[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 4, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1129-E1130]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUCCESS WITH SCALLOPS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 4, 2003

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, we hear too rarely of our 
public policy successes, because of a natural tendency for people to 
focus on areas where our efforts have fallen short of what we sought to 
achieve.
  It is important to examine the policies which have not worked well, 
so that we can change them. But when organizations, the media, and 
others pay attention only to failure, the public gets a distorted 
overall picture, and people become unduly pessimistic about our ability 
to achieve important goals through public policy.
  One area in which the private and public sectors can work together to 
produce a very favorable current situation is that of the scallop 
fishery. This does not mean that no errors were made in the course of 
this work, and to some extent we have seen here a process of trial and 
error. One of the errors we had previously made was to rely exclusively 
on science conducted by the regulators, and in recent years, 
independent scientific assessment of the fishery has proven to be an 
extremely useful tool.
  Today, the scallop fishery is a very successful one. The catch is 
high, the stock has been replenished, the economy of the Greater New 
Bedford area--and other scallop fisheries--benefits, and, perhaps most 
importantly, consumers are able to receive a steady supply of a food 
that is both good and good for them. Sadly, this success seems, in some 
cases, to have angered some conservationists when it should, instead, 
have given them a sense of confidence about our ability to make public 
policy decisions. As the Representative of the City of New Bedford, the 
Town of Fairhaven, and other communities in which scallop fishing is 
important, I have had the disappointing experience of seeing some--by 
no means all--environmental organizations take unreasonable positions, 
and maintain them even in the face of contradictory experience.
  I hope, Mr. Speaker, that when we reauthorize the Sustainable 
Fisheries Act, we build on the experience that we have gained in the 
scallop fishery, as well as in other fisheries, and make changes in the 
law that will enhance our ability to achieve the public policy 
successes that we have seen in the regulation of scalloping.
  In a very comprehensive and thoughtful article, our former colleague, 
Gerry Studds, and Dr. Trevor Kenchington, a marine biologist, present 
the story of the success in the scallop fishery--as the sub-headline of 
their article in the May 25 issue of the New Bedford Standard Times 
correctly notes, ``cooperation between managers and fishermen has 
rebuilt stocks.''
  Those who served with Gerry Studds during his twenty four years in 
the House, including his service as Chair of the Committee on Merchant 
Marine and Fisheries before its abolition, will not be surprised to 
read his cogent and balanced presentation. As a leading voice in this 
House on the question of fishing, Mr. Studds had a major role in 
bringing about many of the achievements chronicled in this article, and 
I am proud as his successor in representing the major scallop fishery 
in American to have been able to carry on his work.
  Because this is a very important issue that we will, I hope, be 
addressing in legislation this year, I ask that the very informative 
article ``Success With Scallops'' offered by Mr. Studds and Dr. 
Kenchington and carried in the New Bedford Standard Times, be reprinted 
here.

                         Success With Scallops


     cooperation between managers and fishermen has rebuilt stocks

             (By Trevor J. Kenchington and Gerry E. Studds)

       If you thought all living marine resources were either 
     severely depleted or on the verge of extinction, due to a 
     combination of ineffective management and the greed and 
     shortsightedness of fishermen, you could hardly be blamed. 
     After all, that is the message conveyed to you day after day 
     in the media--and in the fund-raising solicitations of many 
     environmental groups.
       You might be more than a little surprised, therefore, to 
     learn that an immensely valuable component of commercial 
     fishing in New England and the Mid-Atlantic--the Atlantic sea 
     scallop fishery--presents a shining example of successful 
     management and an unprecedented instance of cooperation 
     between fishermen and managers.
       ``The scallop resource on Georges Bank and in the Mid-
     Atlantic region has not only increased dramatically in recent 
     years, but is at record high levels and considered fully 
     rebuilt,'' said the Executive Director of the New England 
     Fishery Management Council last fall. (Heading Toward 
     Recovery: Rebuilding New England's Fisheries, Fall 2002)
       Under these circumstances, you might be even more surprised 
     to learn that several environmental organizations and their 
     allies have gone to court again and again to block these 
     management efforts. To date, their legal challenges have been 
     uniformly unsuccessful. But they have succeeded in tying 
     managers and fishermen in expensive, litigious knots.
       Why is it that these groups, among them the Conservation 
     Law Foundation and Oceans, have painted a target on the backs 
     of the scallop fishermen when pinning a medal on their chests 
     for innovative, proactive citizenship might seem more 
     appropriate?
       Let's take a closer look, first at the scallops themselves 
     and their importance to the country and to local communities, 
     then at the recent history of scallop management.
       Scallops feed on the lowest level in the marine ecosystem--
     microscopic floating plants. Much as cattle turn grass into 
     beef, scallops turn natural plant energy into meat. Scallop 
     meat is, moreover, nutritious, low fat and a prized delicacy 
     when fresh.

[[Page E1130]]

       Left to themselves, however, scallops are not an efficient 
     pathway for the plants to feed the rest of the ecosystem. 
     Scallops, with their strong shells, resist most predators. 
     Enter humans. With effective management of the U.S. Atlantic 
     scallop fishery, annual production of some 40 million 
     pounds of high-quality scallop meat can be landed and 
     enjoyed by consumers, replacing high-priced imports with 
     fresh product. Importantly, because scallops are 
     ``shucked'' (opened) at sea with only their meats brought 
     ashore, their viscera are discarded overboard and 
     thereupon become a food source for predatory fish such as 
     cod.
       The scallop industry is very important to the social fabric 
     of shoreside communities from Maine to North Carolina. The 
     bulk of the catch is harvested by approximately 200 full-time 
     scallop vessels, while another 100 or so fish for scallops to 
     a lesser extent. Some 2,000 people are directly employed in 
     the harvesting. In the process of supplying this product to 
     consumers, the scallop fishery can earn between $150 million 
     and $200 million per year, valued at the point of landing. 
     Even more value is added and more jobs supported in 
     processing, distribution and sales.
       Income from scalloping contributes to the economies and way 
     of life of many coastal communities in a half-dozen states. 
     That is an important contribution for some ports like 
     Stonington, Conn.; Cape May, N.J.; and Hampton Roads, Va. 
     But, scalloping is vital to New Bedford, where the majority 
     of Atlantic scallops are landed. In fact, the revitalization 
     of the scallop fishery has propelled New Bedford into its 
     current position as the No. 1 fishing port in the United 
     States, measured by dollar value of product landed.
       But it is not foreordained that the scallop industry should 
     have its current success. In the past, scallop fishermen, 
     like those in so many other U.S. fisheries, compensated for a 
     declining resource by fishing harder (and more dangerously) 
     struggling to maintain their income but driving the scallops 
     down further.


                               1994 rules

       In 1994, all that began to change when strict rules were 
     implemented limiting the number of participants in the 
     fishery and, more importantly, the number of days that 
     scallop vessels could fish in a given year. Further cuts 
     followed, particularly in 1998. Full-time scallop vessels are 
     now limited to 120 days at sea each year compared to the 250 
     or more that many worked before restrictions began. They are 
     also now limited to seven men, which severely limits their 
     catching power, compared to the 13 men commonly carried in 
     earlier years. In addition, large portions of the most 
     productive scallop grounds in the world (on Georges Bank, off 
     Massachusetts) were closed in order to assist federal efforts 
     to rebuild stocks of groundfish (cod, flounder, and haddock). 
     About 80 percent of the Georges Bank scallops (roughly half 
     of the entire Atlantic scallop resource) is currently off-
     limits to fishing.
       Under these strict management measures, the weight of 
     scallops alive in the ocean has increased almost eight-fold 
     since its low point in 1993. It is now safely above target 
     levels set by federal managers for rebuilding the stock 
     pursuant to the federal Sustainable Fisheries Act. For 
     scallops, a formal 10-year rebuilding plan was initiated in 
     1999. By 2001--just three years--scallop stocks had rebuilt 
     to their target level.


                            related reasons

       They rebuilt so quickly for a series of inter-related 
     reasons.
       First, scallop stocks can be, and were, very productive. 
     Second, significant conservation measures were imposed in 
     time to capitalize on a large, natural up-tick in scallop 
     productivity. Third, the scallop fleet responded to 
     challenges imposed by the Sustainable Fisheries Act by 
     organizing itself to partner with the federal government to 
     achieve conservation goals. Almost 200 full-time participants 
     in the Atlantic scallop fishery have come together under the 
     banner of the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), which is 
     headquartered in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, just outside New 
     Bedford.
       FSF participants have worked with the federal government to 
     develop innovative approaches to improve scallop yield, 
     reduce the (already very limited) bycatch of other fish 
     species by scallop dredges and reduce the potential for 
     interactions between scallop dredges and the ocean bottom 
     habitat. FSF members have also worked in partnership with 
     major East Coast universities, such as the University of 
     Massachusetts School for Marine Sciences and Technology and 
     the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences at the College of 
     William & Mary, using both scallop gear and high-resolution 
     video cameras to survey scallop stocks, to learn about the 
     ocean bottom in scallop areas and to develop gear that can 
     reduce the potential for fish bycatches and the small 
     potential for interaction of scallop dredges with endangered 
     sea turtles.
       Pilot projects, involving the industry, academia and the 
     federal government, were undertaken in 1999 and 2000 to 
     reopen portions of the Georges Bank groundfish closed areas 
     to environmentally responsible scallop fishing. Areas have 
     been closed in the Mid-Atlantic to allow concentration of 
     small scallops detected in those regions to grow and then to 
     spread the catches of these large concentrations of 
     harvestable scallops over a period of years, rather than have 
     them be taken in one ``gold-rush'' event.


                           rotating closures

       The FSF has also been working since 1999 to devise a 
     systematic approach to rotational management of scallop 
     beds--an effort that promises important habitat benefits and 
     further reductions in the already small bycatches.
       Few, if any, fishery participants nationwide have invested 
     more time, effort and material resources in developing 
     proactive management approaches. Significantly, moreover, 
     these cooperative management efforts have repeatedly (and, 
     sad to say, expensively) stood the test of determined court 
     challenges.
       This is fisheries management for the 21st century. If 
     anything became clear in the 20th century, it was the top-
     down management of fisheries, in an atmosphere of conflict 
     between managers and the managed, has failed worldwide and 
     would not have worked for the Atlantic scallop fishery.
       It is, finally, important to recognize that the scallop 
     fishery is an environmentally clean fishery. Scalloping 
     involves very little bycatch. There are only negligible 
     catches of cod, haddock and most other species of fish. 
     Bycatches of flounder, monkfish and skate are a bit higher 
     but still relatively small.
       Scalloping alone would pose no threat to those populations; 
     however, there can be issues when a resource has been 
     depleted by directed fishing (that is, not by scalloping) or 
     by environmental factors. The potential for scalloper bycatch 
     is something that needs to be considered in developing 
     rebuilding measures in these cases. The scallop industry is 
     working with managers to identify and resolve these specific 
     issues when they arise.


                            designed to work

       Then there is the issue of the scallop dredge itself. 
     Simply put, harvesting scallops from deep offshore waters 
     requires towed gear. Thus, dredges are necessarily used for 
     the bulk of the scallop fishery. Importantly, however, while 
     the dredge is a large and heavy device when sitting on land 
     or aboard a boat, when towed under the water, hydrodynamic 
     forces literally lift it off the bottom. In fact, the New 
     Bedford style scallop dredge used in the Atlantic has been 
     called an ``airplane'' dredge and actually requires 
     ``depressor plates'' (which function as upside-down airplane 
     wings) to maintain contact with the bottom--contact that 
     involves chains and skids skimming across the bottom, rather 
     than digging into it. Contrary to the impressions created by 
     some, dredges do not plow the bottom for scallops; rather, 
     water flow behind the depressor plates causes scallops to be 
     sucked off the bottom and whirled into the bag portion of the 
     dredge.
       Moreover, scallopers tend to avoid areas with even 
     occasional boulders unless they are forced there by lack of 
     resource elsewhere or by closures of productive scalloping 
     areas. Their gear is not efficient in those areas while 
     damage to expensive dredges is both common and dangerous. It 
     is those rocky bottom areas that represent the main focus of 
     efforts to protect essential groundfish habitat from the 
     adverse effects of fishing gear. Scallops and scalloping on 
     the other hand are most productive where the seabed is sand 
     or fine gravel.
       Managers are currently working, as they should be, towards 
     focusing scallop fishing efforts on large concentrations of 
     large scallops, including those in closed areas of Georges 
     Bank. Moreover, focusing scallop effort on areas where 
     scallops are abundant also reduces the potential for any 
     impact of the scallop dredge on the ocean bottom and the 
     potential for bycatch of other species. Scallopers fishing in 
     areas of high abundance spend less time fishing for scallops 
     and more time processing them. This reality is at the heart 
     of scallop rotation management, as championed by the 
     industry. Successful rotation management, therefore, requires 
     access to areas of scallop abundance.
       So, to return to where we began, why is it that the 
     fisherman who regularly risks his life in the most dangerous 
     of all occupations to wrest a living from the sea and put 
     food on our table who has not only played by the rules but 
     has taken the initiative (at considerable expense to himself) 
     to help develop an innovative, conservation-positive 
     management system that is working and working well--why is it 
     that, in addition to the forces of nature and the processes 
     of regulatory bureaucracy, he must now contend with a 
     sustained legal assault from groups that seek to portray him 
     as the most avaricious and irresponsible of men?
       Might it be that the scallop industry has ``stepped on the 
     message'' of some whose world view has no place for them? Are 
     there those whose agenda is somehow threatened by proof that 
     a fishery can be both successful and sustainable? These are 
     questions that thoughtful and responsible people would do 
     well to ponder.

                          ____________________