Struggling NH fishermen doubt that a high court ruling can help
Feb. 9—Forty years ago, New Hampshire had hundreds of commercial fishermen filling their nets in the waters off the state's 13 miles of coastline.
That number has dwindled to half a dozen full-time fishermen as federal regulations have pushed the industry to what some view as an irreparable state.
"The federal government destroyed the fishery," said Jon Savage, a part-time commercial fisherman out of Rye Harbor. "As they enhanced the regulations with all the cutbacks and whatnot, the markets failed or disappeared, so now there isn't anybody competing for the fish."
Savage runs the Taylor Mae, which he uses to gillnet for cod, haddock and pollock. Federal restrictions limit the number of days he can be on the water and the number of fish he can catch.
As the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to curtail the broad power of federal agencies to regulate industries such as commercial fishing — referred to as "Chevron deference," after the case that established the landmark doctrine — captains and fishermen wait to see what the impact could be on fishing limits and monitoring requirements.
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council that judges must defer to federal agencies' "reasonable interpretation" of ambiguous federal laws, which critics say gives the agencies unchecked power.
The current case under review by the Supreme Court challenges federal rules requiring commercial fishermen to foot the bill for at-sea monitors. A ruling is expected this spring.
Any decision to overturn or scale back the doctrine could limit the flexibility federal agencies have to regulate significant elements of American life, like the environment, financial markets, public health and the workplace, the Washington Post wrote.
If the challenge is rejected, commercial fishermen will have to pay at least $700 a day to have a monitor accompany them out to sea and record details of their trips, including the type and number of fish caught and thrown back.
But even if costs associated with the monitoring program are permanently suspended, many say the damage to commercial fishermen's profits and livelihoods has been done.
Waking the dead
Before the Magnuson-Stevens Act preventing overfishing was passed in 1976, New Hampshire fishermen used to land 7 million pounds of fish a year. Now, they average from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds a trip.
"Fishermen are lucky to catch $800 worth of fish a day and now they're being told they have to give it up to an observer?" Savage said. "Is this going to kill the fishing industry? It's already dead. They (the government) want to reduce the fishery to a handful of big boats that they can manage."
In January, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella joined prosecutors from 26 other states in supporting the Supreme Court challenge.
"For decades now, unelected bureaucrats at federal agencies have been using a legal principle known as Chevron deference to operate like a fourth branch of the government," Formella said. "We now see courts deferring to federal agencies as they bend the law, grow their size, and expand their power over the everyday lives of Americans."
Burden of regulation
New England fishermen say the latest federal requirement could put them under.
"I very rarely get flagged for observers, but I will tell you, if it gets to the point where we are responsible for $700 a day, I will not fish that day," said Joe Letourneau, owner and captain of the Lady Rebecca out of Newburyport, Mass.
"There is no way I can leave the dock knowing my expenses for the entire trip go from $600 to $1,300- plus and still feel optimistic that I can make a paycheck for me and my crew," Letourneau said. "That small, meager paycheck would be a break-even or a loss because of that observer."
To bypass the need for an observer, some fishermen, like Mike Anderson, opted to purchase and install cameras to record the deck and stream all fishing activity at a cost of about $550 a day. Anderson runs the Rimrack out of Rye Harbor.
He still must check the system at least five times — 48 hours before he leaves the dock, when the vessel leaves the dock, when the vessel arrives at its designated fishery, when the vessel leaves that fishery and when it arrives back at the dock. It also must record how many fish the vessel caught while out.
Anderson, 70, has been fishing most of his life for everything from groundfish to shrimp, scallops, squid and horseshoe crabs. Thinking back to the 1960s, he said monitors have been around for decades, but they've never been this strict.
"There were people waiting in the bushes for us, like instead of producing food for the average citizen, we were a bunch of alcohol-and drug-addicted poachers," Anderson recalled. "It drove a lot of people out of business.
"Right now, there are three, maybe four (full-time) ground fishermen and we're operating on nothing," he said. "We're not allowed to catch anything."
Bigger problems ahead
Lucas Raymond, a younger-generation fisherman who captains the Witchcraft out of Rye Harbor, said bigger issues are at play, including poor management of fishing resources and infringement on fishermen's privacy and constitutional rights.
"I don't know of any other industry where the government has cameras on a private sector's workforce constantly or they have someone standing over them, watching what they do, writing it down and watching every move they make," said Raymond, 31.
"I don't think fisheries are being managed correctly at all or to preserve fish species or fisheries. They're managed to encourage corporate capture of the industry and essentially of the ocean in the end."
But cost and privacy are only pieces of the puzzle, Raymond said. Federal regulations and monitoring have a detrimental effect on how commercial fishermen fish, from how long and often they can go out to how much they can keep.
"A very important part of this that is lost in translation somehow is that our industry feeds people. These issues we're having are very big and very broad, and I don't quite think people understand the complexity or the scale of the issues this is causing," he said.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, prices skyrocketed and protein was limited on grocery store shelves. People were turning to their local farmers and fishermen for food sources, while New England continued to export 90% of its seafood supply.
"Our struggles are not limited to observers," Raymond said. "There is a constant onslaught of attacks on our industry, and a fair majority of them are just blatant falsehoods that come from a general misunderstanding of what we do and why."
