March 5, 2007
Accidental lobsters | The Portland Fish Exchange bets its future on a controversial bill
By Sara Donnelly
Since it opened in 1986, the city-owned Portland Fish Exchange has been a reliable part of Maine's fishing industry. It helped smooth dealings between fishermen and seafood buyers, organizing what had been a haphazard marketplace in which fishermen would dock their boats and scramble to negotiate sales with individual buyers before their perishable fish stocks went bad.
"The auctions are the best thing that ever happened to the groundfishing industry in Maine, as far as I'm concerned," says Lendell Alexander, a fisherman from Harpswell.
These days, though, the Fish Exchange is struggling to stay alive. Fewer fishermen are offloading their catch at the exchange, meaning slow days at the warehouse on the Portland Fish Pier off Commercial Street. The exchange has been forced to cancel regular auctions because it hasn't had enough fish to sell, according to Hank Soule, the exchange's general manager.
A controversial bill written by the Fish Exchange could be the nonprofit's best chance for survival. The bill, LD 170, sponsored by Portland state representative Anne Haskell, would alter Maine's decades-old lobster laws and allow fishermen to sell a limited number of lobsters caught while dragging for groundfish like haddock and hake. It would overturn a 40 year-old law prohibiting commercial groundfishermen from selling such accidental catches, or bycatch, instead okaying the sale of up to 100 lobsters a day that were inadvertently caught in water at least 35 miles offshore. "This is the Everest of Maine fisheries regulations," Soule explains. "It's not a place we wanted to be in, but our backs are up against the wall at this point."
Alexander says he, like other fishermen, were loyal to the fish exchange for years because the service there was honest and fair and he felt an allegiance to the city where he moors his boat. But federal groundfishing regulations have since shaved Alexander's allowed days at sea from upwards of 300 to around 70. And lobster bycatch sold in Massachusetts can make fishermen an average of between $6,000 and $8,000 a trip, according to Maggie Raymond, executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine, a trade organization with 50 member fishermen.
Alexander says he needs that money to make up for a 2006 gross revenue of about $300,000 compared to the roughly $400,000 annually his boat made in the early 1990s.
After 30 years of fishing and landing in Maine, Alexander hopes to start selling groundfish ˆ and lobster bycatch ˆ through Massachusetts auction houses within the month, pending the approval of his lobster license. "There'd be no other reason for me to go to Massachusetts" if not for Maine's prohibitive bycatch law, he says.
According to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., Maine groundfish vessels in 2005 offloaded 160 trips worth of lobsters (for a total of 120,069 pounds of the shellfish) in states that allow bycatch sales. The center estimates Maine lost about $3.6 million from fish and lobster sold from those trips. From 2000 to 2005, Maine has lost close to $10 million.
Rough waters ahead
As Portland's fishermen have migrated south to sell the lobster bycatch they can't land in Maine, the amount of fish handled at the Exchange has dropped. During the 1990s, the Portland Fish Exchange was reliably profitable, selling between 25 and 30 million pounds of fish every year at its weekday auctions. As recently as 2001, it handled fish from 255 trawlers. Last year, the exchange worked with 110 trawlers and sold 9.5 million pounds of fish, a little more than half the 17.1 million pounds it sold in 2005.
The Fish Exchange is already $175,000 in debt three-quarters through its fiscal year, says Soule, despite a $131,000 infusion of non-taxpayer money from the city last summer.
The theory behind LD 170 is the bycatch bill would not only bring back many of the fishermen who have defected to Massachusetts auction houses, but also would attract Massachusetts trawlers who happen to be in nearby waters. "If this law doesn't pass then the opposition is going to have to explain at some point why they let the groundfishing industry slip away," says Raymond.
But Kristen Millar, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council and spokesperson against the bill for the lobster industry, thinks lobsters don't have much to do with the real problems plaguing the groundfishing industry, like competition from cheap foreign markets.
Millar says Maine fishermen should try building the industry's brand, as the lobster industry has done for generations, rather than target the $300 million lobster fishery, the most lucrative in the state. The LPC, the Maine Lobstermen's Association, the Southern Maine Lobstermen's Association, the Midcoast Offshore Lobstermen's Association, the Department of Marine Resources' Lobster Advisory Council and the Maine Department of Marine Resources have all announced opposition to the bill. "There's a sense in the industry that this bill won't even work," says Millar, whose association represents all 7,500 licensed lobstermen in the state.
Millar believes most fishermen will continue to land in Massachusetts, where they can sell larger lobsters than Maine allows. Maine limits the size of lobsters that can be caught and sold, in order to protect the fishery's breeding stock. Millar says lobsters brought to the surface by a dragged net rather than a trap also tend to be beaten up and will compromise the integrity of the Maine lobster brand. (It is illegal for Maine fisherman to catch lobsters, even if they are fishing in federal waters offshore. The federal government, however, does not enforce the law.)
The Marine Resources Committee will discuss LD 170 at a public meeting in early March. In the meantime, Soule says the fish exchange will work to support a state bill to create a tax exemption on boat fuel for fishermen, though the lobster bill is their primary focus. Ominously, Soule himself doubts the lobster bill will pass. "We think it's unlikely," he says.
"The auctions are the best thing that ever happened to the groundfishing industry in Maine, as far as I'm concerned," says Lendell Alexander, a fisherman from Harpswell.
These days, though, the Fish Exchange is struggling to stay alive. Fewer fishermen are offloading their catch at the exchange, meaning slow days at the warehouse on the Portland Fish Pier off Commercial Street. The exchange has been forced to cancel regular auctions because it hasn't had enough fish to sell, according to Hank Soule, the exchange's general manager.
A controversial bill written by the Fish Exchange could be the nonprofit's best chance for survival. The bill, LD 170, sponsored by Portland state representative Anne Haskell, would alter Maine's decades-old lobster laws and allow fishermen to sell a limited number of lobsters caught while dragging for groundfish like haddock and hake. It would overturn a 40 year-old law prohibiting commercial groundfishermen from selling such accidental catches, or bycatch, instead okaying the sale of up to 100 lobsters a day that were inadvertently caught in water at least 35 miles offshore. "This is the Everest of Maine fisheries regulations," Soule explains. "It's not a place we wanted to be in, but our backs are up against the wall at this point."
Alexander says he, like other fishermen, were loyal to the fish exchange for years because the service there was honest and fair and he felt an allegiance to the city where he moors his boat. But federal groundfishing regulations have since shaved Alexander's allowed days at sea from upwards of 300 to around 70. And lobster bycatch sold in Massachusetts can make fishermen an average of between $6,000 and $8,000 a trip, according to Maggie Raymond, executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine, a trade organization with 50 member fishermen.
Alexander says he needs that money to make up for a 2006 gross revenue of about $300,000 compared to the roughly $400,000 annually his boat made in the early 1990s.
After 30 years of fishing and landing in Maine, Alexander hopes to start selling groundfish ˆ and lobster bycatch ˆ through Massachusetts auction houses within the month, pending the approval of his lobster license. "There'd be no other reason for me to go to Massachusetts" if not for Maine's prohibitive bycatch law, he says.
According to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., Maine groundfish vessels in 2005 offloaded 160 trips worth of lobsters (for a total of 120,069 pounds of the shellfish) in states that allow bycatch sales. The center estimates Maine lost about $3.6 million from fish and lobster sold from those trips. From 2000 to 2005, Maine has lost close to $10 million.
Rough waters ahead
As Portland's fishermen have migrated south to sell the lobster bycatch they can't land in Maine, the amount of fish handled at the Exchange has dropped. During the 1990s, the Portland Fish Exchange was reliably profitable, selling between 25 and 30 million pounds of fish every year at its weekday auctions. As recently as 2001, it handled fish from 255 trawlers. Last year, the exchange worked with 110 trawlers and sold 9.5 million pounds of fish, a little more than half the 17.1 million pounds it sold in 2005.
The Fish Exchange is already $175,000 in debt three-quarters through its fiscal year, says Soule, despite a $131,000 infusion of non-taxpayer money from the city last summer.
The theory behind LD 170 is the bycatch bill would not only bring back many of the fishermen who have defected to Massachusetts auction houses, but also would attract Massachusetts trawlers who happen to be in nearby waters. "If this law doesn't pass then the opposition is going to have to explain at some point why they let the groundfishing industry slip away," says Raymond.
But Kristen Millar, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council and spokesperson against the bill for the lobster industry, thinks lobsters don't have much to do with the real problems plaguing the groundfishing industry, like competition from cheap foreign markets.
Millar says Maine fishermen should try building the industry's brand, as the lobster industry has done for generations, rather than target the $300 million lobster fishery, the most lucrative in the state. The LPC, the Maine Lobstermen's Association, the Southern Maine Lobstermen's Association, the Midcoast Offshore Lobstermen's Association, the Department of Marine Resources' Lobster Advisory Council and the Maine Department of Marine Resources have all announced opposition to the bill. "There's a sense in the industry that this bill won't even work," says Millar, whose association represents all 7,500 licensed lobstermen in the state.
Millar believes most fishermen will continue to land in Massachusetts, where they can sell larger lobsters than Maine allows. Maine limits the size of lobsters that can be caught and sold, in order to protect the fishery's breeding stock. Millar says lobsters brought to the surface by a dragged net rather than a trap also tend to be beaten up and will compromise the integrity of the Maine lobster brand. (It is illegal for Maine fisherman to catch lobsters, even if they are fishing in federal waters offshore. The federal government, however, does not enforce the law.)
The Marine Resources Committee will discuss LD 170 at a public meeting in early March. In the meantime, Soule says the fish exchange will work to support a state bill to create a tax exemption on boat fuel for fishermen, though the lobster bill is their primary focus. Ominously, Soule himself doubts the lobster bill will pass. "We think it's unlikely," he says.
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