ROCKLAND – Local commercial fishermen were polite but cool this week while taking their first look at an industry-funded buyout proposal.

State Marine Resources Commissioner George Lapointe introduced a proposal for a $100 million federal buyout program aimed at reducing the number of fishermen and relieving pressure on depleted groundfish populations such as cod and haddock.

“The proposal was brought to my office,” Lapointe said Tuesday at a meeting with Port Clyde draggermen held at City Hall. “The idea is expected to reduce the number of people fishing and leave more fish for the remaining participants.”

The proposal came as a response to a November 2006 referendum among members of the Northeast Multispecies Fishery, the area off New England in which multiple species of groundfish are harvested for sale, barter or trade.

According to the proposal, participants voted by “73 percent in favor to 21 percent against” an initiative to design and put into practice a voluntary capacity reduction plan.

Port Clyde draggermen participated in the voting.

The proposal cited by Lapointe would enable some fishermen to retire their licenses and vessels. The buyout program would be funded by a federal loan that would be paid back by fishermen who remain in the industry.

Under the proposed program the federal government would lend the fishery $100 million toward buying out draggermen in the Northeast Multispecies Fishery who volunteered to participate. The fishery would pay back the loan over a period of up to 30 years by collecting a fee of no more than 4 percent on the fair market value of each catch the remaining fishing boats bring in.

“The people who submit successful bids would have their permits and vessels bought out,” said Togue Brawn of the DMR office. “They’d be given money in exchange for giving up their [fishing] permits and vessels.”

The buyout program would start within six months of its enactment. Any fisherman volunteering to take part would retire his right to commercial fishing, surrender all U.S. and foreign fishing privileges, and destroy or scrap the surrendered vessel.

Groundfish permits are highly valued because each permit has an associated number of Days at Sea, or working fishing days, and no new permits are being issued. “If you want to fish groundfish, you need a permit, which is associated with a vessel,” Brawn added.

If the buyout were successful, it would result in fewer people in the fishery, less competition, and ideally more Days at Sea to be spread among the fishermen who remain.

In presenting the proposal to the fishermen attending the Rockland meeting this week, Lapointe referred to several congressional findings he had reviewed about the status of the fishery. The fishery has been under a management plan that was approved by the U.S. commerce secretary in 1977. The area has been a limited-access fishery since 1994, according to the proposal.

Among the findings Lapointe noted were:

. Despite the increasing health of several key New England groundfish stocks, revenues from groundfish fishing declined about 30 percent between 2001 and 2005.

. The average available allocation of working fishing days, or Days at Sea, for a New England groundfish fisherman for an entire year is 43 days.

The fishermen at the Rockland meeting were skeptical of the plan.

“We’re all here to support what’s good for Maine,” said Glen Libby, a Port Clyde commercial fisherman, at Tuesday’s meeting. “I don’t see this as good for Maine as a whole, partly because it does not seem to favor smaller fishing operations.

The fee assessed to the remaining fishermen for repaying the federal loan, which would be established by the U.S. secretary of commerce, concerned another Port Clyde fisherman.

“We’re already reduced to 39 days of fishing a year for 2009,” said Roger Libby. “How can anyone make a living in 39 days? I don’t want to pay any more.”

“The proposal will benefit the whole industry,” Lapointe said. “Will this work for Port Clyde?”

Local draggerman Gerry Cushman, a member of the Port Clyde Fishermen’s Cooperative, said he did not agree with the proposal.

“I’m worried that this will be pushed down our throats, and there’d be no one left fishing in Port Clyde,” he said.

“We’ve got the last hope of good fishing right here,” he said.

The fishermen in attendance said they would look the proposal over and “tweak it” for another meeting.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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