Fisheries Management & Legislative Report

 While I was vacationing in Hawaii I received word that Herb Siperstein had passed away. I had seen Herb’s son Alan at a dinner earlier in 2006 and he told me that Herb had a brain tumor and was in serious condition. Most people know Herb as Siperstein Paint Stores. I met Herb when I resigned my seat on the NJ Marine Fisheries Council to become the Governor’s Appointee to ASMFC. Herb was chosen as my replacement. He immediately called me and invited me to talk. It was the beginning of many dinners and lunches during the next 8 years. Herb was not only a good business man but a dedicated environmentalist and an avid fisherman. He was always inviting me to join him, Alan and his grandson on a fishing trip but we never made that happen. He talked about his fishing adventures all over the world and I learned a great deal from him about fisheries unfamiliar to me. He fished in Cuba before the revolution. He was one of the brightest and most dedicated men it was ever my pleasure to meet. The conversation I remember most was about World War II. As a fellow veteran, Herb felt comfortable sharing with me his experiences on D Day and what happened on the beaches. The most touching story was how he was awakened by a sergeant, put on a bus with no explanation and driven to what he later found out was a concentration camp. He was later told there was no way to describe what the camp was like but felt Jewish soldiers should visit so there could never be a denial of what had happened. Herb spoke with such emotion he and I both shed tears. I explained that I had friends growing up in Brooklyn whose parents had survived the camps due to the bravery of American soldiers like Herb.

My condolences to his family. I will miss Herb and so will the other anglers of New Jersey.

The bill is finally signed and that allows for the extension on the summer flounder rebuilding period. Below I have enclosed the press release from the White House. As with the bill that was passed in 1996, it will be awhile before we know some of the ramifications and interpretations. The recreational fishing industry will have to stay involved. It seems lately as though NMFS is trying to kill the recreational fishing industry slowly.

By the time you read this I will be at the winter ASMFC meeting in Alexandria, Virginia. There will be decisions made on striped bass, weakfish, summer flounder and tautog. I will email the summary sheet after the meeting. There are not many positive decisions to be made at this meeting. There is talk about more restrictions on tautog and weakfish. We should also find out what the summer flounder quota will be for 2007. The agenda was included in the January newspaper and is on our webpage. If you contact ASMFC, you can get summaries by email. Their web address ASMFC.org and you can sign up there. 

I was surprised when some people decided to thank Dr. Holgarth for the 17.1 quota for summer flounder. People have really short memories but, as you all know, I never forget. It got more confusing when I arrived back in New Jersey. There was a newspaper article stating Dr. Holgarth said the quota would be more than 17.1, closer to 18 million pounds. I had naively assumed NMFS would at least wait until after ASMFC had an opportunity to review the current proposals. Fooled again! In a preemptive move Pat Kurkul put a notice of emergency rule in the Federal Register on January 17th. The notice stated the quota would be 17.1. Not only don’t these people listen to the anglers, they don’t even listen to each other. It will be interesting to see if ASMFC finally shows some guts and, instead of using 75% probability, ASMFC uses the 50% required by the lawsuit. It will also be interesting to find out the actual target we are looking for. I will be asking these questions at the ASMFC meeting. Stay tuned to see if I actually get any answers. I will also be asking about the status of the outside peer review.

We need to review the history on summer flounder to find NMFS historic errors or omissions.

1.   When the lawsuit by the environmental groups was first discussed in 1998, Dr. Holgarth directed the NMFS staff to work with the Hines Group and put together a 2-day workshop to discuss summer flounder problems. Dr. Holgarth promised to follow up on the recommendations from this working group but nothing was done.
2. When we began questioning the target set by NMFS that many of us insisted was unlikely to be met under any circumstances, Dr. Holgarth ignored our concerns. ASMFC Commissioners and MAFMC Council Members asked for a total review of the target before any reduction in quota was considered. We have been having this discussion since 2004. Remember the review we had a few months ago. At that time some people thought 197 million pounds was the new biomass target. Instead, that number represents the target for the spawning stock. If you have a 197 million pound spawning stock biomass, what is the biomass target you are looking for? The number must be greater than the 204 million pound biomass that already generated considerable criticism.
3. When our concerns about the data from Marine Recreational Fishery Statistics Survey (MRFSS) continued to grow, we asked NMFS for an adjustment for New York for summer flounder and tautog and New Jersey’s weakfish numbers for 2005. NMFS has done nothing to deal with these issues. Right now they are only beginning to deal with the problems created by using MRFSS data and I believe any change is 3 – 4 years down the road (if ever). (There is more JCAA comment about the MRFSS data elsewhere in this newspaper.)
4. It was NMFS, through Dr. Holgarth, that refused to go to an outside peer review on summer flounder this year. Congress, ASMFC and MAFMC have both requested this peer review and the only action has been to ignore the request.
5. It was the Secretary of Commerce, through Dr. Holgarth and NMFS, who pushed the reduction using the unheard of possibility of a threatened lawsuit after 2010 as their rationale. Because of their inaction the House of Representatives and the Senate had to put a rider on the Magnusson Act to get a three year extension. NMFS continually ignored their legal responsibility to look at the economic impact of their actions.
6. Remember, the Secretary of Commerce and Dr. Holgarth both work for the President. Ultimately it is the President who is responsible for their decisions. Thankfully we had a bipartisan action in Congress to get us a quota that is still devastating to both the commercial and recreational industries but avoids putting everyone on life support.
7. The tackle stores, the party and charter boats, the commercial fishermen and recreational anglers are going to have a disastrous year with the fluke fishery. In my estimation, they should thank President Bush, the Secretary of Commerce and Dr. Holgarth.
8. It now seems that there is miscommunication throughout NMFS. How can they tell us what to do when they can’t even get their own house in order? 

We should not thank people for giving us crumbs when we deserve several slices. The businesses who depend on summer flounder will take a tremendous economic hit. And those of us who fish for summer flounder to eat and enjoy will take a tremendous quality of life hit. The bureaucrats will all get their salaries, no cut in quota for them.

On January 18 I participated in a conference call on the Draft Framework for the National System of MPAs. I found the discussion interesting. There was a much softer tone than what I was hearing a couple of years ago. The recreational and commercial fishing community has always supported special management zones, MPA. Some examples are spawning area closures, no netting in certain areas, no taking of specific species but the allowing the harvesting of others. When the MPA discussion began nationally, certain foundations like PEW, some national environmental groups and some people at NMFS were supporting and interpreting MPAs to mean no fishing zones. There were also many scientists who depend on the foundations for funding who were expressing support for this broad interpretation of MPAs. Over the years I have noticed that in search for research dollars some scientists hop on the latest bandwagon, not only in the topics they choose but in how they interpret data. The fear in the fishing community was that the federal government was going to place no fishing areas in the ocean without the science to justify it. That is what is happening in California. What works in some areas with a large reef structure where some fish spend their whole life in one area will not work in states where long sandy flat bottoms where fish do not stay in one area for most of their life. For the most part the critters continually migrate. The states need to decide what works best in their states with the consultation of the recreational and commercial fishing industry.

What I have seen in the new draft and what I heard on the phone was very subjective and could be interpreted in many ways. With a new administration and a change of direction it could have the potential for conflicts with the states. Unlike an act, an executive order can change with the wind and I have real concerns over that. I would have more confidence in a bill that spelled things out and required an act of congress to change it. My trust factor in the federal government is way down lately.

When President George W. Bush signed the bill Thursday decreasing the amount of summer flounder, or fluke, that could be caught by commercial and recreational fishermen from 23.6 million pounds to 17.1 million pounds, it was no surprise that members of the local fishing community continued to express concern and opposition to the bill, even though they received a catch limit that was three times what had been proposed.

“They gave us a lowball figure, but then everybody signed their petitions so they bumped it up to make us feel like we accomplished something,” said Basil Shehady, co-owner of Barnegat Light Bait and Tackle. “But we didn't accomplish anything and the repercussions will be felt all over the community — not just in bait and tackle shops. Everyone will be hurt by this.”

But for the first time there also was a sense of awareness that the predicament they say the bill's passing puts them in could have been much worse.

“The summer flounder numbers have been down in recent years as it is, but if it were to drop down to 5.2 million it would have devastated the state's economy,” said James Sahlender, 47, of Brant Beach, who is the manager of Fisherman's Headquarters in Ship Bottom. The originally proposed limit was 5.2 million pounds.

No legislation received more attention throughout the fishing communities of southern New Jersey during the past several months than the one containing the fluke limit, the bill that reauthorizes the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

The bill's supporters argued that decreasing the amount of fluke that could be caught would prevent overfishing and protect the species from further depletion.

In early 2006 the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed cutting the East Coast harvest from 23.6 million pounds in 2006 to just 5.2 million in 2007, a 78 percent reduction. This was due to a 1996 federal law called the Sustainable Fisheries Act that called for rebuilding the stock over a 10-year period. The government had been sued by environmental groups in 1998 because it wasn't meeting that law. The rebuilding schedule finally began in 2001.

And even when the 2007 quota was subsequently bumped up to 12 million, local anglers said the economic blow of the legislation would be too much for the fishing community to overcome.

U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton, R-3rd, a member of the Natural Resources Committee that produced the bill and vice chairman of the Fisheries Conservation and Oceans Subcommittee in the 109th Congress, said he felt both proposals were inadequate and posed “harsh economic and social consequences” to the state's coastal communities.

So in December, Saxton drafted an amended version of the bill that added three years to the current 10-year time frame under which the fluke fishery is required to be rebuilt and upped the 2007 harvest to 17.1 million pounds — three times more than some previous expectations — and will raise the take to 29 million pounds by 2012.

Total allowable landings for fluke will be an estimated 19.6 million pounds in 2008 and 22.7 million pounds in 2009.

After the bill became law Thursday, Saxton said he was happy with the outcome, but admitted it wouldn't make all sides happy.

“The fluke provisions in the bill are a compromise,” Saxton said in a press release. “But the bill is a major improvement over the severe flounder catch reductions we had faced only weeks ago. It both helps New Jersey fishermen and fosters the rebuilding of flounder populations.”

Some local fisherman echoed Saxton's feelings.

“It's not ideal, but if it works in the long term, like what they did with striped bass, I'll think it will be worth it,” Sahlender said. “What they did for the striped bass population more than paid off, but summer flounder is our livelihood here. So we have to be a lot more careful with it.”

Not everyone was happy to hear the news, however.

Nick Sabatino, who co-owns Barnegat Light Bait and Tackle with Shehady, said the restrictions placed on winter flounder last fall alone resulted in his business losing $30,000, and the restrictions on summer flounder will be devastating.

“Summer flounder accounts for over 60 percent of our business here,” Sabatino said. “Winter flounder was a fish that was often overlooked and we still felt the effects of it. Imagine what these restrictions on summer flounder will do.”

The people who will be the most negatively affected by this will be the people who have the least to gain, Shehady said.

“We are in this business because we love it, not to get rich,” Shehady said. “We won't be able to survive until the totals are ‘expected' to go back up.”

Staff writer Richard Degener contributed to this report.

WILMINGTON, Del. -- State regulators plan to push for expensive changes to the cooling systems for a few industrial sites along the Delaware River, which are blamed for killing tens of billions of aquatic organisms each year.

Alarming studies in recent years have provided environmental groups with ammunition to push for changes to the cooling systems, which continuously pump in and discharge river water.

The giant intakes draw trillions of gallons of water from stretches of the river that include nursing and feeding grounds for striped bass, weakfish and other valuable aquatic life.

"The river and bay simply cannot sustain this kind of day-in and day-out destruction," said Tracy Carluccio, a staff member for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. Carluccio's group and several others sued the Environmental Protection Agency last year for failing to control damage from some cooling water intakes.

The intakes at the Salem nuclear power complex, Conectiv's Edge Moor power plant, the Valero refinery in Delaware City and Conectiv's Deepwater plant destroy roughly 607 million-year-old fish annually -- a federal estimate based on industry reports.

If fish eggs, larvae and other organisms are added, the number killed rises into the tens of billions.

The best alternatives to intakes are massive water-cooling towers that recycle and reuse water, dramatically reducing the number of fish that are killed. But those would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to install, and that cost could be passed on to customers.

Regulators are leaning on the plants' operators to consider alternatives to the intake water cooling systems.

EPA water resources director Evelyn McKnight told The (Wilmington) News Journal that her agency has targeted Conectiv's plant and Valero's refinery for renewal of long-outdated permits. That permitting process is carried out by the state.

Delaware regulators said they plan to push the companies during the renewal process to consider installing cooling towers.

John Hughes, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said his agency has urged both Valero and Conectiv to consider cooling systems that spare more fish.

"We've got a strong argument. I've made the argument personally at the highest levels with Valero that ... they need to look at cooling water as a major investment issue," Hughes said.

The EPA estimated in 2002 that the refinery intakes destroy 775,879 pounds of weakfish annually. Counting egg and larval losses, the EPA estimated that the same refinery cost the river 662,871 pounds of striped bass -- more than four times the number taken by rod and reel or net in 2003.

"There hasn't really been a significant change to the intake system at the refinery, I don't believe, since the mid-60s at least," said Roy Miller, who directs state fish and shellfish programs. "It's high time."

Attempts by The News Journal to reach Valero officials for comment on the company's plans were unsuccessful.

The impact of the intake systems is not just environmental, but economic. Annual economic damages from the river's four largest power plants are estimated at $49 million, according to one Environmental Protection Agency study.

"The final estimates may well underestimate the full ecological and economic value of these losses," an EPA research office reported in 2002.

Today, President Bush Signed The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation And Management Reauthorization Act Of 2006. By signing this bill, the President reaffirmed our commitment to protect America's fisheries and keep our commercial and recreational fishing communities strong. This Act will end over-fishing in America, help us replenish our Nation's fish stocks, and advance international cooperation and ocean stewardship.

The Signing Of The Magnuson-Stevens Act Completes A Goal From The Administration's 2004 Ocean Action Plan – And Caps Two Years Of Accomplishment In Ocean Conservation. In 2004, the Administration released its Ocean Action Plan to promote an ethic of responsible use and stewardship of our ocean and coastal resources. Since its release, the plan has produced good results:

• Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument: In June 2006, President Bush signed a proclamation establishing the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, the largest single conservation area in the history of our country. 
• Gulf Coast Regional Plan: The Administration worked with the five Gulf Coast states in their effort to establish a regional plan – released in March 2006 – to enhance water quality and protect our coastal habitats.
• U.N. Resolution To Stop Destructive Fishing Practices On The High Seas: In November 2006, America worked with other countries on a new U.N. resolution to help stop destructive fishing practices on the high seas.
• Conservation Plan For The Dry Tortugas: In December 2006, the Administration finalized its work with the State of Florida to create a conservation plan for the Dry Tortugas – an important nature preserve in the Florida Keys.
• Additional Legislation: In December 2006, the President signed into law a bill to create the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail and a bill to help identify and prevent marine debris.
• Advancing Research: The Administration developed a ten-year Ocean Research Priorities Plan and Implementation Strategy to guide science and technology development.
• Promoting Ocean Literacy: In June 2006, the White House supported a Conference on Ocean Literacy concerning the ocean's importance to our national heritage, economy, and security.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act Builds On The Administration's Progress Implementing Its Ocean Action Plan

1. The Act Sets A Firm Deadline To End Over-Fishing In America By 2011. Over-fishing occurs when more fish from a species are caught than is sustainable, endangering the species' long-term existence. This Act directs Regional Fishery Management Councils to establish annual quotas in Federally-managed fisheries to end over-fishing by 2010 for fish stocks currently undergoing over-fishing and by 2011 for all other Federally-managed fish stocks.
2. The Act Uses Market-Based Incentives To Replenish America's Fish Stocks. The Act will help us double the number of limited-access privilege programs by the year 2010. Limited-access privilege programs assign specific shares of the annual harvest quota to eligible fishermen, fishing communities, and regional fishery associations. Increasing the number of these programs will end the race for fish, improve the quality of catches, and protect those who earn their livelihood from fishing.
3. The Act Strengthens Enforcement Of America's Fishing Laws. Under the Act, those who break the law can lose their individual fishing quotas. The Act also expands cooperation between State and Federal officials to ensure our fishing laws are fully enforced, and it encourages the use of the latest technology in vessel-monitoring to aid in the real-time tracking of fishing boats.
4. The Act Improves Information And Decisions About The State Of Ocean Ecosystems. The Act creates several programs to improve the quality of information used by fishery managers and establishes regional registries for recreational fishermen. It also provides for improved assessment of the effects of proposed fishery management actions through timely, clear, and concise analysis that is useful to decision makers and more effectively involves the public.

The Act Provides New Tools To Improve The Administration's Cooperative Conservation Efforts. The President believes that to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century we must bring together conservationists, fishermen, sportsmen, and business leaders in a spirit of cooperation, and we must continue to listen to the needs of States, communities, and local citizens. This Act promotes community-based efforts to restore local fish habitats by helping Federal agencies partner with State and local organizations.

Did you ever wonder why your favorite reef site looks like an 18-hole golf course? The main obstacles a player faces on these offshore courses are not sand traps and water hazards, they are fish traps.

The golf flags, more appropriately called high flyers, that you see bobbing in the waves mark the locations of commercial fish and lobster traps. The benign appearance of the flags on the surface belies the large quantity of unseen fishing gear below. There is typically a flag marking each end of a pot string. Pot strings are several hundred feet long and have dozens of traps attached. The reason your favorite reef looks like a golf course is that commercial fishermen recognize that there are a lot of sea bass, tog and lobster living on the reef structures below. Their plan, of course, is to catch them and, obviously, the more pots they set, the more fish they hope to take – that’s par for the course.

Why should recreational fishermen care if reef sites become golf courses? There are several reasons, but the one that pops into anglers’ heads first is that the traps are catching lots of fish. Anglers resent competition on reefs that were largely paid for by the contributions of many sportfishing and diving clubs. In fact, the New Jersey reef program, run by the Division of Fish and Wildlife, is funded by Federal Aid to Sportfish Funds, acquired from a national excise tax paid on all sportfishing equipment.

The pot lines also compete directly with recreational fishermen in another way. The bottom lines that connect the numerous traps together are polypropylene, which means the line floats up in arcs off the ocean bottom between each pair of traps. When recreational boats drift between two pot flags, everyone on the boat snags the pot line and loses their rig. Anchors may also snag pot strings. The end result is that one or two commercial fishermen can set enough gear on a reef site to both dominate the catch and reduce access to all other boats. And this monopoly goes on continuously, 24/7, without a commercial fisherman anywhere in sight.

When traps are lost by commercial fishermen, either through storms or by being snagged in reef structures, these “ghost” pots continue to fish, catching a stream of fish, crabs and lobsters, all doomed to a slow death, until the traps deteriorate and ultimately break apart.

Past and present experience shows that the problem will continue to get worse. As reef construction expands, so do the number of pots on reefs. Every time a new structure is placed on the sea floor, pot flags appear around it.

Years ago, anglers in southeast states decided they would rather fish than play golf and took steps to eliminate golf flags – commercial high flyers – from their local reef sites. This was done through the Southeast Fisheries Management Council which had the power to designate reefs as Special Management Zones (SMZs). SMZ status allowed states to regulate the types of fishing gear that could be used on reef sites. In this case, commercial traps were prohibited.

The same thing can be done in New Jersey by petitioning the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council. This step should be taken by state reef managers at the Division of Fish and Wildlife. It will, however, take a ground swell of public insistence to get this process moving and to provide the clout needed to adopt this measure.

If you are not yet ready to trade in your rods and reels for a set of clubs and a pair of spiked shoes, I suggest you advise, as an individual or as a club, the following two people of your concerns and proposed action on this matter:

Lisa P. Jackson, Commissioner
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
401 E. State Street
7th Floor, East Wing
PO Box 402
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0402

Gilbert H. Ewing, Jr., Chairman
New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council 501
East State Street, 3rd Floor
PO Box 400
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0400

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 12/19/06
By Kirk Moore (Toms River Bureau)

TOMS RIVER — Fifteen miles upriver from its yacht clubs and rumbling motor yachts, the Toms River is so narrow one can jump across in some spots.

Flowing from its headwaters in Millstone Township and Jackson, the river drains 25 percent of the land area adjacent to Barnegat Bay — carrying with it all the pollution of a burgeoning population, scientists say.

So Thursday night, environmental activists framed their arguments for having the state declare the Toms River a Category 1 stream to provide it with special protections, such as 300-foot buffer areas on either side of the river and its major tributaries, where land clearing and building would be banned.

Buffers "trap the nutrients and pollutants carried by runoff" during rainstorms, said Susan Kennedy of the American Littoral Society, one of the environmental groups that filed a petition Nov. 1 asking the state Department of Environmental Protection to extend Category 1 regulations to the Toms River.

DEP officials have levied Category 1 rules along the Shark, Manasquan and Metedeconk rivers. Some landowners along the upper Toms River are already subjected to even more strict state Pinelands rules for 600- foot buffers, noted Richard Bizub of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.

But elsewhere along the stream, buffers are as little as 50 feet wide, in areas that have rapidly built up in recent years, Bizub said. When it comes to paving and building in a river watershed, coverage of 10 percent of the land is a "tipping point" when the diversion of rainwater that used to soak into the ground begins to change the river water chemistry, he said.

The groups' Category 1 petition seeks to widen buffers along the main stem of the Toms and major tributaries like Mirey Run in Jackson and the Union, Davenport and Wranglebrook branches in Manchester and Berkeley.

Long-term scientific monitoring shows changes in the river's chemistry, said Michael Kennish, a research professor at Rutgers University. But the bigger environmental danger is the effect that nitrogen compounds flushing out of the river have in Barnegat Bay, he stressed.

"Once you get into salt water, nitrogen becomes a big deal," Kennish said. Emitted from suburban sources like fertilized lawns and animal waste, the nitrogen literally fertilizes the bay, enabling rapid growth of undesirable algae, he said.

Some algae are microscopic plants that become algae blooms, darkening bay waters and starving native eelgrass beds of sunlight, Kennish said. Others are macroalgae, big plants like slimy sea lettuce that smothers the eelgrass and the shellfish that live there, he said.

"There's a good chance the loss of bay scallops is related to the loss of sea grasses," said Kennish, author of a forthcoming report that documents eelgrass declines of 50 percent to 88 percent in Barnegat and Little Egg Harbor bays. "It's chain reaction. The science is there."

The effect extends beyond Barnegat Bay, too, and plays a role in the population dynamics of economically valuable saltwater fish species, said Thomas P. Fote of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association.

Summer flounder spawn offshore, but baby flounders grow up in coastal bays, the broodstock for a fishery that party and charter boat captains say is 40 percent of their business.

"They grow to 9 1/2 inches the first season in the bay,"' Fote said. "Without that life support system, there is no summer flounder. There's no weakfish, no striped bass, no crabs."

Kennedy of the Littoral Society said activists want their supporters to call and write the governor's office and DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson to urge acceptance of the Category 1 petition.

Peg Sturmfels of the New Jersey Environmental Federation said supporters want to win over local municipal officials also, from township environmental commissions to mayors and planning boards. "We want these 300-foot buffers. This can't be negotiable," she said.