Senators seek funds for lobstermen

A group of nine U.S. senators is requesting that the federal government provide $14 million to lobster fishermen who have to modify their fishing gear in order to comply with a new federal law aimed at protecting endangered whales.

Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are among the elected officials, all from the Northeast, to sign a letter sent Wednesday to Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez and Jim Nussle, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

They indicated in the letter that fishermen face “significant economic hardship” by having to switch from floating rope, which rises off the ocean floor, to sinking rope, which lies on the bottom of the seabed, out of the way of where diving whales are believed to feed.

The senators say the Bush administration should include “at least $14 million” in its proposed 2009 federal budget to help fishermen alleviate the economic impact of the new rules.

Industry groups have predicted that the cost of upgrading gear is likely to be between $10,000 and $15,000 per boat for inshore fishermen and as much as $85,000 for those who fish farther offshore.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is requiring fishermen to make the gear change by October 2008, predicted lower initial costs – $8,100 for inshore fishermen and $37,000 for those who set their traps in deeper water – but the senators pointed out that the Government Accountability Office determined the NMFS’ estimates to be flawed. Likewise, fishermen have indicated that because of the changing costs of using sinking rope over the course of a year, the rope potentially could cost between two and three times what NMFS has estimated.

“While we understand the need to protect large whale populations, under the current plan, the costs of that protection will be overwhelmingly borne by this single industry, while the benefits will be enjoyed by the nation as a whole,” the senators wrote. “We ask your assistance to ensure that the hard-working businessmen and women who work in our fisheries, and who have been forced to deal with increasingly strict regulations in recent years, are not held solely responsible for the financial burden of this protection.”

David Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, praised Snowe’s efforts to help Maine fishermen but said that though $14 million might help, it really doesn’t solve the problem.

“We figure it’s going to be over $100 million,” Cousens said of the financial impact of the rule.

Besides the financial miscalculations, NMFS made other false assumptions in developing the new rule, according to Cousens. Many fishermen will not choose to stay inside the proposed exemption line three miles from shore, he said, because for most of them the best fishing occurs in the fall when lobsters travel outside that line back out to sea.

And he said the prediction that sinking rope will last five years before it wears out is just plain wrong. Lobstermen have done their own research and have yet to find any sinking rope that will last one full season, he said.

Cousens questioned whether it’s practical to make the switch, regardless of how much it costs. The rocky ocean bottom in eastern Maine is more likely to snag sinking rope and result in gear getting either damaged or lost, he said. If eastern lobstermen want to stay in business, they may decide to use only one trap per buoy, which would result in a lot more vertical lines in the water column, he said.

The gear change is required only for ground lines, which connect multiple traps on the ocean bottom to one another. The lines that connect strings of traps to buoys that float on the surface are exempt from the new rule.

“We can’t use that [sinking] rope where we fish,” Cousens said. “That’s the bottom line.”

The new federal law was announced in October, after the Ocean Conservancy and Humane Society of the United States had filed suit against Gutierrez and NMFS official William Hogarth for not taking enough action to protect endangered whales.

The rule aims to protect all endangered whales, but it is the North Atlantic right whale that is seen as especially vulnerable to the threat of entanglement in fishing gear. Whale researchers estimate that only between 300 and 400 right whales remain in the North Atlantic.