“It’s the damnedest mess I ever got into,” declared Dana Rice, 57, of Birch Harbor, referring to his first year on the New England Fisheries Management Council [NEFMC]. The Gouldsboro harbormaster, selectman and lobster buyer had spent the morning on the dock in zero-degree (more like minus 30 counting the wind chill) weather, unloading bait for his lobstermen. Aside from having to handle herring that had frozen solid, he maintained it wasn’t so bad if you kept moving.
After a moment in front of his parlor stove, he sat in his comfortable, over-stuffed chair in his cozy living room, surrounded by pictures of old sailing vessels and family, warming up with a big bowl of haddock chowder his wife and business partner, Barbara, had made that morning. In the course of the next two and one-half hours, as he tried to explain the council process, he used the words complicated, technical, frustrating, and difficult over and over and over, his frustration evident.
Rice’s life has revolved around the fisheries since he started lobstering with his grandfather as a boy. (The other grandfather was a sea captain who made the model of his three-masted schooner FRANK BRAINARD that now rests at its mooring on Rice’s mantel.)
Preserving the small-boat downeast fishing culture, or “way of life” as so many fishermen put it, has long been one of Dana’s highest priorities. It’s a big part of why he was willing to accept the frustration of being on the council.
The council was born of a lawsuit charging the National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS] with having failed to protect marine life. Council membership is limited to 18 people appointed by the governors of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. That this disparate group of fishermen, academics, marine scientists, bureaucrats and environmentalists must pull together to protect marine life reinforces the balance that lies at the heart of any democratic system. It assures compromise – and an end result that pleases no one.
Of some members, Rice said, “Even though I may absolutely disagree with them, after having been on the council awhile I find that I have a respect for them that I didn’t have before because it is such a damned complicated process.”
Council members spend about 10 percent of their time at committee meetings, he said; they spend the other 90 percent on preparation. In the year and several months that Rice has been a member, he has accumulated a pile of paperwork about three feet high and half again as wide, most of it having to do with the groundfish problem.
The result of over a year of effort and that three-foot wall of paper is what Rice calls “this horrible plan”: Amendment 13 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan, a 1,600-page document that he says, “would make War And Peace look like a dime novel.”
Because Amendment 13 is essentially a plan to distribute fewer days At sea among the five New England states, it promised difficulties, not to mention ulcers, from the start – fishermen wanted more days; environmentalists, as few as possible. In addition, Maine fishermen are at a disadvantage because it takes them longer – 15 hours – to steam to Georges Bank, which has an abundance of cod. Dana and others want the days at sea to start when a vessel crosses the line into the closed areas that will soon open.
Understanding the problem – knowing the numbers and the science – doesn’t begin to solve it. Although members can reach a consensus on what they want to do, the technicalities, the analysis and the science involved in coming up with a rule becomes enormously complicated. To top it off, everything has to conform to the Magnuson, or Sustainable Fisheries Act.
Whenever a fishery regulation is implemented, a socio-economic impact study must be included. It must state where the fishery is at the start of the study and where it will be in such and such a time if a specific number of days at sea are allocated. It must show how much money the fishery is producing at the start of the study, how much it will show when the days at sea are cut, and how much money it’s generating, now and then. “It doesn’t address the people who’re going to be put out of business,” said Dana, who in many ways is the conscience of the fishing industry, the result of his having been born into the down east fishing culture and having been raised by a grandfather with a deep sense of morality and community.
“What drives me to the council is, every time there’s an amendment, somebody gets locked out,” Rice said. “It’s what makes it so difficult from the fisherman’s point of view. There’s room for us all to survive.”
Dana Rice is deeply concerned that Amendment 13 closes the door to the small boat fisherman being allowed to get back his days at sea when the stock is rebuilt. “That’s not right,” he said. “We need to leave the door open for future entrance into the fishery when the stocks are rebuilt, whether it’s codfish in Amendment 13 or whether it’s the limited entry process for lobsters because we don’t have the right to close the door on the fisherman and the community that supports him. We don’t have the right to change that culture.”
But conscience is not technical. When a fisherman says something is wrong, that it will cause harm, there’s no data to back him up. On the other hand, Dana has found that the council itself has a conscience, and said, “They really do care about the same things I care about. The council members, down to the last one, I think, to varying degrees, share that same sentiment I do and would like to make it work.” He added that Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner George LaPointe “has worked very hard to protect and save Maine’s role in the groundfishery and every other fishery with that same conscience. He is the protector of the way of life.”
Although many think the council is ineffective, that it protects neither the fish nor the fishermen, no one has come up with a better solution, especially for fish harvesters.
“Some fishermen say that the council is their enemy, and I agree, it’s not the best friend they have,” Rice said. “But I’m afraid, if you do away with it for something that looks much better – cod [will be] over-fished. There are so many days to fish, period. And you won’t be able to engage yourself in this terribly confusing, frustrating, damned [mess] and at least pull something out of it.”
“As bad as it is,” he continued, “once we get by Amendment 13, which is a crisis, then we’ve basically hit rock bottom.” According to the numbers, despite whatever cut in days is chosen, fish stocks will be rebuilt by 2023, provided Amendment 13 is in place by May 2004.
Whether it will be is a political question, of course. Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins felt Amendment 13 was too harsh to Maine fishermen and both asked for an independent review of the socio-economic impact. After complaints from some constituents, Collins blocked implementation of the amendment by putting a rider on an appropriations bill that stopped the funding. Rice admits it was a bold step, but wonders if Maine’s fishermen will be any better off. Snowe did not support the rider. “After working so hard for so long,” he said, “the actions of the politicians, even though they might be well-intended or not, have put Amendment 13 in limbo. It takes the heart right out of you.”
Nevertheless, he thinks things will work out eventually for “this horrible plan” and that despite fishermen losing too many days at sea, he and others hope they have “left a door open for future entrance into the fishery when the stocks are rebuilt so the issue can be revisited.” He thinks Maine deserves a refund on the days they’ve lost and is particularly interested in seeing five small boat owners share 150 days at sea rather than one person with a 150-foot boat and the wherewithal to be able to buy all 150 Days. He wants the little guys to have a chance. He also wants the businessmen and politicians to understand the importance of the fishing industry to the state of Maine.
But it’s an unending battle, faction against faction. Though the example of New Bedford’s financial success shows the money to be made in the fisheries, Maine politicians and businessmen have failed to see the potential they’re letting slip away, including Maine’s last big fishing center, the Portland Fish Exchange. As for the council, the environmentalists and the fishermen will never agree because, as Rice explained, “They’re defending their turf, asking for more than they know they’re going to get – well, I’ve got to ask for more than I’m going to, too.”