Stonington seeks lobster grant

STONINGTON – Armed with matching funds approved recently by voters, the town’s economic development committee will submit an application this week seeking state funds to study issues surrounding the local fishing industry.

Fishing, and lobsters in particular, are vital to the local year-round economy, and the committee hopes to use the $10,000 Community Development Block Grant to study potential problems that could affect that industry, according to Doug Johnson, the committee chairman. At a recent special town meeting, a handful of voters approved allocating $1,500 that will be combined with private funds to provide the matching funds for the grant.

“This is a planning grant,” said committee chairman Doug Johnson. “We want to have someone look at this fishing community and find out if there are issues” that could cause problems in the local fishing economy.

The study, Johnson said, also would provide recommendations on what to do to prevent or mitigate any identified problems.

While the study will review a number of issues, such as on-land lobster storage and shrimp storage, most of the discussion surrounding the grant has focused on development of a bait storage facility in town as a response to anticipated shortages of herring, the prime source of lobster bait.

Based on state stock assessments, the herring stock is still healthy and not over-fished, said committee member Susan Jones, who also is the managing editor of Commercial Fisheries News, which covers the state’s fishing industry. But there have been concerns about fishing pressures in specific areas, and recent federal fisheries management decisions are expected to reduce the amount of available herring and result in eventual shortages.

The key decision, Jones said, has been the recommendation from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the new rule from the National Marine Fisheries Service to reduce the herring quota in Management Area 1A, which encompasses the inshore waters of the coast of Maine. In past years, the quota has been 60,000 metric tons for the entire Management Area 1A. The new rule, which is now in effect, reduces the quota from that level to 50,000 metric tons this year, and another 5,000 metric tons next year.

Fishermen have regularly filled that 60,000 metric ton quota, most of which has gone to bait, Jones said. Cutting 10,000 metric tons from the quota will be a significant reduction and is the main reason fishermen and others in the industry expect a bait shortage.

“There’s not a ready alternative to herring,” Jones said.

Other management decisions also have added to concerns about the availability of bait, Jones said.

A ban on midwater trawlers during the summer months could limit the number of vessels fishing for herring for as much as four months, and a new “zero tolerance” regulation that prohibits any spawning herring in catches could halt harvesting for as much as two weeks or more in certain areas.

Maine, which in the past has carefully monitored the amount of spawning herring in catches, so far has refused to implement the zero tolerance rule, Jones said. Eventual enforcement could halt the harvest and further limit the amount of bait available to fishermen.

A potential solution to the problem might be the construction of a storage freezer in town so that bait could be purchased when plentiful, frozen and then stored until supplies were low and it was needed. That is one of the possible solutions the study will look into to determine if it is feasible, Johnson said.

“We don’t just want a report,” he said. “We want to see if this is something that can be built on the island, if it can be built economically, and if there are possible ways to finance it.”

The town’s selectmen have indicated the town does not want to operate a facility, so the study also will look at how a bait storage freezer could be run. That is why it will take time to find someone to conduct the study, Johnson said.

“We need someone who knows about fishing and also knows about business,” he said.

The grant application is due in by Friday and it could take about two months before the grant will be awarded. If the committee is successful in winning the grant, Johnson said, the study should be completed by next April.