BOSTON – In a letter today to U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and other officials, Gov. Deval L. Patrick called for the federal government to declare a “fishery resource disaster” to aid coastal communities reeling from recent regulatory changes.
An analysis by the Mass. Division of Marine Fisheries detailing the local cost of two changes last year to groundfish industry regulations accompanied his note.
“The DMF report finds a substantial and disproportionate reduction in revenue … attributable to the implementation of emergency action in May 2006 and Framework 42 in November 2006,” which sharply reduced allowable days at sea for the commercial groundfish fleet, Patrick wrote.
“As a result, revenues of Massachusetts groundfish vessels fell from $44.6 million in 2005 to $36.5 million in 2006, a decline of 18 percent,” the governor continued. Based on that $8.1 million decline in fishing revenue, and “a moderate multiplier of 2.7,” he said, the DMF arrived at a total loss to the state economy of $22 million.
“A decline in revenues of this magnitude – a magnitude greater than … occasioned the declaration of a fishery resource disaster in 1994 – represents a true economic disaster to the Massachusetts groundfish fishery and the communities it supports,” Patrick wrote.
The report is a follow-up to the governor’s initial reuest for disaster relief – filed Feb. 21 at the request of legislators and mayors from coastal communities – in which he pledged to provide documentation of Bay State fishermen’s need for such aid.
