Photo courtesy of Derek Keats @ flickr. Creative Commons.

Gulf of Maine cod, the lifeline of our inshore fishing fleet up and down the coast of New England, is in a biological crisis. That is why I wrote today to the Honorable John Bryson, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, calling for federal fisheries disaster relief and interim emergency action. You can read a copy of the letter here, or scroll down to read it below this post.

My letter follows the latest scientific data – data that shows that cod stocks are much more heavily depleted than earlier assessments had indicated. According to the 2011 assessment, based on an improved scientific model, three additional years of survey data and more accurate weights-at-age estimates, Gulf of Maine the spawning cod estimates fell to 12,561 metric tons from 33,877 metric tons in 2008.

In the case of Gulf of Maine cod, the numbers are so close to the bone that a couple thousand metric tons of cod landed either way could spell the difference between a rebounding fishery and a total collapse. Given the economic importance of Gulf of Maine cod to coastal fishermen, what would the appropriate risk be?

Indications are that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) will set a quota of 6,700 metric tons (mt) for the 2012 fishing year that begins May 1. At this level the risk of the spawning population dropping below critical thresholds is greater than 31%. Drop the catch levels to 4,000mt and the risk drops to less than 10%. Still a risk but a safer bet. That is why as I said in my letter, “Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) recommends a one year 4,000mt catch level for the fishing year which starts May 1, 2012. While that level of catch is  2,700mt less than the lowest level proposed by the New England Fishery Management Council, it still presents a significant risk of further stock declines.”

Setting the catch levels too high on May 1, 2012 creates substantial risk that the whole fishery may have to be closed in the future. This isn’t sheer speculation; when Newfoundland’s northern cod fishery – a close cousin of our Gulf of Maine cod – collapsed in the early nineties, the fishery has had to be closed for decades to allow the cod stocks to rebuild.

As I said in my letter, at 4,000mt, “the estimated gross revenue losses at that catch level are $4,677,000. Importantly, an estimated sixty-six percent of those losses will fall on the smaller, inshore fleet (see attachment), a group that is already operating close to or below the economic break-even point and won’t have alternative fishing options in many cases.” Given this, I asked Secretary Bryson to “set up a disaster relief fund available to all active groundfish companies that would provide some relief for any demonstrated losses that they experience until GOM cod stocks can be rebuilt.”

The livelihoods of New England’s coastal fishermen hang in the balance with the Gulf of Maine cod. A three-part solution is required to protect these fishermen and the fish they depend upon.

• First, NMFS should limit the risk of further long-term damage to the fishery by setting the quota at no higher than 4,000 metric tons for the 2012 fishing year. That will buy some time to do further analysis to inform catch limits for 2013 as the nature and extent of the crisis becomes better understood.
• Second, NMFS should allocate those fish to the boats most economically dependent on Gulf of Maine cod, and restrict large trip boats from fishing for them.
• Third, federal and state authorities should declare an economic fishery disaster and make funds available to assist the coastal fishermen who will suffer significant financial losses under any proposed scenario and look towards broader economic assistance for affected coastal communities.

Failing to take the right action for Gulf of Maine cod at this critical junction may well be failing the region’s fishing future. Fast and effective management steps have to be taken to head off that possibility.

—

A copy of the letter I sent to Secretary Bryson can be found below or as a .pdf here.

February 21, 2012
The Honorable John Bryson
Secretary
U.S. Department of Commerce
14th and Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20230

RE: Gulf of Maine Cod Federal Fisheries Disaster Relief & Interim Emergency Action

Dear Secretary Bryson:

We are writing to you now to support the earlier requests by Governor Deval Patrick for federal fisheries disaster relief pursuant to section 312(a) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). The new scientific assessments for Gulf of Maine cod (GOM cod) stocks document that the economic situation in the region is significantly more dire than previously thought. Immediate and aggressive action is needed to avoid any risk of creating a long-lasting biological crisis with GOM cod with widespread, crippling economic implications.

As a result of the recent science assessment, GOM cod catch levels will have to be drastically cut back on May 1, 2012. Even at low catch levels, there still will be a significant risk that the spawning stock levels could decline below the lowest level ever observed. In the words of one of the New England Council’s scientists who has extensively studied the complete commercial collapse of the northern cod stocks in the early 1990’s off Newfoundland, “the similarities [between the two situations] are a bit frightening.” Dr. J.-J. Maguire (email to SSC members and others 1/25/12). Following that collapse, Newfoundland’s cod stock has been largely closed to fishing for decades.

The recent GOM cod reassessment was a unique and highly unusual set of events that was beyond anyone’s control. The scientists exercised their best professional judgment in performing the original assessment in 2008, the managers strictly followed the scientific harvest level advice, and the fishermen appear to have stayed within their prescribed quota limits. And yet, the future of GOM cod is now at an unforeseen but significant risk. These circumstances meet all the criteria in the National Marine Fisheries Service’s disaster relief policy guidance: there is a fishery resource disaster as defined by the MSA; it was caused by events beyond human control; and there will be significant economic impacts stemming from this disaster.

Economic analysis indicates that single-year gross revenue losses for the commercial fleet from current revenue levels could range from  $1,354,000 to $14,620,000, depending on the catch level that is set. Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) recommends a one year 4,000mt catch level for the fishing year which starts May 1, 2012. While that level of catch is 2,700 metric tons less than the lowest level proposed by the New England Fishery Management Council, it still presents a significant 10% probability of further spawning stock declines.

The estimated gross revenue losses at that catch level are $4,677,000. Importantly, an estimated sixty-six percent of those losses will fall on the smaller, inshore fleet (see attachment), a group that is already operating close to or below the economic break-even point and won’t have alternative fishing options in many cases. We ask that you set up a disaster relief fund available to all active groundfish companies that would provide some relief for any demonstrated losses of net revenues that they experience until GOM cod stocks can be rebuilt.

Without relief from the crushing economic circumstances many coastal boat owners are facing, , managers are being tempted to take risks in setting the short-term quotas too high, potentially imperiling the fishery for decades. A further commercial collapse of GOM cod stocks would cripple many of New England’s fishing communities that are wholly dependent on cod. The indirect losses in the maritime support industries multiply those potential direct costs many times. Economic disaster assistance can greatly reduce the pressure on managers to allow short-term overharvesting as the region transitions to a sustainable fishery. Moreover, in addition to direct disaster relief, we encourage you to implement the suggestions of the Commerce Department Economic Development Administration’s recent evaluation of certain New England ports and provide necessary aid and technical assistance for the economic transition of these communities.

CLF supports the New England Council’s emergency action request and the general approach that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proposed in taking interim emergency action to respond to this unexpected and troubling new development. As mentioned above, however, we feel strongly that the quota should be set no higher than 4,000mt. And we have called for the imposition of a series of management measures that would direct the majority of the limited cod quota to the boats that are most dependent on cod. In support of this, we have provided NMFS with a position paper on this issue, which we are also attaching to this letter. Thank you for your careful consideration of the management and economic assistance measures we propose. We look forward to your response and your agency’s further efforts to work towards solutions that help all of New England’s coastal communities weather this tough economic crisis and to thrive in the future.

Sincerely,
Peter Shelley
Vice President

Christopher Kilian, CLF VP and Vermont Director, talks at the signing of H.258 with Gov. Peter Shumlin beside him. CLF Staff Attorney Anthony Iarrapino and Lake Champlain Lakekeeper Louis Porter are in the background.

A bill giving citizens more information about, and more say over, environmental enforcement cases in Vermont was signed into law by Gov. Peter Shumlin yesterday, the successful conclusion of a several-year-long effort by Conservation Law Foundation.

Under current law in Vermont, when environmental pollution cases brought by the state are settled, citizens often don’t know about it, and even if they do they have little chance to bring evidence they may have to light – even when they have been directly affected by those violations.

In July, when the newly signed act goes into effect, that will change. Anyone with an interest in such cases will be able to file comments, and those who can demonstrate that an interest of theirs was harmed by the pollution will be able to request a hearing before a judge to present their evidence.

The new law applies to both Vermont environmental laws and national programs administered by the state, a lack which had put the state at odds with federal requirements.

Shumlin said the change in the law will make state government more transparent, a priority of his administration.  CLF Vermont Director Christopher Kilian agreed, adding that the new law is “a big step forward for Vermonters to participate in their government”

The bill was worked on by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and was sponsored by Rep. Tony Klein and Rep. David Deen, the heads of the two environment committees in the Vermont House. In the Senate, it was championed by Sen. Ginny Lyons’ and her Natural Resources and Energy Committee.

During the two legislative sessions lawmakers worked on the measure several industry and business organizations which originally had concerns about the measure came to support its passage. Tom Torti, the president of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, who joined the administration and CLF at the signing, said it is important to hold those who break environmental laws to account.

The Burlington Free Press story about the bill signing can be found here.

However, Syre discusses the provisions of the settlement regarding imports of power from large hydroelectric facilities in Quebec into New England. He notes that the settlement includes a commitment by the Massachusetts utilities signing the agreement that they would not use any large hydropower to meet state-mandated renewable energy targets for the next five years and describes the concerns that lead to this conclusion.

Syre describes how, “State officials and others point to several reasons why it would be a bad idea to count hydropower as a source of power that qualifies as renewable energy. They say that such a designation could increase the price of hydropower and hinder the long-term development of other forms of renewable energy.”

He notes that:

“Other critics even think Hydro-Quebec’s environmental benefits are being oversold. A new study commissioned by the Conservation Law Foundation says large-scale Canadian hydropower will produce ‘substantial greenhouse gas emissions that are comparable to those of modern natural gas-fired power plants.’”

CLF’s take on the agreement grows out of our deep involvement in the merger proceeding and our engagement with many issues that are addressed in the settlement. These include both the Cape Wind project and the questions about the net environmental impact of large hydroelectric power. CLF commissioned the study that Syre discusses, as well as a related analysis that highlights the existential threat to New England-based renewable power from designating large hydropower as eligible for financial incentives under our renewable energy laws.

All of the provisions of the agreement work together to move towards the goal of net gain for the customers of the merging companies and movement towards attaining the important environmental goals of Massachusetts. As Sue Reid of CLF, our lead advocate on the merger, said about the settlement, it is a significant advancement for Massachusetts and all of New England in a number of regards:

• It removes the last major hurdle to building Cape Wind;
• It ensures that the Commonwealth will continue to reap the cost savings and environmental benefits of the Massachusetts Green Communities Act;
• It will help ensure that imported hydropower does not diminish other renewable energy deployment in Massachusetts and beyond;
• It will reduce barriers to installation and operation of small, distributed renewable energy generating facilities in Massachusetts; and
• It will freeze the merged utility’s rates for 4 years, will require transparent public review of NSTAR’s electric and gas rates before the rate freeze expires, and will deliver – upon approval of the merger – an immediate 50% credit to Massachusetts customers based on expected merger savings during the first 4 years following merger approval.

All of these provisions are significant and are reason to hail this agreement as an important landmark in the evolution of our energy system and the march towards a cleaner and better future where our economy, environment and communities can all thrive.

The Gulf of Maine (Northern) shrimp season ends today (Photo credit: Aldric D'Eon, courtsey of the NEFSC).

• February 13: “A behind the scenes peek at the Gulf of Maine cod stock assessments” - What really happened to Gulf of Maine cod? Heather Goldstone of Climatide investigated last week by talking to Liz Brooks and Mike Palmer, two of the scientists at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center who were involved in producing the 2011 Gulf of Maine cod stock assessment.

• February 14: “To help GOM cod, NMFS should not touch closed areas” - It’s been widely reported that at its February meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service to take emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod for the 2012 fishing year. The measures proposed, including a mere 3-13% reduction in the catch limit, were notable largely for their failure to address the condition of the depleted cod stock. But there is an aspect of the proposed package that has received little attention, which is troubling, because it would have NMFS open up five of the six existing areas currently closed to groundfishing.

• February 17: “Fish Talk in the News” - A weekly roundup of stories we think will interest readers. This week: news and opinion on Gulf of Maine cod regulations and fisheries science, the end of this year’s Gulf of Maine shrimp season.

As I detailed a few months ago in two blogs (Malpractice post , Patricia Aho post) and in Maine’s newspapers (Sun Journal article), outside the glare of the spotlight the Maine DEP deliberately waived Maine’s rights under the Clean Water Act to control and mitigate the water quality impacts to Flagstaff Lake of the hydropower project owned by Florida Power & Light. We challenged that decision (Aho Letter) and sought to hold the DEP accountable.

We also turned our focus, and spotlight, to a similar situation pending at Brassua Lake. (Brassua letter 1-24-12, Brassua letter 2-13-12). For those who have been been there, Brassua Lake is situated in the northern county of Somerset. It sits to the west of Moosehead Lake, to which its connected by the Moose River.

At Brassau, we were specifically concerned with the water quality certification (WQC), on two accounts:

1. First, in 2004, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) found that the original WQC was not legally sufficient. We asked Commissioner Aho of the Maine DEP to clarify whether it was or was not sufficient.
2. Secondly, as I wrote, “another FPL Energy hydropower project, Brassua Storage Project, raises similar concerns to those previously raised by the Department about the Flagstaff Storage Project, concerns still shared by the EPA and many stakeholders. A WQC application for the Brassua project has been filed, withdrawn and re-filed for a number of years now. Most recently, that application was withdrawn and re-filed on March 24, 2011, requiring a decision by March 24, 2012.”

We asked Commissioner Aho to advise as to whether the Department intends to waive its rights under the Clean Water Act for the Brassua WQC as it did for the Flagstaff Storage Project and the basis for such a waiver.

Our efforts were rewarded on Valentine’s Day when the DEP confirmed that rather than waive Maine’s right, the dam owner was forced to withdraw its application and refile it, starting the clock over and maintaining Maine’s rights to control its water quality standards (FPL Letter).

We plan to keep the spotlight on DEP and the LePage administration, to acknowledge and thank them when they do right by Maine’s environment and to expose and hold them accountable when they do wrong.

Although that experience was personal, the same message – people matter most – is worth taking to heart in our professional lives. Our work colleagues are “family” in a sense; we help one another grow and thrive. In addition, in order to achieve CLF’s collective mission we need to connect with people who care about New England like we do – people precisely like you. We won’t succeed without you.

Brain Skerry @ the NEw England Boat Show with CLF.

Getting out to meet people where they live, work, and play is something we’re doing that right now at the New England Boat Show. CLF has a booth where the CLF family is meeting new people and talking about the wonders of New England’s oceans and the need for people to rally in support of them.

I’m very pleased to introduce the gentleman in the CLF vest, whom you may not recognize. He’s Brian Skerry, and you’re going to be seeing a lot more of him. He’s a world-renowned underwater photographer whose pictures have appeared many times on the cover of National Geographic. (He was signing his books at our table here; the girl in the yellow sweatshirt is reacting to his photos.) And he’s going to be our ambassador (and photographer) for the New England Ocean Odyssey – a project conceived and soon to be launched by our Ocean Conservation program team. It will take people on a journey beneath New England’s waves, and bring them to the surface fired up to protect and improve our marine environment.

CLF's Roberta Gilbert

It will also take us – CLF – on a journey, into person-to-person engagement. Here’s Roberta Gilbert, making friends for us. She was terrific! We at CLF will all be good at it – I’m sure of that – because we at CLF believe in what we’re doing. That’s the most important thing. You can’t promote effectively what you don’t believe in, and enthusiasm is infectious. Everything else is detail.

And why? It’s worth reminding ourselves. We cannot succeed without more people in our tent, providing activism for our advocacy, financial contributions, legal standing, moral support, and energy, ideas and enthusiasm. It’s everyone’s New England, after all, that we want to help thrive.

And so join us. We’ll be more successful, and it’ll be more fun.

The settlement ensures that this powerful new utility will be in lockstep with Massachusetts’ nation-leading clean energy policies and propel the state forward instead of backwards in implementing them.

This is a significant advancement for Massachusetts and all of New England in a number of regards:

• It removes the last major hurdle to building Cape Wind;
• It ensures that the Commonwealth will continue to reap the cost savings and environmental benefits of the Massachusetts Green Communities Act;
• It will help ensure that imported hydropower does not diminish other renewable energy deployment in Massachusetts and beyond;
• It will reduce barriers to installation and operation of small, distributed renewable energy generating facilities in Massachusetts; and
• It will freeze the merged utility’s rates for 4 years, will require transparent public review of NSTAR’s electric and gas rates before the rate freeze expires, and will deliver – upon approval of the merger – an immediate 50% credit to Massachusetts customers based on expected merger savings during the first 4 years following merger approval

We applaud the Administration for recognizing that a lot of ground needed to be made up in order for this merger to benefit the public and for covering that ground with thoughtful terms that benefit ratepayers and the environment both in the short and the long-term.

For the press release, as well as background materials on CLF’s long standing engagement on this issue, click here.

It’s been widely reported that at its February meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service to take emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod for the 2012 fishing year. The measures proposed, including a mere 3-13% reduction in the catch limit, were notable largely for their failure to address the condition of the depleted cod stock. But there is an aspect of the proposed package that has received little attention, which is troubling, because it would have NMFS open up five of the six existing areas currently closed to groundfishing. The areas at issue serve a myriad of functions for managed commercial species including protection of their habitat and spawning areas and providing a buffer against excessive fishing effort on certain species. Several of these areas have been in place for over fifteen years and have taken on important and positive functions and values that are currently being studied but are not yet entirely understood.

A map of the Gulf of Maine showing the groundfish closed areas (Photo credit: NOAA).

That’s one of the many reasons why the Council’s action is so incomprehensible. It came one day after the Council announced that it was only one year away from completing an eight-year process of collecting data and developing a highly scientific model by which it believes it can identify the best and most vulnerable habitat to protect. So, just when a lengthy scientific process is about to render answers as to what areas should be open and which closed, the Council urged action to open areas and did so without any scientific support. What’s more, many of these closures were imposed in order to comply with a court order to protect habitat from fishing gear, and several of these areas were chosen precisely because they are habitat for Gulf of Maine cod. Giving fishermen access to these areas will increase the likelihood that catch limits on cod will be exceeded and that catch will be discarded, increasing the mortality of this stock and undermining the very purpose of the emergency measure.

There is also the question of the legalities of opening these areas with this action. Many of the areas that the Council has put on the chopping block were originally designated in order to comply with a requirement of the Magnuson-Stevens Act that essential fish habitat must be protected from fishing to the extent practicable. Any elimination of these closed areas risks undoing the Council’s means of complying with this requirement of federal fisheries law. The Service’s action will also be limited by the need to analyze the environmental impacts of reopening closures in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. Just such an analysis is currently ongoing with the Council’s groundfish technical team. This analysis can, and with the Service’s help would, be completed in time for the 2013 fishing year, but is not ready as part of this emergency action.

The Service should take this opportunity to invest resources in the essential fish habitat process and the analysis of the groundfish closed areas already underway in order to ensure that it will be completed in time for what will inevitably be an even more restrictive 2013 fishing year. If the Service instead chooses to randomly reopen closed areas through the Council’s requested emergency action, it risks leaving Gulf of Maine cod and other fish stocks more vulnerable to overfishing than before, a blow to the fishery and exactly the opposite of the emergency action’s intended effect.

Hydro-Québec hydroelectric projects recently commissioned or under construction (Source: Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife)

Reducing the region’s emissions of greenhouse gases is supposedly the Northern Pass project’s marquee public benefit, its raison d’être as they say in Québec. But would the Northern Pass project do the job?

The answer appears to be: probably not any time soon. Today, CLF is releasing a ground-breaking new technical report regarding the greenhouse gas emissions of Canadian hydropower. The conclusions of the report show that large-scale hydropower, especially new reservoirs, is worse for the climate than Northern Pass’s developers are claiming, with substantial greenhouse gas emissions that are comparable to those of modern natural gas-fired power plants. The current Northern Pass proposal substitutes hydropower for natural gas in New England’s energy mix, meaning that the project won’t reduce emissions by much if any, especially in the near term.

Authored by Synapse Energy Economics, the technical report released today, Hydropower Greenhouse Gas Emissions: State of the Research, is an independent survey of the recent science regarding the greenhouse gas emissions of hydropower. The science is clear that the reservoirs behind hydropower dams emit greenhouse gases, relative to the forests and wetlands they flood (which often take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere). Overall, reservoirs in Québec emit more greenhouse gases over the course of their lives than renewables like wind, solar, and run of river hydropower.

A crucial finding of the report concerns new reservoirs. In the first several years after a reservoir is dammed, large amounts of newly inundated organic material decompose, emitting carbon dioxide that diffuses through the water into the atmosphere. As a result, a reservoir’s net emissions in its early years are very high – starting out even higher than emissions from a natural gas power plant per unit of power generated. This effect is evident in recent, rigorous analyses by several teams of scientists, based on data collected at Hydro-Québec’s Eastmain 1 reservoir in northern Québec. This reservoir is the very same project that Northeast Utilities’ CFO testified under oath last year would be the primary, if not exclusive, source of Northern Pass’s power. Even when their emissions are projected over their lifetimes, newly flooded Canadian reservoirs may emit nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gases emitted by natural gas power plants. By contrast, reservoirs emit only about 20% of the greenhouse gases emitted by typical coal-fired power plants.

This conclusion is the death knell for Northern Pass Transmission, LLC’s (NPT) claim that the current Northern Pass proposal would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 5 million tons. We explained the claim’s key flaw – the report on which it is based erroneously assumes that hydropower has no greenhouse gas emissions – back in August. In light of today’s report, CLF is calling on NPT and its partners NU, NSTAR, and PSNH to stop citing that erroneous number and to withdraw all marketing materials for the Northern Pass project that state or imply that Canadian hydropower has no or minimal greenhouse gas emissions. Hydro-Québec is building new hydropower projects that are intended to facilitate new exports to the northeastern United States. To the extent that the prospect of exports is driving the construction of new reservoirs, Northern Pass and projects like it will be responsible for those reservoirs’ emissions and also their other adverse environmental impacts. And if, as the developers’ analysis concluded, the power to be displaced by imports through Northern Pass is overwhelmingly from natural gas plants, the emissions from a succession of new reservoirs in Canada may replace – perhaps completely for a period of time – the emissions of displaced natural gas power. In that scenario, the Northern Pass project would do little – or even nothing – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at least in the near-term.

The report makes another critical point about a different kind of displacement that could occur with Northern Pass. According to a recent study, stepping up Hydro-Québec’s exports to the United States may actually decrease its exports to other provinces in Canada, where the need for fossil fuel-fired power then increases, resulting in additional emissions. Those emissions may cancel out any reductions from displaced power in the United States. This effect is a potential blind spot that needs to be considered and analyzed as part of the public review of any new imports.

The report’s findings are important information regarding the environmental impacts of the project that the U.S. Department of Energy must consider as part of its review of Northern Pass’s application for a Presidential Permit. For that reason, earlier today, CLF submitted the report to DOE along with Synapse’s analysis of the potential effect of Northern Pass on the regional market for renewable energy.

To CLF, the report suggests that new imports could be part of the region’s climate strategy if imports:

• displace dirty power, like project sponsor PSNH’s uneconomic, subsidized power plants, to achieve a meaningful net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions without increasing the use of fossil fuel-fired power plants in Canada;
• support – rather than undermine – local renewable projects and energy efficiency efforts in New England; and
• have minimal impacts on the environment and communities on both sides of the border.

PSNH is in a unique position to take its coal units offline, in conjunction with its potential power purchase agreement with Hydro-Québec that is supposedly in the works. Instead, PSNH is marching on with its broken coal-based business model at great cost to New Hampshire consumers and the environment. Unless the proposal changes, the Northern Pass project does not deliver on the developers’ claims and will not advance a cleaner energy future for New England.