Fishermen
protest U.S.
scallop seizure

By Reggle Sheffield
Standard-Times staff writer

FAIRHAVEN

About 20 fishermen
braved freezing winds early Friday after-
noon to protest the federal government's sel-
zure of a scalloper's catch Thursday.

Federal authories seized 9,000-pound catch
of the Contender Thursday after determining
it contained undersized scallops.

The protestors Friday repeated charges
that the federal "meat-count" system of
determing scallops' size is unfair and diffi-
cult to comply with, setting them up for
thousands of dollars in fines.

After the seizure Thursday, the director of
the state Division of Marine Fisheries has
said that local fisherman may expect
changes in the system.

"If they would have averaged everything
together I would have had my trip right now,
we wouldn't be doing this," said Anskar Bir-
keland, skipper of the Contender.

"They're treating us like we're criminals
when we're not. We're just trying to make a
living," said Mr. Birkeland. "I'm more
scared coming through that (Hurricane) dike
than I am during the whole trip."

Mr. Birkeland lost his entire catch and
with it all profits he would use to pay his
eight-man crew.

"Last night I had to call eight guys and tell
them that they had no paycheck. That was
the hardest thing I've done, I think."

"Ten days of hard work and they don't get
paid. What would you do?" asked Ivan
Mjolhus, captain of the Sandra Jane.

Fishermen have for years complained that the meat count system requires fishermen working a scalloper in 40-mile-per-hour winds in the open sea to judge whether a catch of thousands of pounds complies with the law

1

The law states that if 35 scallop meats
weigh less than a pound, they are undersized.
While fishermen use tin cans to measure
their meat counts at sea, federal officials
later weigh the catches using digital com-
puters.

"It's so important to make that count so it
is absolutely fair to everybody," said local
ship owner Knute A. Aarsheim, who owns
three Fairhaven-based fishing ships.

But Phil Coates, chairman of the New
England Fisheries Management Council and
director of state Division of Marine
Fisheries, said that the council is in the
process of finalizing proposed regulations
which would abolish the meat count, possibly
by the end of this year.

"The meat count as a management mea-
sure will be eliminated in the current propo-
sal," he said. "I think the majority of the
fishermen are opposed to the meat count.
The council's coming around as long as we
present a usable plan."

The proposal is subject to public hearings
and approval by the National Fisheries Ser-
vice, he said.

"We certainly have taken the fishermens'
comments to heart and are in the process of
reviewing the whole management system,"
I said Pat Fiorelli, a spokeswoman with the
New England Fisheries Management Coun-
cil.

"Scallop management is difficult because
it is measured in meats per pound. The limit
is 35 meats per pound, some small, some big.
It's hard for them to measure how many
meats per pound," she said.

Public hearings on the proposed regula-
tions could begin as soon as the"next couple
of months" but she declined to give a more
specific time frame.

Mr. Coates said other proposals to limit
the depletion of the area's scallop stock
include allocating fishing days to individual
vessels, limiting the size of crews and enlarg.
ing the openings on the draggers used to
catch scallops. Mr. Coates said he believes
the last method will ensure that only mature
scallops are caught.

Fishermen and their families hold signs Friday in Fairhaven loper's catch Thursday. They repeated charges that protesting the federal government's seizure of a scal- "meat-count" system is unfair. Story Page A4.

FAIRHAVEN-The fishing boat Contender got money
back from the federal government last week, but it
was a hollow victory.

In a rare move, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration returned $20,000 to the Contender's
owner, Malvin Kvilhaug of Fairhaven, after seizing the
boat's 9,000-pound scallop catch on Jan. 9.

National Marine Fisheries Service agents claimed the
scallops were undersized, but NOAA lawyer Charles
Juliand said the money was given back to the boat
because the sampling was done incorrectly.

Despite the victory, Mr. Kvilhaug said the Contender
lost more than $15,000 in the transaction.

"They paid me $3 a pound for the scallops. But that
day, scallops were going for $5.35 a pound. So I lost
$15,000 because of their mistake?" he said. "I'm very
happy to have the money back. The crew is very happy
to have the money, but I still don't think it's very fair."

Mr. Juliand said the sampling was "not done properly
according to written procedures." He said the samples
must be done in such a way so as to fairly represent the
whole catch, and in this case samples were not propor-
tionally taken from sections with both large and small
scallops.

■Scallops

(Continued from Page 1)

"If its not done properly it can
skew the results," he said.

Mr. Juliand said the federal gov-
ernment "very rarely" returns the
money for the catch, which is sold
after it is seized and the money kept
in escrow until the case is settled.

"I don't like the government to
take anything from anyone unless
it's to keep it. It's very rare for this
to happen," he said.

The day after the catch was taken,"
the crew and other fishermen and
their families protested the seizure

(See SCALLOPS, Page A6)

on the docks of Fairhaven. The
group, carrying placards, also
objected to the current conservation
system as unfair.

Federal law allows fishermen to
have about 33 scallop meats in a
pound, but fishermen say this is dif-
ficult to comply with at sea and une-
venly enforced on land.

The New England Fisheries Man-
agement Council is working on a
plan to replace the "meat count"
with other conservation measures,
but so far that has not been done. In
the meantime, fisheries enforcement
officials continue to enforce the law.

NOAA is the oversight agency for
NMFS and several other fisheries
agencies

ustry's needs

Fairhaven man has scallop plan

By Natalie White
Standard-Times staff writer
FAIRHAVEN - Like other scal-
lop boat owners, Malvin Kvilhaug is
at his wits' end.

On the one hand, fisheries officials
agree the scallop meat-count con-
servation system is a failure and a
new plan is in the works. On the
other hand, until the law changes,
fisheries agents continue to confi-
scate scallop catches, as they did
from Mr. Kvilhaug's boat, Contender,
last week.

"It's their favorite excuse: It's the
law. It doesn't matter whether the
law is wrong, crooked or no good. It's
just the law," Mr. Kvilhaug of Fair-
haven said Monday.

Frustrated by the inaction of the
New England Fisheries Management
Council to come up with a new con-
servation plan, Mr. Kvilhaug has
come up with his own plan.

It is a simple, three-point proposal
that he estimates will cut fishing by
20 percent: Require boats tie up one
month a year, tie up for five days
between trips, and carry no more
than nine crew members.

He began circulating the plan on
the waterfront Monday and is asking
fishermen and others involved in the
industry to sign it and send it to U.S.
Rep. Gerry E Studds. D-Mass

The New England Fishery Mana

gement Council has been working to
revamp the scallop conservation-
plans for years and get rid of the
much maligned meat-count system,
which allows fishermen to have
about 33 scallop meats per pound. It
will be months before the council's
latest plan which still has to be..
fine-tuned and go out for public hear-
ing- takes effect.

Fishermen say the meat count sys-
tem is difficult to comply with at
sea, and that even those who try to
stay within the limit can find them-.
selves on the wrong side of the law
when the boat hits the dock.

44
484

If the boat's scallops are too small,
the catch can be seized and the crew
goes home without paychecks after
10 to 14 days at sea.

The council's new plan calls for
the New England scallop catch to be
reduced by about 70 percent over*
seven years. It is a complicated plan
that includes crew limits, mandatory
layover time, monitors and a mora-
torium on new boats entering the
scallop fleet.

Mr. Kvilhaug says that under his
plan, regulators could increase the
one-month tie-up to two if needed.

He said boat owners would be able
to help offset the loss of fishing time
by canceling boat insurance for one
month which would amount to about
$8.000

NE920003FM/V

Release

Re: Seizure of $20,865.00 representing the sale of 7,042 pounds of Atlantic sea scallops landed on or about 1-9-92

In consideration of the return of the proceeds (i.e. $20,865) from the sale of 7,042 pounds of Atlantic sea scallops seized from the owner of the F/V Contender, Michigan Fishing Corp., on or about January 9, 1992, I, Malvin Kvilhaug, the President of Michigan Fishing Corp., on behalf of Michigan Fishing Corp. and its employees, agents and assigns, hereby release and forever discharge the National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United States Department of Commerce, their employees, agents and representatives, of and from any and all actions, damages, causes of action, claims liabilities or demands of any nature whatsoever, at law or in equity, known or unknown, asserted or unasserted, existing prior to, on, or subsequent to the date of this Release, which relate in any way to, or arise from, the investigation, seizure or sale of Atlantic sea scallops allegedly landed by the F/V Contender on or about January 9, 1992.

1-27-92

Date

Malum
Malvin Kvilhaughang

President

Michigan Fishing Corp.

I, Charles R. Juliand, Esq., on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in consideration of the signing of, and faithful adherence to all terms of, the aforementioned Release by Michigan Fishing Corp. and its employees (past or present), hereby agree not to bring any charges whatsoever, civil administrative in nature or otherwise, relating to the investigation which led to the sampling and seizure by the National Marine Fisheries Service of the above-mentioned 7,042 pounds of Atlantic sea scallops.

1-27-92

Date

Charles R. Jaland

Charles R. Juliand
Enforcement Attorney

NOAA

HORA

Mr. FRANK. Let me begin with this set of facts, because I very much appreciate your willingness to do this. I am going to put into the record, if there is no objection, the article by Natalie White from the New Bedford Standard Times, January 9th, I believe, is the date. No. January 9th is not the date. We will get the date of the article. January 9th is the date of the seizure.

And I gather what happened was there was a seizure by NOAA on your boat; they seized the catch on January 9th. NOAA then acknowledged that the seizure had been inappropriate because they had done a bad sampling, in terms of the meat count I guess.

However, having seized it, they had sold it, and they then gave you back $20,000, which was, according to you, $15,000 less than you would have gotten if you had sold it at that same time. So we have a situation-is this accurate?-that the Federal Government made a mistake, seized and sold your catch, but by the time they sold it there was a difference in price and you received $20,000 rather than what you said would have been $35,000. You also, I assume, received it at least some point later on.

I know interest rates aren't what they used to be, but money is money and you lost the use of your money. Is that accurate, Mr. Kvilhaug?

Mr. KVILHAUG. That is correct. My boat came in. The trip was unloaded. It was brought to another fishhouse. While the catch was in another fishhouse, the inspector came down and took samples of my scallops.

On that particular trip, I had mixed the scallops, which is perfectly legal, you can take in x amount of small scallops and x amount of big scallops. If combined, they will add up to a size of a 36 meat count. They are legal.

One-third of the trip was small scallops-illegal. Two-thirds of the trip was large scallops-legal. The enforcement agent took five samples of the two-thirds of the trip and five samples of the onethird of the trip. Ten samples was taken of each, which I felt was unfair. It should be one-third plus two-third samples.

So they agreed. It wasn't done properly. But in the meantime, the agency at the waterfront had the scallops in their possession. Of course, it is perishable. They have to get rid of it fast. They called up two buyers, there were only two buyers they could get a hold of. One of the buyers offered $4 a pound. One of the buyers offered $3 a pound for the scallops. The $3 got the offer. Why, I don't know.

Mr. FRANK. Did you ask them that?

Let me ask you one other question. It goes to the heart of what we are talking about. Let me say, this is very much part of the continuing jurisdiction of this subcommittee. It sounds to me like you could file a private bill here. The Federal Government owes you $15,000, unless somebody can show me why that isn't the case.

How soon after the day of the seizure did they sell the scallops? Mr. KVILHAUG. The same day.

Mr. FRANK. They sold them the same day?

Mr. KVILHAUG. The same afternoon, yes.

Mr. FRANK. Suppose they had simply said to you, if you sell the scallops under your normal procedures, we will put the proceeds in escrow; would there have been any problem with doing that?