THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 17, 1995 TAG: 9512170146
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: SPECIAL REPORT
DIVIDING THE WATERS
The crisis facing the Chesapeake Bay is a microcosm of the larger fate
that may await the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Virginia and North
Carolina. As U.S. commercial fishing nears the turn of the century,
the industry must resolve its problems or, like the fabled continent
of Atlantis, become a lost empire of the sea. Today, The
Virginian-Pilot begins a four-day report on the choices ahead.
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER AND LANE DeGREGORY, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 484 lines
Bill Amaru is rummaging through a small pile of fish his long mechanical nets just dragged from the bottom of Nantucket Sound, off Cape Cod.
Amid the wriggling mess are prehistoric-looking spider crabs, strands of gooey squid eggs, even an empty Diet Coke can.
But there are few fish.
``This is a joke,'' Amaru finally sighs, as he gathers a dozen or so summer flounder from the pile with an ice pick. ``Before, we would have caught this many in a matter of minutes. Now, practically nothing.''
Some 700 miles south of Massachusetts, on Hatteras Island in North Carolina, 52-year-old Gary Gray, a Buxton Beach resident who fishes with purse seine nets, echoes Amaru's complaint.
``There's not a lot of us left down here. Used to be, that's all anyone around here did was fish,'' says Gray. ``Four generations of my family, at least, worked the water for their only income. My boy who's 30, he still fishes some, part-time, with me. But I told him to get himself something else. He owns a pizza joint that's doing right well with the summer crowds.''
Just north of Hatteras on Roanoke Island, Joey Daniels, a third-generation waterman, runs Fisherman's Wharf Restaurant and the Wanchese Fish Co., a fish-packing operation that his grandfather began in 1936. The business still sells 4 million pounds of seafood each year. But it's getting harder to keep the enterprise afloat.
``The commercial fishing industry is not growing,'' says Daniels. ``It's shrinking - rapidly. When I was a kid, there were 100 gill net boats in this state. Now, there are about 25. There were 60 flynet operations out here until about 20 years ago. Now, there are 12.
``We're all looking for a way to keep working on the water,'' Daniels says. ``But it's getting harder - and more complicated - all the time.''
That commercial fishing is a hard life - physically demanding, fraught with unpredictability, subject to the whims of markets and dining fashion - is not news. Since biblical times, fishermen have been portrayed as necessarily hardy souls willing to brave the waves for a potential harvest of fish - and money.
But up and down the Atlantic Coast, fishermen and fish are fading fast. Remarkably, the stories are nearly identical, whether in Maine, Virginia or Florida: fish populations dive, governments intervene, fishermen protest, heritage is lost - and nothing is gained.
Residents of Hampton Roads, North Carolina and other communities near the Chesapeake Bay have witnessed this confounding trend during the past decade with the virtual extinction of the oyster and, more recently, fears that blue crabs are in serious decline.
These close-at-hand problems threatening the Chesapeake Bay are but a microcosm of the larger crisis facing the U.S., and the world's, ocean fisheries. What has already happened in New England - namely, an economic calamity resulting from the collapse of traditional groundfish stocks - stands as a harbinger of what could take place off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina if proper fishing policies aren't adopted.
Contrary to stereotypes, there are no bogeymen in this tragedy. Everyone shares in the blame: Fishermen got greedy; regulators reacted too slowly with limits that were too weak; scientists were not compelling enough with their warnings; pollution of the waters increased; politicians protected the status quo; and Third World competition has refused to play by any meaningful book of rules; and fish-finding and catching technology improved..
All these things have filled the hull of this nation's fishing industry with a slosh of complicated obstacles. So as the industry approaches the turn of the century, and as Congress debates new strategies, the question on the horizon is: Can it survive?
Considerable evidence suggests that, barring some dramatic change, significant portions of this nation's commercial fishing fleet may eventually slip beneath the waves. Consider that:
A commercial fishing hub since the early 1600s, Gloucester, Mass., is home to Gorton Seafood, makers of frozen fish sticks and fillets found in most supermarkets across the country. Gorton now imports most of its groundfish from Denmark and Iceland.
McDonald's, which once used cod for its fish sandwiches, has switched to pollock because the cod fishery has declined so dramatically in New England, dropping 23 percent in 1994 alone. In Canada, overfishing led to the shut-down of the cod industry, putting some 20,000 fishermen and processors out of work.
The United Nations estimates that 13 of 17 major ocean fisheries are in jeopardy, mostly because of overfishing. Scientists warn that 40 percent of U.S. fisheries are being harvested at biologically dangerous levels, and another 43 percent are approaching this precarious edge.
Landings of haddock, another traditional mainstay fish, dropped 63 percent in 1994 to just 724,000 pounds - the lowest amount landed since federal recordkeeping began in 1879, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
In the 1960s, before the federal government began regulating fish, 50 processing plants were in business in Gloucester, Mass. About a dozen are left. Less than 10 years ago, 450 fishing boats docked in Gloucester's horseshoe-shaped harbor. The fleet now numbers about 125.
Commerical fishermen face a bewildering maze of legislation: Last year, the federal government took 472 regulatory actions on commercial fisheries in the United States, according to the Commerce Department. Those actions didn't include other changes to rules on 11 species protected under management plans, and the launch of five other preliminary plans - also all in 1994.
A 20-year-old federal law, the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, was originally passed to bolster the U.S. fishing fleet and stave off foreign competition. Instead, the law created a lucrative tax shelter for the wealthy and accelerated trends that led to overfishing.
Overall, the number of fishing vessels in the United States doubled between 1975 and 1985, according to most estimates. In 1993, there were more than 34,000 U.S. fishing vessels weighing more than 5 tons - 20,000 more than in 1970.
This huge growth, which has led to overfishing, is partly attributed to a federal loan guarantee program - the Fisheries Obligation Guarantee Program - that made loans for up to 80 percent of the value for a new vessel, improvements or vessel refinancings. Since the program started, the program has guaranteed more than 1,400 financings worth about $760 million, said a program official.
Now, because of overfishing, the federal government has started a program to buy back some of the boats it financed with the first program. The government already has agreed to pay 13 New England fishermen $2 million to scrap their boats and surrender their fishing permits. Washington is poised to retire another $25 million worth of boats from the ecologically stressed New England region. Moreover, the program has already received 114 applications, which government officials said would require $52 million in boat buyouts.
Third World nations such as Costa Rica and Ecuador have become the new centers for American fishing companies fleeing the tangle of U.S. regulations. Of Costa Rica's six major seafood exporters, three are owned by Americans. And until United States dealers arrived in the early 1980s, native residents say they did not sell any fish internationally. Today, about 14,000 Costa Ricans are employed in that nation's seafood industry which pays workers between $1 and $2 an hour.
Not only do Third World nations contribute to market competition in America by shipping most of their catch north, they actually have created government incentives for their fishing industries to ship fish to the U.S. The Costa Rican government - like other Latin American nations - actually pays seafood dealers a 7.5 percent export incentive to encourage them to bring dollars into their depressed economy. For shipping $5,000 worth of fish to the States, for example, seafood exporters receive $375 from the Costa Rican government. THE NEW ENGLAND WAKE-UP CALL
These are but a few snapshots of a reeling U.S. fishing industry. They also underscore how far the many people entrusted with finding possible solutions - legislators, conservationists, scientists and fishermen - have to go in saving the industry.
Nearly everyone views what has happened in New England - and specifically on Georges Bank, one of the most historically productive offshore fishing grounds in the North Atlantic - as a wake-up call for reform.
To them, the system established by Congress nearly 20 years ago to regulate ocean fisheries, as outlined under the 1976 Magnuson Act, has failed and needs to be fixed.
Now.
``Georges Bank is pointed to as the poster child for mismanagement,'' said Steven A. Murawski, a biologist and chief of fish-population dynamics at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., a leading government laboratory.
``We will be the analogy for years to come of what not to do in protecting commercial fisheries,'' he said.
The Commerce Department responded to the New England crisis last winter, closing parts of Georges Bank and other waters in southern New England. It was an unprecedented move seen as a way to curb devastation of three traditional staple fish - cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder - until a broader recovery plan could be written.
That plan still is being debated at meeting halls from Boston to Bangor, Maine. But early drafts include recommendations that groundfishing be reduced by at least 60 percent, or, more dramatically, to ``as low a level as possible, approaching zero.''
The economic impact already has been harsh, and will probably get worse as more restrictions are enacted. Already, the Clinton administration has guaranteed $60 million in emergency loans and aid to displaced fishermen, and has approved another $25 million to buy back fishing boats.
Throughout the crisis, the notion of government limits on the number of people who can fish in the sea, of mandatory catch reports and ocean closures have chafed many New England fishermen, whose don't-tread-on-me stubborness is renowned.
``It's human nature, really, to take as much as you can if it's there for the taking. And that's how we've operated here for hundreds of years,'' said Howard W. Nickerson, executive director of the Offshore Mariners' Association in New Bedford, Mass.
``With all the advances and technology, we became very skilled fishermen - too good for our own good. So now we're all going to have to suffer to bring things back,'' Nickerson added. ``I just hope we can.''
Thomas Hill is one of those who saw the crash coming. But Hill could do little to stop it, even as a voting member of the New England Fishery Management Council, the group that recommends fishing policies in federal waters that extend from 3 to 200 miles offshore.
As early as 1991, Hill proposed strict limits on groundfishermen, even suggesting a moratorium in parts of Georges Bank. But, he recalls, ``people looked at me like I was absolutely nuts. Needless to say, I didn't make many friends.''
Hill served just one term, from 1991 to 1995, before being replaced. He calls what happened in those years ``the worst of both worlds'' - meaning New England lost its precious groundfishery and countless jobs.
Either one could have been saved, Hill believes, if the council had acted quickly and decisively.
``As sad as it is to say, I think we almost needed this to happen,'' said Hill, a marine consultant and lifelong resident of Gloucester, Mass.
``People needed to see the impacts of our weak decisions,'' he added, ``to show that people in the industry will knowingly do this in the face of all kinds of warnings and scientific evidence. Hopefully we'll learn something.''
Driving visitors around town in his family van, Hill passed the Gloucester waterfront, with its many chowder houses and seafood markets. He pointed to a newly opened appliance store on Main Street.
``That used to the seafarers' union hall,'' Hill said. ``Now it's gone.'' SCIENCE ATTEMPTS TO COUNT FISH
At the center of the debate over the future of commercial fishing are the fish themselves - or at least the scientific models that purport to gauge fish populations. The problem, of course, is that fish live in vast underwater areas, making fishery science a glass-bottomed guessing game at best.
Even scientists admit as much.
``There's never going to be enough data to make inescapabale conclusions,'' said Teri Frady, spokeswoman for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. ``Fish aren't trees; you can't see them. But you can extrapolate, and you can extrapolate to a high-degree of certainty.''
Yet these estimates form the basis for a dizzying array of important government rules and restrictions which, like the fish they regulate, are not easy to trail.
Last year alone, the federal government took 472 regulatory actions on commercial fisheries in the United States. Each of these moves required public hearings, public notices, public comment periods.
And then there were errors. The government was forced to issue several correction notices for wrong information released about pending actions and meetings.
So it should come as little surprise that fishermen often are skeptical of scientific findings that a particular species is in trouble or on the verge of collapse - which is exactly what many biologists are forcasting these days, especially on the Atlantic coast.
``Do I trust scientists? Yeah, sort of,'' Maine lobsterman Dave Norton said recently, in what can be viewed as a moderate fisherman's view of the scientific community.
``I think, generally, they're trying to help us,'' Norton added, ``but there's so many variables. I don't think anyone can say they know what's going on down there. The problem is, when they're wrong, they're still going to have their jobs. But we won't have our's.''
David E. Frulla, a Washington lawyer, has sued the government on behalf of fishing groups over science-based harvest quotas. He currently is involved in a suit challenging a proposed quota for surf clams and ocean quahogs, two species used mostly in canned clam chowders and frozen clam strips.
His arguments usually center on the validity of scientific research and how government officials shape results to foster their own goals, regardless of what they find.
``I see them (government scientists) trying to do more and more with computer models,'' said Frulla, of the law firm Brand, Lowell & Ryan. ``That may be because their budgets are tighter and they can't do as much field work. But they're coming up with some pretty screwy numbers.''
Fish stocks historically have fluctuated like the tides. To overcome this ebb-and-flow pattern, scientists agree that the government should set long-range plans that keep fishing pressure at a relatively constant level.
But currently, scientists lament, the management of ocean fisheries is a regulatory elevator that reacts, instead of stays ahead, of fish-population curves.
When annual surveys show a stock increase, fishermen demand that quotas go up. Conversely, when stocks decline, environmentalists argue that a crisis is near and that new restrictions are needed.
``Instead of managing from a bunch of snapshots, one after the other, we need the ability to make a motion picture,'' said Murawski, the fish-population chief at Woods Hole. ``Now go try to sell that to the public. You'll have people yelling that the scientists are just trying to take over.''
Indeed, scientists have a public-relations problem, and they know it. Too often they come across at public hearings as detached, cold, analytical, conniving.
Said Bill Amaru, the Cape Cod fisherman: ``They're smug. They give these long presentations at meetings and they have no passion, no feelings. I mean, they're talking about our livelihoods, our blood, our families. And they just flip chart after chart. You just turn off to that. You immediately don't want to believe them.''
Scientists say they're working on their public persona. The National Marine Fisheries Service, for example, now encourages its scientists to talk to the press - and to talk in small, understandable words.
Communications specialists often accompany reporters on personal interviews with scientists, and will intervene with common-sense analogies when a biologist begins to drift.
``We know we have to tell our story better,'' said Frady, communications director for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. ``Obviously we haven't done a good job.'' LESS BOAT TIME, MORE MEETINGS
If tracking fish seems a daunting endeavor, navigating the regulatory maze of fishing laws has become just as mind-boggling. The regulatory process involves a labyrinth of committees, advisory boards and government panels - all of which meet in different places at different times and with different responsibilities.
Trapped in this puzzle are fishermen, who often complain that they have no idea what management plan or regulation is currently in place. Indeed, so many agencies and committees are involved in the fray that some fishermen now spend more time at hearings than they do on the water.
The law that created much of this system is the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Passed by Congress in 1976, the act was intended to stop powerful foreign fishing fleets from gobbling up fish stocks close to the American coast.
And it worked, sort of. Russian, Japanese and European fleets were pushed back 200 miles from American shores. But the law also left a void - too few U.S. vessels to harvest the fishery - and in turn created an unintended boat-building frenzy.
Government subsidies, in the form of tax breaks and loan guarantees, kicked in to boost the U.S. fleet. The loan guarantee program, known as the Fisheries Obligation Guarantee Program or FOG, was established in the early 1970s.
But instead of attracting just commercial fishermen looking to upgrade their boats, the program, with its lucrative investment tax credit, enticed private capital into the race to build boats.
Some investors had little or no knowledge of the industry. ``A lot of doctors and lawyers looking for the tax credit bought boats,'' said Barbara Stevenson, a native of Exmore, Va., and a member of the New England Fisheries Management Council, which recommends regulations for federal waters.
The tax credit allowed buyers of new fishing vessels to take 10 percent of the purchase price off their individual income tax liabilities up to $25,000, said Pam Young, a partner at Goodman & Co., a Virginia accounting firm. The credit could be applied to 85 percent of tax liabilities over $25,000. Credits could be used up to 15 years after being earned.
And after building the boats, the investors could then lease them to fishermen to service the federal loan.
``If I remember correctly, at the time, most vessels lost money,'' Young said. ``It was a nice tax shelter.''
``It was a misguided program,'' said Douglas Hall, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere. ``We knew that the capitalization issue was getting way out of hand years ago.''
Because the law encouraged too much investment, the tax credit was repealed as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
But the damage had been done. With so much money buying so many technologically advanced boats, some popular fish species didn't stand a chance. The New England groundfishery, in existence for more than 300 years, collapsed within two decades.
Now, nearly 20 years later, Congress faces the job of revising the Magnuson Act to stop a fishing frenzy that threatens jobs and the environment. The irony is that the culprit is a fleet Congress helped create. CONGRESS GETS INVOLVED
In October, the House passed a fishery-related bill applauded by conservation and industry groups alike. The Senate is not expected to vote until next year, but observers and lawmakers say they expect a strong bill to emerge.
``I think what everybody's seeing is that if these (fish) stocks are not protected better, everybody loses,'' said U.S. Rep. Owen Pickett, a Norfolk Democrat and a member of the House Resources Committee, which drafted the fishery bill. Pickett voted for the measure.
The bill does little to change the regulatory system created in 1976 that many fishermen find so obtrusive. Its framework looks something like this:
The seascape subject to federal regulation extends from 3 to 200 miles offshore and is called the Exclusive Economic Zone. The Commerce Department oversees these waters.
But two agencies within that department handle most of the work: the National Oceanic and Atmopsheric Administration carries out most duties, and, within NOAA, the National Marine Fisheries Service conducts most of the scientific research.
Congress now is debating whether to scrap this system and let another department regulate fisheries, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a branch of the Interior Department.
Eight regional fishing councils were established across the country in 1976 to advise the Commerce Department on local policy preferences in federal waters. Virginia belongs to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, headquartered in Delaware. Some states belong to two councils. North Carolina, a member of the Southeast Fishery Management Council, is now pressing to join the Mid-Atlantic Council, too, arguing that it is left out of important decision-making.
If that regulatory network doesn't seem complex enough, there are still the state waters, extending from oceanfronts to 3 miles offshore. Those waters are overseen by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
In addition, the ASMFC has advisory boards for each of the 16 species it controls through management plans.
Of course, some species are caught in federal and state waters, which can cause even greater overlap. Lobsters, for example, fall under the scrutiny of the Maine Department of Natural Resouces, the ASMFC, and the New England Fishery Management Council.
Bruce Freeman, North Carolina's director of fisheries, described how a bluefish advisory board recently adopted one catch limit for blues; the regional council voted for a different limit. The result, he said, was utter confusion among Carolina fishermen.
One of the ironies in this complex system is that, despite its many layers and opportunities to influence or change policy, there is little public participation. The reason? Many fishermen say they can't keep up with all the meetings and rules and proposals, and end up feeling like government is simply dictating to them.
In recognition of the problem, Congress passed a law in 1993 requiring at least four public hearings on fishery proposals. However, most hearings are poorly advertised and scantily attended, with government staff, lawyers and lobbyists dominating the proceedings.
``If there's one thing we've learned,'' said John H. Dunnigan, executive director of the ASMFC, ``it's that we've got to do a better job involving the individual fishermen. We can't manage from Washington any more. The problem is, we just haven't figured out how to get them involved.'' FIGHTING AGENDAS WITH AGENDAS
One way fishermen are getting involved is through lawsuits. In recent years, federal court in Norfolk has handled a spate of legal action that challenge Atlantic fishing quotas and the science behind them.
While lawsuits have long been a stall tactic of fishing groups interested in delaying tough new restrictions, their arguments now seem to be gaining legal weight.
Last fall, for example, a visibly bothered District Judge Robert G. Doumar chastised the government for imposing an ``arbitrary and capricious'' quota for summer flounder. He ordered the quota relaxed by 3 million pounds, in favor of fishermen.
``All they wanted to do was conserve the fish,'' Doumar said of the government at the time, noting that federal law requires a balancing act between conservation and economics.
The judge described the government's attitude toward public input on the 1994 flounder quota this way: `` `We will make a decision that's going to affect you, but we don't want to hear from you.' ''
The Commerce Department appealed the ruling. And even though the 1994 flounder season has long been over, the quota remains unresolved.
In the last five years, watermen have been forced to form their own governmental groups to support their industry. Joey Daniels, a Roanoke Island waterman, said he belongs to at least five organizations that lobby for commercial fishing interests. His dues: more than $12,000 annually.
The North Carolina Fisheries Association, one such interest group, charges watermen half of 1 percent made from each boat trip. Wanchese Seafood Co. pays that nonprofit group $6,000 in annual membership fees.
``We keep taking these things, one at a time, as another nail being driven into our coffin,'' said Daniels, who attends an average of three fish meetings each week. ``No one's protesting yet. And it just keeps happening.
``There's too much government in this country. I agree we need to control some catches with size limits so the fish can spawn. But they're regulating everything to death - and not giving us any credit for the things we've given up already,'' Daniels said.
Increasingly, however, the people bringing fish to the dinner tables of the United States don't live here. They come from other nations, particularly Third World countries, where fishing policies, wage laws and health regulations are nearly non-existent. There, the waters can be as unregulated as the plains were during American frontier days.
``We're like the Indians,'' Gray, the Buxton, N.C. waterman, said sadly. ``The outside guys are coming in, with the government, and taking our fishing grounds away. They're forcing us into certain spots. They're forcing us to disappear.''
Tomorrow: Fishing in the Third World. How some U.S. fishermen have moved their operations to Costa Rica where that nation's government pays them to compete with fishermen in the United States. MEMO: ABOUT THIS SERIES: This series was reported over six months by seven
Virginian-Pilot reporters and photographers. Staff writers Lane
DeGregory, Scott Harper, Christopher Dinsmore, Stephanie Stoughton and
Bob Hutchinson traveled through Virginia and North Carolina and to
Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Costa Rica. They were accompanied by
photographers Bill Tiernan and Drew Wilson. Staff designer Tracy Porter
produced the layouts. Photo editor Alex Burrows edited the photography
report. Staff artist Bob Voros produced the graphics. The stories were
edited by Joe Coccaro and Edward Power.
Staff writer Christopher Dinsmore contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Bill Amaru of Chatham, Mass., picks out a summer flounder from his
catch on the deck of his trawler. While working the Nantucket Sound
off Cape Cod in August, Amaru wuold drag his net for about an hour
and a half, then pull it up.
Photos
BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Left, Woods Hole, Mass.: Scientists at the Northeast Fisheries
Science Center provide much of the statistics on Atlantic fisheries.
This information is used to determine regulatory measures. When
surveys show stocks are up, fishermen demand that quotas go up. When
stocks are down, environmentalists demand more restrictions.
Above, Bill Amaru, the Chatham Mass., fisherman, on scientists:
``They're smug. They give these presentations at meetings and they
have no passion, no feelings. I mean, they're talking about our
livelihoods, our blood, our families. And they just flip chart after
chart. You just turn off to that. You immediately don't want to
believe them.
Above: Billy Carl Tillett, a third-generation fisherman from
Wanchese, N.C., spends most of his time going to regulatory
meetings. He doesn't believe scientists' claims that there are fewer
fish in the sea.
Graphics
Photos
THE PROBLEM: IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK
FISH LANDINGS AT GEORGES BANK
Research by SCOTT HARPER, graphic by ROBERT D. VOROS/The
Virginian-Pilot
SOURCE: National Marine Fisheries Service, Woods Hole, Mass.
[For complete graphics, please see microfilm]
by CNB