Important Herring Meeting, Comment period

[twofinbluna]

Hey guys

Some important herring reminders. As many of you know, the New England Fishery Management Council has been developing a herring amendment known as Amendment 5 since 2008. This amendment was started because of the public concerns over the lack of observer coverage in the herring midwater/pair trawl fleet. With concerns over bycatch and the dumping of catch, it is very important that this amendment is done right to ensure proper management of those trawlers.

Some of the monitoring issues addressed by the amendment right now are observer coverage, catch weighing, catch sampling, and the dumping of catch (before observers are able to sample it). But while this document started as one strictly addressing monitoring, it has grown to include measures to address the bycatch river herring and access by midwater boats to closed groundfish areas.

After numerous meetings and hard work by both members of the public, Council members and Council staff, the staff began work on the Draft Environmental Impact States (EIS) in the late spring, and is now wrapping up work on this document. This is basically the current draft of the amendment as well as lots of analysis on the measures included and the impacts of these possible measures.

On September 29th, the Council will be spending the whole day on herring, with the hopes of reviewing and then approving the draft EIS. This document will then be worked on further by staff, and then sent out to the public for a comment period. This is a very important step in the process since it is important that the document contains the right measures to eventually allow for a strong amendment.

So, the first reminder (which I already mentioned) is that there will be an important meeting on September 29th. This meeting will start at 8am and will run all day. The meeting is at the Coco Key Resort and Hotel (formerly the Sheraton) on Ferncroft road in Danvers, MA.

I know its still a busy time of year, but it would be great if people could make it out, even if for only part of the day. The Council will be deciding what stays in the document and what does not, and it is very important that they keep all the important measures in to go out to the public with. The fear here is the supporters of the midwater trawlers will be able to strip important pieces out of the document at this important stage of the process.

To view the current state of the amendment you can go to the Council's herring page, found here: http://www.nefmc.org/herring/index.html and scroll down, there are a handful of links regarding Am 5.

Second, it is equally important that we get some comments in to the Council to stress to them the importance of keeping the document intact. I will post up a sample comment in the next post (this one is getting too long) and it would be great if people could send one in…. stay tuned for that post....

[twofinbluna]

Here is a sample letter you can use. While it is always best if people write their own individualized comments, this sample could be used as it if need be. But I would encourage people to either use this as a model, or to at least take this one and make some tweaks to personalize it a bit. If you are a charter captain or commercial fisherman, you should naturally change up that first line a bit..

While I kept it simple and focused on the general problem of monitoring, some of the other issues you could mention are the measures that deal with access of midwater trawlers to groundfish closed areas, or the measures to address the bycatch of river herring. I would suggest reading some of the documents on the Council site though before commenting on specific meaures so that you know what you are commenting on..

Comments should be sent in ASAP, but can go in up until a few days prior to the meeting. These comments should be emailed to Lori Steele, who is the Council staffer in charge of all this, and here email is: lsteele@nefmc.org Ask her to please submit your comment for the meeting on the 29th.

----------------------

Doug Grout, Chairman
Herring Oversight Committee
New England Fishery Management Council
50 Water Street, Mill 2
Newburyport, MA 01950

Re: Herring Amendment 5 Draft EIS

Dear Doug,

I am a recreational fisherman and am submitting this comment in regards to the herring discussion that will take place at the Council meeting on September 29, specifically the approval of the Draft EIS for Herring Amendment 5.

Management of herring is critical to myself and almost every other fisherman in the region. For too long there has been concerns over the monitoring of the herring midwater trawl fishery and it is time for the Council to finally address this issue.

Over the last three years much work has been done on Amendment 5 and there are numerous measures in the current document that could fix many of the problems in this fishery. I strongly urge the Council to keep this document intact at the meeting on the 29th. It is important that the Council allows for the many current measures in the document to be analyzed further and then sent out to the public. Now is not the time to be removing any of these measures. Please do what is right and send out a strong document with a full range of management alternatives.

Thanks for your time,

[twofinbluna]

Meant to say that if any of you have questions about any of this, please post them up!

[twofinbluna]

Guys not sure if the lack of responses means there is a lack of people sending in comments, but I hope not. Does not get any easier than this to comment. This amendment is dealing with the herring pair trawlers. Enough said.

Here is a sample letter you can use. While it is always best if people write their own individualized comments, this sample could be used as it if need be. But I would encourage people to either use this as a model, or to at least take this one and make some tweaks to personalize it a bit. If you are a charter captain or commercial fisherman, you should naturally change up that first line a bit..

While I kept it simple and focused on the general problem of monitoring, some of the other issues you could mention are the measures that deal with access of midwater trawlers to groundfish closed areas, or the measures to address the bycatch of river herring. I would suggest reading some of the documents on the Council site though before commenting on specific meaures so that you know what you are commenting on..

Comments should be sent in ASAP, but can go in up until a few days prior to the meeting. These comments should be emailed to Lori Steele, who is the Council staffer in charge of all this, and here email is: lsteele@nefmc.org Ask her to please submit your comment for the meeting on the 29th.

----------------------

Doug Grout, Chairman
Herring Oversight Committee
New England Fishery Management Council
50 Water Street, Mill 2
Newburyport, MA 01950

Re: Herring Amendment 5 Draft EIS

Dear Doug,

I am a recreational fisherman and am submitting this comment in regards to the herring discussion that will take place at the Council meeting on September 29, specifically the approval of the Draft EIS for Herring Amendment 5.

Management of herring is critical to myself and almost every other fisherman in the region. For too long there has been concerns over the monitoring of the herring midwater trawl fishery and it is time for the Council to finally address this issue.

Over the last three years much work has been done on Amendment 5 and there are numerous measures in the current document that could fix many of the problems in this fishery. I strongly urge the Council to keep this document intact at the meeting on the 29th. It is important that the Council allows for the many current measures in the document to be analyzed further and then sent out to the public. Now is not the time to be removing any of these measures. Please do what is right and send out a strong document with a full range of management alternatives.

Thanks for your time,

[horsemackeral]

Guys not sure if the lack of responses means there is a lack of people sending in comments, but I hope not. Does not get any easier than this to comment. This amendment is dealing with the herring pair trawlers. Enough said.

twofin,

I am writing..... whatever good it will do.

cb

[fshsltwtr]

submitted

[twofinbluna]

Nice work guys. Writing in always helps, and it is especially helpful at the Council level.

[horsemackeral]

Nice work guys. Writing in always helps, and it is especially helpful at the Council level.

twofin,

I have drafted mine in the form of an actual letter. I have been at several of these NMFS "meetings" from Boston to Gloucester and came to the conclusion they do not consider emails seriously. (or anything else but the self proclaimed "science" they adhere to)

I defer to your judgment- draft letters the old fashioned way or ping in emails? (Obviously any course of action is better than none.)

cb

[twofinbluna]

cb- Its always ideal to actually send in a letter but it is perfectly fine to do it as an attachment to an email. No need to mail anything in by normal mail unless you do not use email (and you can always fax in that case, let me know if any of you need a fax #...). Sending a comment in as a letter attached to an email will make your comment look better/more formal in the Council binder, and will show you made a little extra effort.

But the big thing is getting something in, as you point out. If people only have time to shoot in an email comment, they should do that.

Thanks!

[Pete Santini]

sent mine this morning come on everybody who fishes tuna bass any fish that eats herring send an email it takes 2 minutes