DMR Advisory Council Meeting Minutes
September 19, 2007
A meeting of the Department of Marine Resources’ (DMR) Advisory Council (AC) was held on this date at the Department of Human Services Central Offices Conference Room, 442 Civic Center Drive, Augusta. AC members attending this meeting included Dana Rice – Chair, David Pecci – Secretary, Al West, Dana Temple, Bob Baines, Mike Danforth, Vincent Balzano, and Susan Farady. Council members Tim Harper, Rod Mitchell, a Bill Sutter – Vice Chair, Glenn Libby, Timothy Kief, and Scott Tilton were unable to attend. Department staff included Colonel Joe Fessenden, Linda Mercer, Sarah Cotnoir, Donna Hall, Togue Brawn, Kohl Kanwit, Matt Cieri, Deputy Commissioner David Etnier and L. Churchill. Other attendees included State Representative Leila Jane Percy, Chair Marine of the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources, Lewis Flagg, Pat Pinto, and Mr. & Mrs. Herb Hodgkins.
1. Welcome
Introductions were given by the council members around the table.
The Chair noted the directive by the Attorney General’s Office that no comments are allowed from the public when members are voting on rulemaking as the comment period has closed.
2. Approval of minutes (see handout)
Motion: (A. West, M. Danforth) Motion to approve the minutes of the meeting held June 20, 2007. Discussion: None
Motion continued: Unanimous to approve (Dana Rice, David Pecci, Al West, Dana Temple, Bob Baines, Mike Danforth, Vincent Balzano, and Susan Farady)
3. Regulations - Action (voting) (handouts)
Chapter 25.95(1) Monhegan Island Lobster Conservation Area, Apprenticeship program and reporting
Sarah Cotnoir gave a brief run down of the recent Monhegan legislative actions and changes that resulted in changing the number of days for their apprentice program to be consistent with the rest of the apprentice system and changes to their fishing season that requires monthly reporting.
Col. Fessenden noted that their season now starts October 1st.
A. West: Were there concerns by the apprentices going to 200 days?
S. Cotnoir: Most supported this.
Col. Fessenden: The apprentices are all set. Monhegan is in Zone D and there was one person who did his apprenticeship, 150 days vs. 200 and was ready to be a member of Monhegan then wanted to slide into Zone D without going on the waiting list; it’s was viewed as a way around the waiting list. That will not happen in the future. He is now fishing in Monhegan but he does not live on the island and we’ll see how this next season goes. To put it in perspective in Zone D there are ~62 on the waiting list with an exit ratio of 5:1; there is a maximum of 17 Monhegan registrants allowed and there are only 14 now; 2 new apprentices just entering this year.
B. Baines: On the reporting aspect it is a good idea as Monhegan is a closed fishery. Extending the season is somewhat of an experiment. For the last two years Carl Wilson has done a lot of work there. Having all the fishermen reporting their landings will be useful even to coastwide management. I didn’t hear any issues from the fishermen. It would be good documentation of what is going on there.
S. Cotnoir: Part of why they are reporting is for use as a tool the Department will use to evaluate whether to build up an additional 100 traps. They are allowed 300 traps; with the reporting it will help determine whether to increase the trap number.
Motion: (S. Farady, D. Temple) Motion to approve the rulemaking in Chapter 25.95(1) as written.
Discussion: None
Motion continued: Unanimous to approve (Dana Rice, David Pecci, Al West, Dana Temple, Bob Baines, Mike Danforth, Vincent Balzano, and Susan Farady)
Chapter 25.12 Alternative bait labeling (S. Cotnoir)
Sarah Cotnoir reviewed the history behind the rulemaking. The Lobster Advisory Council (LAC) heard from industry and discussed labeling as well as a full ban on alternative baits. As a first step the Department chose labeling as a “buyer beware” option to assist the harvester when deciding what bait to buy. The proposal is not an endorsement, just a first step, see handout.
M. Danforth: The lobster fishery or the DMR should make a process that alternative baits should go through before they are allowed to use them. But this is better than nothing. You don’t want to kill other resources off.
D. Rice: There have been alternative baits around for 20-30 years and they have gone through the FDA process. This starts to address the situation you’re talking about. This is a far cry from those folks who’ve gone through the FDA process and tested lobsters in holding facilities and separate from someone just killing a moose and using it for bait. We do need to go further but the situation is that after some second thought from industry that there is support to create something.
B. Baines: We’ve had lengthy discussions at the LAC meetings. We were ready to make a recommendation to ban all alternative baits. The crux of this issue was the “puck’ bait that came on the market this year that has a binder made of PVC. It made no sense to be introducing to the water let alone feeding it to the lobsters. Common sense prevailed and the LAC went back to our original recommendation of at least listing the ingredients as a good first step. I think this is very important to at least get this passed so the fishermen know what is in the product. In the comments, there is opposition from companies to protect their research and development but I’m not so sure about that. All the food that we buy in the store lists the ingredients. I think it is an important thing to do.
Col. Fessenden: We have an existing law §6175 Alternative Bait. Also, Rep. Leila Percy is here today. We could have a new law go through, the Marine Resources Committee, and Rep. Percy is the co-chair of the committee. Basically §6175 allows us to adopt these rules and as we go down the road we can identify problems and adopt rules prohibiting certain things. This is a first step. The Commissioner has indicated we’re thinking about phasing this rule in by next June 1st even though it sill go into effect immediately we won’t start enforcing it until June 1st when new tags are put on. So if folks have bait left over they can use it up. We did the same thing with hides with hair on them, we used a phase in period to allow time to use up what folks had. We didn’t have anyone get stuck with it and would likely do the same here.
Motion: (B. Baines, V. Balzano) Motion to approve the rulemaking in Chapter 25.12 as written.
Discussion: None
Motion continued: Unanimous to approve (Dana Rice, David Pecci, Al West, Dana Temple, Bob Baines, Mike Danforth, Vincent Balzano, and Susan Farady)
Chapter 34.10(1)(B)(4)(b) Atlantic Halibut, and Chapter 8.20(F) Landings Program, Halibut reporting
L. Churchill: It was noted that the words “or through” have been added at the last minute pertaining to just recently received information on the landings tags in Chapter 34.10(1)(B)(4)(b)(iii) paragraph 2. The adds the option of placing the landings tag tightly around or through the tail. This was not deemed a substantive change by the Assistant Attorney General.
K. Kanwit: On the minimum size increase - Based on the 5-year experimental fishery we did in federal waters from 2000-2005 using the data collected we looked at the maturity, length, weight, age, etc. There’s a reference point we use a lot called F10. On the chart you have in your handout the dark line shows maturity at length. For females it is ~39.5 inches; going to 40 inches from 36 seemed like a huge jump so we opted for 38 inches which two inches above the federal minimum size now. That will result in 41% of the halibut, males and females mixed, reaching maturity before they obtain legal size. Halibut grow a lot at this size. From the tagging date they are growing 5 inches of growth per year. So those that are thrown back most likely, we think, spawn that year and before they recruit into the fishery. The 38 inches is applied to everybody, recreational, state waters fishermen, federal fishermen landing in and also imports of Canadian fish. It’s a good conservation measure it the bottom line.
On possession limits we’re removing the 4 fish per day. That was originally put in as an enforcement tool and is no longer needed. To make the 50 fish quota more enforceable we’re adding a landings tag similar to striped bass… All of these rules have basically come from a lot of the halibut fishermen; folks who want tougher enforcement, and want to conserve the fishery. Marking the gear is also for enforcement. Now you can’t distinguish a halibut trawl from a trap trawl. On the maximum hook size, circle hooks don’t usually catch the larger fish; it doesn’t eliminate people catching large fish but the chances of large fish actually getting the large hook around their jaw are smaller. The clarification of the endorsement is the last change that people only have to take the training one time. Then there is putting the reporting into Chapter 8 and making it consistent with the requirements for the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program.
A. West: There were a lot of comments about why are we limited to this size when the Canadians can take a smaller size. Have we had any conversations with the Canadians about increasing their size?
K. Kanwit: No. That are having a framework assessment of their halibut stock this October and they are talking about maybe going up on their size.
A. West: Because of the size at maturity?
K. Kanwit: They’ve asked me to attend because of the information that we have. They are at 32 inches and it is based on survivals from the Canadian trawl survey in the 1970’s not maturity and neither is the fed’s when they came up with the 36 inch minimum. We’re the only group who has collected information getting actual maturity data to base minimum size. That is why in the end after hearings people asked why we would let sub legal fish in from Canada if they are not mature and why we went with 38 inches for everybody.
B. Baines: Cost of tags?
K. Kanwit: I just heard a few days ago and if we go with a smaller tag than I thought we could actually get, which would allow us to go through the tail and around ~9 inches and fit tight, I think the cost is ~21 cents for the actual tag cost. We always thought we wouldn’t make it more than $1. That’s in the associated rules about charging the tag fee.
B. Baines: What do the tags cost now? Ans: Nothing. So the guy who has been in this program all they’ve had to do is take the course, other?
K. Kanwit: They have to have a commercial fishing license…
B. Baines: But there is no other cost so this will put money into this program.
K. Kanwit: Because a lot of people do this jus to put fish in their freezers, own personal use, we said that they can just buy a minimum of 10 or in increments of 10 tags. So if they only want 10 tags it would be only $10; assuming $1 per tag. The voluntary research program provides the research tags free of cost. The tag the halibut with a number and get released.
D. Temple: What would be the total landings tags issued? What is the weight landed?
K. Kanwit: We have 700+ persons with the halibut endorsement. If half of them get the tags that’s ~13, 000 tags. We don’t know how many will buy them just to have and that is not including any federal permit holders. Mine lands ~13mt and the feds ~5mt; at the minimum of 36 inches they weight ~18-24 lbs; due to their thickness it varies a lot; the average might be 30-35 lbs.
D. Temple: We see maybe 16-17 lb fish from the 32’ minimum size.
Col. Fessenden: This has been quite an issue for us, the fact that we’re going to stop the Canadians from bring in the smaller fish. We got a lot of public comment on this. We’ll phase it in, the will be an education period and will impact dealers for example.
D. Rice: How does this affect the aquaculture business of halibut?
Col. Fessenden: the aquaculture laws have an exemption for them. [Check §6073] An aquaculture operation has to prove that it was raised to be exempt from the size limit.
K. Kanwit: By using the name specifically Atlantic halibut the Pacific halibut can be shipped in legally too.
Motion: (M. Danforth, D. Temple) Motion to approve the rulemaking in Chapter 34.10(1)(B)(4)(b) and Chapter 8.20(F) as written.
Discussion: None
Motion continued: Unanimous to approve (Dana Rice, David Pecci, Al West, Dana Temple, Bob Baines, Mike Danforth, Vincent Balzano, and Susan Farady)
Chapter 34(1)(B)(4)(b)(viii) Atlantic Halibut, Landings tag, proposed fee (major substantive)
Deputy Commissioner David Etnier reviewed the rule. Aside form being major substantive meaning it will go back to the Marine Resources Committee for their review the proposed technical changed bill would include setting up a dedicated fund for halibut research and landings tag administration instead of going into the general fund.
D. Temple: Is a dollar per tag the cost?
K. Kanwit: I think that is reasonable; if we can get the tags for less than a dollar, yes…
D. Temple: The balance is what you get for research or ~$10,000? Should it be more than $1; would a higher amount help?
K. Kanwit: If we had a grandiose acoustic scheme we would need more but this is reasonable for what we do or need now. It is about ~$1,000 a year for the research tags now. More would allow things like collecting otoliths, etc…
Discussion continued on funding and conceptual research ideas.
V. Balzano: Why were the gentlemen so opposed to the research fund?
K. Kanwit: The comments about opening Pandora’s box was in part based on the lobster tags that were not supposed to go up and instead of 10 cents are now 30 cents and the legislatures’ raids on funds seemed to be the main opposition to it. About 3 of them came up after and said they weren’t really opposed to it…
V. Balzano: Is there good participation in the research? [Ans: Yes.] …and these aren’t 36 or 38 inches, these are some of the biggest halibut I’ve seen being brought in…
Joe: We’re seeing fish in the harbors, evidence that it is increasing a lot.
V. Balzano: We’re seeing fish in the southwest part of the state now; for 10-15 years you didn’t see any; now maybe you will get one per tow for a few years now….
Discussion continued…
Col. Fessenden: This rule will help increase enforcement a lot. There has to be ways to check thing out a bit more. They’re general fished by tub trawls wherever they want. In federal waters they can only take one fish.
V. Balzano: There could be a substantial increase in this fishery in state waters.
K. Kanwit: The state waters only fishermen have to obtain the endorsement…to fish in federal waters it is one per trip under the multispecies and open access permit.
Col. Fessenden: We’ve documented two case of illegal halibut take on draggers and the feds wouldn’t take the cases. The federal rules are one fish per trip, not day, it is per trip.
D. Rice: As Joe says this will enable more enforcement and that is important as everyone here realizes how fast they came back and we all know how fast we can deplete things, especially small halibut.
V. Balzano: If you get a couple hundred guys in state waters each taking 50 fish at 50 or 100 pounds apiece you’re going to start getting pretty good mortality.
Motion: (M. Danforth, V. Balzano) Motion to approve the rulemaking in Chapter 34(1)(B)(4)(b)(viii) as written.
Discussion: None
Motion continued: Unanimous to approve (Dana Rice, David Pecci, Al West, Dana Temple, Bob Baines, Mike Danforth, Vincent Balzano, and Susan Farady)
Chapter 36.01(D)(1)&(3) Herring Management Plan, Catch restrictions – Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) Zero Tolerance compliance
L. Churchill: There is another handout today with the two additional comments received as the comment period was not closed when your packets were mailed out. Whereas the comments were not substantively different from what the draft contained the basis statement was not changed.
Matt Cieri, Chair of the herring technical committee. As you know you are revisiting this same issue presented at your last meeting. Between then and now ASMFC has found the state of Maine out of compliance. But it delayed its letter to the Secretary of Commerce until the 24th of this month. Currently we allow fishing on spawning areas as long as people don’t land any spawning fish; this is the zero percent tolerance. Since then ASMFC met, and with some scrambling by Terry Stockwell to get a gentlemen’s agreement with the herring industry to not fish in those closed areas. So currently nobody is fishing in those closed areas. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective ASMFC did vote us out of compliance but they were heartened by the fact that we put together this gentlemen’s agreement so they delayed their out of compliance finding until after the results of this particular meeting. If for whatever reason should this proposal fail what will end up happening is ASMFC will then forward an out of compliance letter to the Secretary of Commerce and then they will have 30 days to respond.
D. Rice: I urge everybody here, I understand the sentiment and all the concerns of everybody and the pressure it has put on the herring fishery but Maine needs to get out of this out of compliance situation. It has severe ramifications form Maine in a lot of ways. Everyone one at this table is urged to work within the process and allow some time to address these issues. Maine has been getting beat up badly because we’re out of compliance. There are people waiting all along down the coast for a long time to have us in this position and they’ve got us.
Matt Cieri: Herring is on the agenda for the annual meeting and Terry Stockwell will be the Chair. I will be attending too and this is where Terry will probably make the case for reexamining the spawning areas, tolerance and other issues with other states.
B. Baines: I think we did the right thing at our last meeting to make that statement. But along with what Dana Rice said the Commissioner took our message down to Washington and we know what happened there…but the time has come and we have to comply. Hopefully this winter the Herring Section will change it. But we need this and can’t risk not passing this.
V. Balzano: How will this work? Will we still follow the recognized spawning closures as they roll down the coast?
M. Cieri: Yes, 4 weeks then we resample the area and see if we need to close it for longer. Currently the areas that are closed include the Western Gulf of Maine, The Eastern Gulf of Maine opened back up September 8th, and the Massachusetts/ New Hampshire closure is scheduled to go into effect the 21st….and mid water trawling is permitted back in Area 1A as of October 1st.
Discussion about closures etc. continued…
Col. Fessenden: Amazingly we’ve had no gear conflict compared to what we’ve seen over the last 5 years like at Sequin Island.
A. West: I’ve obviously been all over this with George and Terry. From voting this down the first time we got our message across and understand the ramification of not voting for it now. I want to say that Terry and George have stepped up to the plate, they heard us and they are going to do everything they can to get this changed in the future. They don’t have an easy road to go down. They’re going to need a lot of support. For that reason I will for in favor of it this time.
M. Danforth: Is this more of an allocation issue than a certain degree of a quota for the fall fishery for the larger mid water boats?
M. Cieri: There is an allocation component and a biological component. There are biological reasons for the states to sign on, juvenile catch is one within the spawning area closures. Hopefully we can talk a look at this issue in earnest and using a couple of the analyses I’ve got that can help us examine this if and when we can get the Section to agree to commit the technical committee to move on this.
Motion: (D. Temple, V. Balzano) Motion to approve the rulemaking in Chapter 36.01(D)(1)&(3) as written.
Discussion: None
Motion continued: Unanimous to approve (Dana Rice, David Pecci, Al West, Dana Temple, Bob Baines, Mike Danforth, Vincent Balzano, and Susan Farady)
4. Other Business
LD update: Rep. Leila Jane Percy asked to call the council’s attention to two issues. Although it is a non-election year there are two very important referendum questions. One is question #4 the bond issue requesting 35 million to be used to purchase access land and includes the pilot program for the working waterfront. Please let folks know about that. And also question #5 the legislature’s bill about extending term limits. I think that it is important to the fishermen particularly because of this last year of being on the committee and having fishermen from all different industries talk to me about their frustration with the term limit system that currently exists. This asks that term limits be extended from 4 to 6 terms therefore going form 8 years to 12 years. So I’m asking what you’re going to do when Sen. Damon is termed out as he is one of our strongest advocates. There is an effort afoot by an out of state group that is against any kind of extension in term limits…Its important to get people there to vote on issues 4 and 5 on this ballot…
Other Updates
L. Churchill: The haddock rule will be on the next meeting agenda. The 10% lobster harvester reporting rules are taking place this week with very low attendance so far. At the October meeting the nomination committee should be done for the 2008 election of officers. There will be upcoming rules on shellfish issues next; in particular retail seafood inspection rules.
Dep. Commissioner Etnier presented information on a Department of Environmental Protection off loading of herring issue that pertains to dewatering boxes. Brief discussion.
Dep. Commissioner Etnier: Regarding budget issues there is a move to consolidate aviation services among the state agencies by Department of Conservation. Will keep folks posted.
D. Rice: Most folks don’t realize the impact of commercial fishing to the economy of the state. You need call let us know. There is this image that fishermen are starving, which is the wrong image to have out there and people need to know how many dollars they are putting into the economy.
A. West: Since one of our legislators is here I would like to see influence from the Marine Resources Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources back at the ASMFC to reconsider the spawning closure issue. Fighting from the bottom up seems impossible. If you’d been in Massachusetts yesterday with Dan and I you’d understand…we need more influence at a higher level form the state at the Commission.
D. Rice: Recently or in the past year we did have a presence at New England Fisheries Management Council meeting beginning with a resolution but it did a lot of good and its nice to have some support from people in Maine and it also raised some eyebrows from people that didn’t come from Maine; thank-you very much to Rep. Percy.
D. Pecci: On October 10th and 11th the ACCSP Advisory Committee and the Operations Committee are have a joint meeting in Portland. Elliot Thomas and I are the representatives on the Advisory Panel. The fall meeting is typically to rank proposals for the upcoming year for funding from the ACCSP. Obviously we’ll be speaking out for the Maine projects. If anybody has any input with ACCSP or the recreational MERFS survey it’s a great opportunity to have input. They’re riveting meetings…two days of statistical talks that I can’t pronounce… Also, Elliot and I would like to be replaced at anytime on that panel so if anyone would like to volunteer like us know. There is interesting stuff going on with the MERFs survey.
To Rep. Percy could you update us on the status of the recreational fishing license?
Rep. Percy: The initial license died at the end of the session. But there are no further discussions at this time. There is hope to revisit to the fees instead of the feds. Senator Collins and Congressman Allen are trying to get it taken out; but will be a tough road.
D. Rice: As a brief NEFMC (Council) update, from this week so far, Al West and I have both been there, the big issue yesterday was herring. Your representatives from Maine tried very hard to maintain 50,000 mt for the herring TAC in Area 1A and would say we were unsuccessful. It appears it will be 45,000 mt next year in Area 1A. Yesterday afternoon the groundfish committee report came up and NMFS is very concerned that stuff is not going to get done so there is talk about separating so that by the fall of 2009 we’re in compliance so you don’t have to go to 7:1 ratio. Many people in Maine were very interested in sectors. It is looking like sectors may not be authorized. But there are still some conversations going on down there. The Groundfish committee can’t get their work done, can’t establish a baseline…
A. West: On the herring vote, Maine, Mass. and N.H. all agreed, the quota should remain at 50,000 mt. It was the rest of the council that voted it down. That wouldn’t have empowered the council to set it at 50 that was just a recommendation from NMFS to go for 45. But the 3 states in the Area 1A fishery lies within all agreed to keep it at 50 but the rest of the council wouldn’t go along with it based on 3 data points, which I don’t want to go into, because it was more about politics than science yesterday.
D. Rice: There would some data points that were good.
A. West: One of the data points was very good, from the fall trawl survey, the highest it has ever been. But we threw that one out and considered the two worst points instead, from the spring trawl survey.
It’s for 3 years, 2008 and 2009. Massachusetts promised to bring it back to the table again this fall.
M. Cieri: ASMFC is set at 50,000 mt. We currently have a discrepancy for 2008 and 2009 with NMFS as far as Area 1A. Meaning what? Ans: The states control landings.
Discussion continued on herring permits, rules etc.
B. Baines: The final whale rule comment period ended Monday, will be out in October. The exemption line was discussed briefly.
Dep. Comm. Etnier: The Governor supports a delay of the implementation. It is hoped that the feds would reconsider based on recent information.
Motion: (A. West, D. Temple), the Council voted to adjourn.
Motion continued: Unanimous to approve
