’s jobs, and expanding the bureaucracy. The MRAG America’s Company is a private entity
spinoff, set up to cash in on this newly minted observer industry at the
fishermen’s expense.
My question: where does the safety
arm of the fishing industry, i.e., the U.S. Coast Guard, weigh in on allowing
these seafaring greenhorns, with little marine experience, board these workboats in
the first place? It is a liability nightmare!
To Arthur “Sooky” Sawyer, Mark Ring, Peter Libro, Tom Burns, Peter Mondello
and hundreds of other career Massachusetts and Maine lobstermen, this is NOAA’s
warning shot across your bow!
If
my personal observations over 50 years is any indicator, the fishery
biologist based at Wood’s Hole, Sara
Weeks, with her smoke and mirrors
analysis, is about to dance you lobstermen out of existence; you are about to be taken for a bureaucratic Gloucester
sleigh ride!
Ron Gilson
