NH AG’s Office Heads to DC to Fight for Fishermen’s Rights in Lawsuit
WASHINGTON, April 03–In an attempt to protect New Hampshire fishermen’s livelihood, representatives of the state’s Attorney General’s office and the Division of Marine Fisheries will travel to Washington on Friday for round-the clock mediation talks on efforts to conserve groundfish.
Among the participants will be the environmental groups that sued the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for failing to protect the groundfish, which include such species as haddock, cod and flounder.
U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in favor of the environmental groups in December, agreeing that the NMFS had not done enough to meet catch reduction requirements in the Gulf of Maine and other areas. Congress had instructed the NMFS to do more to rebuild the region’s depleted groundfish industry.
The case is now in its remedial phase, and several proposed remedies have been filed with the court, including one from the New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island state governments.
The states – concerned about potentially severe restrictions that could hurt the economic fate of fishermen in their states – became intervenors in the case in January. New Hampshire did this because it does not want the court to decide the best way to rebuild groundfish populations, according to Peter Roth, New Hampshire’s senior assistant attorney general.
“Governor [Jeanne] Shaheen directed the Attorney General’s office to get involved in the remedy stage of this case to make sure the interest of fishermen is considered, said Shaheen’s spokeswoman, Pamela Walsh. “We’re concerned that the federal government’s proposal and the suggestion made by the plaintiffs jeopardize the ability of New Hampshire fishermen and their safety,” she said.
Judge Kessler referred the case to mediation on March 29 after it became clear that the two parties, along with various intervenors, including fishermen and boat owners, had very disparate views on how to resolve the dispute.
Senior assistant attorney general Roth is most concerned about thwarting remedies presented in court documents by the two sides that would hurt fishermen.
A remedy proposed by the NMFS, for example, would reduce the number of days fishermen could fish in May and June. Roth said the proposal “will force fishermen out of the water during prime fishing season. It forces them to do much of their fishing in the fall and winter months, when it’s not safe to fish, or, under the complicated way the proposal is set up, work long hours during the prime season. Either way it’s dangerous.”
Another possibility, introduced by the Conservation Law Foundation – the lead environmental group that sued NMFS – would impose a hard cap on fishermen’s allowable catch. The foundation’s proposed remedy would also require fishermen to buy electronic monitoring equipment and hire on-board observers. Court filings that Roth helped prepare, however, contend that on-board monitors are ineffective and that hard cap restrictions are not equally effective for different species of fish.
The alternative remedy plan that New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island proposed on March 15 – that Roth and others will tout during the mediation discussions in Washington – calls instead for modifications to fishermen’s existing gear, limits to the types and amount of gear that can be used and limits to fishing days during certain groundfish harvest times without unduly restricting in-shore fishermen.
Roth said New Hampshire intervened on the side of the federal agency simply because it had to choose a side. The state, he said, is aligned with neither the conservation groups nor the NMFS, but with the state’s fishermen. Joining Roth on the trip to Washington will be John Nelson, the chief of the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries. Approximately 35 people will be present at the mediation hearings, according to Priscilla Brooks, the marine project director at the Conservation Law Foundation in Woods Hole, Mass. Jennifer Patterson, a senior assistant attorney general in charge of the Environmental Protection Bureau, said the parties will be in separate rooms and the mediator will travel from room to room. Court documents say the mediation proceedings “will be conducted on a round-the-clock, emergency basis.”
The case, The Conservation Law Foundation et al. v. Donald Evans et al., will continue during mediation, according to Judge Kessler’s clerk, Jacqueline Michaels
Nancy Stanley, director of the alternative dispute resolution program, who is handling the mediation process in Washington, said the proceedings are confidential. After next Wednesday, if no consensus is reached, the case will go back to Judge Kessler.
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
