NOAA’s proposed stricter scales at-sea rules came about in response to American Seafoods’ violations but also because of technology advancements, according to a NOAA official.
NOAA fined American Seafoods $2.728 million after the company allegedly under-reported catches of pollock on several occasions from 2007 through 2011.
“It’s a combination of the American Seafoods fine and we have the technology now to revisit it. It is pretty rare that you have a technology program around for 15 years that hasn’t been re-visited,” Alan Kinsolving, NOAA at-sea scales program coordinator, told SeafoodSource.
So far, NOAA has only issued a white paper proposing stricter rules. Kinsolving presented the white paper to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council at its meeting this week.
“The Council’s primary concerns dealt with, ‘Why can’t we do this faster?’ Everybody just wants it done. The industry is at least as interested in having it done as we are,” Kinsolving said.
“The pollock industry prides itself on how forward-looking they have been over the past few years and what better data they have,” he added. The U.S. leads the world in monitoring of its boats, not just with scales with electronic and video monitoring, Kinsolving pointed out.
However, the regulatory process realistically takes longer than people might like, according to Kinsolving. NOAA has to conduct an analysis on the cost of implementing the rules — expected by the end of the summer — and present that data to the council again.
“The biggest change, for some of the boats, is the need for additional video monitoring. The longliners already have video cameras up, so it will be about re-positioning some of those cameras,” Kinsolving said.
Another cost for the pollock fishery will be software upgrades.
“This involves software changes that will allow us to track…calibrations better. We can better determine if a scale is running at a faulty state and may not be accurate. The cost is something we will have to figure out when we work closer with the manufacturers,” Kinsolving said.
After the financial analysis is presented to the council and approved by NOAA, the agency will publish it in the Federal Register. That will be followed by a public comment period and a 45-day cooling-off period before new regulations are implemented. New regulations likely won’t be in place until mid to late 2014, according to Kinsolving.
