While much of the attention on the State Legislature was on the state budget and an overhaul of the state tax system, an important bill to help island lobstermen was passed.
The bill, L.D. 1231, was approved by both houses of the State Legislature on June 2 and was signed by Governor John Baldacci on June 8.
The bill was proposed by Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree (D-North Haven). Pingree was responding to comments she heard from island lobstermen about the difficulty younger islanders were having getting a lobster license.
“I was very gratified by the overwhelming support it received,” Pingree said, about the bill. “People really seemed to get it when it comes to the importance of lobster fishing to the island communities. There is a wider understanding of how fragile, and how small, island communities are,” Pingree said.
“This is a tool that a lot of island communities have been asking for,” said Gillian Garratt-Reed, marine programs coordinator for the Island Institute (which publishes this newspaper). “It will ensure that communities that started as fishing communities, remain so in the future, despite increasing regulation within zones.”
The law goes into effect 90 days after it is passed. If everything goes smoothly, the state Department of Marine Resources will likely announce public hearings in the fall, as part of the process of making rules from the law. A rule could be in place by early 2010 to regulate this new program.
Pingree and Rob Snyder, the Island Institute’s vice president of programs, had both heard over the past two years from islanders about the shortage of island lobster licenses and the threat it poses to these communities.
The Island Institute held a meeting of island lobstermen who sit on the lobster zone councils, and this bill was the approach they felt would best help islands.
The lobster industry plays a much bigger role on islands than on the mainland. According to the Maine Department of Marine Resources, 18 percent of islanders hold lobster licenses, compared to only 1 percent of mainland residents.
In 1996 lobstermen decided to run their own fishery, through the adoption of seven zones along the Maine coast, in cooperation with the state.
This development, however, meant that all year-round islands, with the exception of Monhegan (which has its own zone) became part of larger, mainland zones. And now every zone except Zone C (from southern Penobscot Bay to western Blue Hill Bay) is closed, which means those seeking to get lobster licenses are now on long waiting lists.
Each lobster zone also has a system in place for new licenses to be issued, based on the number of tags (or traps) already in the water. In some zones, that means up to five lobstermen have to retire before a new license can be issued. Since everyone is on the same waiting lists, islanders end up competing with mainland residents for licenses.
So when an island lobstermen retires, his tags do not go to another islander, but go to the next person on the waiting list. Islanders who wait for years to get a full lobster license may give up, meaning islands will lose both lobster licenses and the men and women who sustain these communities.
The bill proposed a system in which a two-thirds vote by island lobstermen would be needed to set up this new system. Lobstermen who apply for the island license must have lived on that island for at least five years and document that they harvested lobsters in all of those five years.
David A. Tyler is the editor of Working Waterfront.