The Governor’s Massachusetts Ocean Management Task Force has set sail on its quest to develop a policy for the state to have when dealing with its ocean waters.  The term “setting sail” may be a bit premature.  Casting off the dock lines may better describe where the Task Force is right now.  They’re not sure how best to set the sails yet.

The charge given to them from the Governor and the Secretary of Environmental Affairs is to “develop a framework for comprehensive ocean management that addresses multiple dimensions (seafloor, water column, surface, air rights, view sheds)”.  Wow, what the heck does all that mean?  This is what the Task Force members have been trying to determine.  Some questions that are circulating in the discussions are: What is the planning area? Do we, the state, have authority to regulate uses?  Is zoning, like we do on land, the approach we want to take?  If so, do we take the use approach or the impact approach?

 What has been troubling so far has been that the first thing mentioned has been fishing.  Maybe that’s because when people think of the ocean, they think of fish and that then leads to the fishing part.  To their credit, however, the other issues of which there are many have also been listed and will be looked at as this group deliberates on what should be the states position.

 Still, there is this persistent return to the fishing aspect.  Overfishing, habitat damage, and no fishing areas all keep surfacing as something for which the Task Force should develop a policy.

 We believe state fishery management is already under control and does not need another layer of governmental bureaucracy.    Between the state’s Marine Fisheries agency, the Atlantic States Commission and the National Marine Fisheries Service, we have enough managing capacity and don’t need any more in the form of some general policy which could at a minimum, entangle this states’ fishery agency with more guidelines to follow.  We all know there is already enough sails flapping on that ship and whether we agree or not on all that Marine Fisheries does, it at least has some handle on the world of fishing.

 We concur with a recent letter sent jointly to the Governor by the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership and the Recreational Fishing Alliance  that emphasized that fishing should not be the main focus of the Task Force and possibly be subjected to more policies.  It was pointed out in that letter that commercial and recreational fishing is very important to this state in terms of jobs, food suppliers, communities, enjoyment, tourism and the tax base.  It doesn’t need more oversight.

 This is not to say that the state can’t have a policy with regard to other uses for the state’s waters.  It is too early to just unilaterally ban other uses, nor could they, but the state through the Task Force could and should look at the increasing efforts to share ocean areas in the form of energy producing windmills, pipelines, cable laying, sand mining, water discharges and waterfront development.  Most of these ocean related projects are subject to all types of controls right now through state agencies but are there loopholes?  Is there a need for a super agency to keep the various state agencies from having power struggles over who wins if they disagree with each other on approval or disapproval of a project?  Who prevails between Marine Fisheries, Coastal Zone Management, the Department of Environmental Management, and so on?  Perhaps the Task Force could sail through those choppy waters rather then spend time considering where someone can fish.

 We hope that when the Task Force ship does return to port that it will not be listing too much to one side or sinking from an overload of new state “policy” proposals.

 Make sure those bilge pumps are working, Cap!

 Bill Adler
Executive Director