March 4, 2011

State fishing chief secretive on council nominees
By Richard Gaines
Staff Writer The Gloucester Daily Times Fri Mar 04, 2011, 06:07 PM EST


Editor's note: This is a corrected version of this story. The original incorrectly named the federal regional fisheries management council to which Rita Merritt was denied reappointed by U.S. Commerce Secertary Gary Locke.



Gov. Deval Patrick's director of marine fisheries dropped a veil of secrecy Thursday over the process for nominating candidates for four seats — including that of chairman John Pappalardo — on the embattled federal New England Fisheries Management Council.

Pappalardo, who must step down from the council in August after serving the maximum three, three-year terms, is CEO of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association.

The only known candidate under consideration by state Marine Fisheries Director Paul Diodati is Tom Dempsey, who is policy director for the Cape Cod fishermen's association, reporting to Pappalardo at the group's Chatham headquarters.

Diodati's spokeswoman, Catherine Williams, declined to discuss the selection process or identify other candidates who have put their interest in serving on the council in writing.

"It is not appropriate to discuss the process in public," Williams said in a telephone interview. She would only say that there was a solicitation process, and that the Division of Marine Fisheries "received nine complete applications, which are currently under review."

Not all New England states process nominees behind closed doors. New Hampshire, for example, holds public meetings.

"In New Hampshire," said New Hampshire fisherman and councilor David Goethel, "we use an open town meeting-type process in which anyone interested in the seat shows up and is questioned for several hours by members of the public, both commercial, recreational and anyone else."

The Times filed a public records request with the Patrick administration on Wednesday seeking the names of the state's applicants and potential nominees. State law requires a response — either the delivery of the records or a claimed exemption — within 10 days.

Editorializing Wednesday, the Cape Cod Times argued that, unless Dempsey were picked to succeed Pappalardo, Cape Cod's population of commercial fishermen will be "disenfranchised."

The reported value of landings from the combined ports of Chatham and Provincetown was $19.7 million, putting Cape Cod 40th nationally in the 2009 figures, the most recent available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Yet Gloucester, which ranks 11th nationally with landings valued at $50.4 million, has not had a commercial fishermen on the council since 2002 — the year Pappalardo was appointed.

"Gloucester needs to be represented on the council," Mayor Carolyn Kirk said Thursday in a statement to the Times. "We demand a fair and transparent process in order to make the case for our city. The council needs many viewpoints at the table that can vigorously debate policy."

The Cape Cod Hook Fishermen's Association is a polarizing force within the New England fishing industry, and is allied with the federal government in fighting a federal lawsuit filed by the ports of Gloucester and New Bedford and joined by the commonwealth.

Inordinate influence by the hook fishermen's group and their environmental allies has become a flashpoint in the expanding fight over federal regulations and the conversion of the New England fishery to the controversial catch share management system.

The hook fishermen's group has used more than $4 million in grant funding from the Pew Environment Group and other foundations, developing the model for the New England groundfishery catch share program — the focus of the federal lawsuit by the cities of Gloucester and New Bedford and fishing interests from Maine to North Carolina.

Diodati must vet candidates for nomination, and send the list to the governor to winnow the list if necessary and send three nominees — with or without preferences — to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. Locke will then announce appointees this spring, in time for the new or reappointed federal fisheries councilors to take office in August.

Patrick's list is due to Locke by March 15. Of the four councilors facing expiring terms, all except Pappalardo can be reappointed.

March 15 is also the date for the scheduled federal court showdown, with Gloucester, New Bedford and other fishing industry plaintiffs alleging the hook fishermen's group has improperly benefited by the mechanics of the catch share system that Pappalardo's council created over a three-year period.

Among the claims made in the lawsuit is that the council, under Pappalardo's leadership, gave preferential treatment in fish allocations to the hook fishermen.

The association rebuts that claim in its filings in the case. Yet the hook fishermen's association leased more than 2 million pounds of its allocation in the first six months of the new catch share market system.

"The CCCHFA have used their position on the council — and significant financial contributions from non-government organizations — to channel (environmental group) influence and impose an unpopular management system — catch share/sectors on an unwilling commercial fishing industry based in Gloucester and New Bedford," said Stephen Ouellette, a co-lead attorney in the lawsuit.

"Meanwhile," he said, "Gloucester has remained without a voice on the council. To replace the CCCHFA member whose term is expiring with another member of the organization would perpetuate manipulation of the system and continue the disenfranchisement of the majority of fishermen."

No public notice was issued by the Patrick administration for candidates to join the council, which has come under intense criticism in the past two years amid a growing schism between the big ports and the hook fishermen's group, which is held out by its sponsors and investors in the environmental sector as a paradigm of more ethical operations.

New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang has alleged that the Environmental Defense Fund and Pew have used their ties to the hook fishermen's organization to improperly influence council policy.

Brian Rothschild, marine scientist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, testified before a congressional subcommittee last year that the council system and the selection process was broken and needed radical reform.

New appointments are expected this spring from Locke, based on advice from Jane Lubchenco, the former Environmental Defense Fund board member who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Locke and Lubchenco have systematically eliminated critics and skeptics of catch shares.

Last year, Locke replaced a North Carolina member of the South Atlantic fisheries council who had clashed with Monica Medina, Lubchebnco's choice to head the federal catch share task force. Medina, an attorney who had been with the Pew Environment Group, was on the transition team that nominated Lubchenco to then President-elect Obama to head NOAA.

No explanation was given for the decision not to reappoint Rita Merritt, who had the support of North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, North Carolina's U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagen, and Congressman Walter Jones, who represents the Outer Banks.

Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000 x3464, or at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.