Government Drowning Fishermen

The present unchecked fishing management system has gone wild. It's carried away to the point where our fishing industry cannot sustain itself based on junk science, questionable assessments and government profiteering. Just recently, Joseph Laplante of the U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire denied New Hampshire fisherman David Goethel's motion to block directing at-sea monitoring costs to struggling fishermen. The judge decided that Mr. Goethel's claims are "barred by the Magnuson-Stevenson Act." Although this is a temporary setback, a group of East Coast fishermen are still moving forward with a lawsuit larger in scope.

As a resident of the nation's number one fishing port, let me tell you some things that the large establishment governmental agencies would rather you not be aware of. Part of "their" agenda is to create a 'farm-to-table industry' hoping to replace our fishing fleet that harvests natural 'sea-to-table or 'local-to-dock seafood.' If "they" succeed, a billion dollar economic base for New Bedford will die, and it's the entire community that will write that eulogy.

90% of the fish we purchase locally is foreign product, and keep in mind that the government actually makes lucrative tax revenues from foreign fish, making it more profitable for them. Nice way for our own government to sink the American Dream, huh? Local fish is expensive because our own government has made it that way. So, we ought to be looking at why imported fish is so cheap. And the truth leads back to a dishonest fishery management system set in motion by the agencies of the federal government. These local economic impacts cannot be sustained much longer. And I am saying out loud that that's part of their green hidden agenda.