April 2016 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 11. D.E.L.A. Director's Report
From the Director – We are offi cially into spring, with our
spring snowstorm behind us now, we can move forward and start to get our boats ready for the up-coming season! Let the fun begin…
After a whole year of planning, the
Maine Fishermen’s Forum was a success, as well as the Canadian/U.S. Lobstermen’s Town Meeting and the Boston Seafood Show. Last weekend was the Maine Boatbuilder’s Show in Portland. These events are all wonderful and also like a whirlwind of events all crammed into the month of March. Now I am seeing a lot of our participants taking that one warm weather vacation to catch their breath. The State of Maine Legislative Session
is just about over for this spring. We had one more emergency bill to look into before the session was offi cially over for this season. The bill was LD 1653 – An Act
Implementing Pay Increases for Certain Law Enforcement Employees To Aid in Recruitment and Retention – Prepared March 11, 2016. I received a call from Chris Moore of Northeast Harbor, who was
representing the fi shermen that are in favor of the bill and asked for our support and help. We spoke with Commissioner Patrick Keliher and Colonel Jon Cornish about gathering the information that we needed to help. Col. Jon forwarded a copy of the bill and the information that helped us to understand the reasoning for the extra support. The following is the exert from the
Marine Patrol letter: “Currently, the Maine Marine Patrol has seven vacancies statewide out of 38 positions. In the southern most section, four of the fi ve Offi cer/Specialist position were recently vacant. Due to a geographic restructuring of the Marine Patrol two of those positions remain vacant. Overall, eighteen percent of all Marine Patrol fi eld offi cer positions are vacant. Between 2011 and 2015, 18 applicants were hired, while 10 offi cers resigned. In 2015 alone fi ve Offi cers left Marine Patrol for new positions in law enforcement citing salary as the biggest factor. Compounding the salary gap is the fact that other agencies have similar or better benefi t plans.” With this being said, I contacted our
M D M R Maine Operation Game Thief Off ers
$11,000 Reward for Information on Ma- jor Lobster Trap Molesting Case Maine Operation Game Thief is off er-
ing a reward of $11,000 for information that helps authorities bring the person or people responsible for a major lobster trap molest- ing case near Jeff rey’s Ledge to justice. A Maine Marine Patrol investigation,
which began Monday, February 22, 2016, revealed that approximately 200 lobster traps had been hauled by someone other than the license holders, the lobsters stolen, and the traps lowered to the bottom, some of which were not retrievable. Jeff rey’s Ledge is located in the western
Gulf of Maine located approximately 30 miles off the New Hampshire coast. Maine Operation Game Thief (Maine
OGT) is a private, non-profi t organization that works with the Department of Marine Resources, Maine Marine Patrol, Depart- ment of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, Maine Warden Service, and Wildlife Crime Stop- pers to pay rewards to citizens who provide information that helps bring violators of Maine’s game and commercial fi shing laws to justice. “The OGT program is committed to
helping maintain our state’s valuable game and commercial fi shing resources,” said OGT Chair Greg Sirpis. “Maine’s lobster industry works hard to protect and sustain this important resource and to have people undermine our state’s proud heritage of hard work and conservation is unacceptable and we will support eff orts to bring whoever did this to justice,”
“This is an extremely serious violation
involving multiple victims, and we would appreciate any help from the public,” said Marine Patrol Colonel Jon Cornish. “The money for this reward comes both from the Operation Game Thief program and from lobstermen committed to bringing this per- son or people to justice. I’m grateful for the support of OGT and these lobstermen and for their dedication to the work of the Maine Marine Patrol.” People with information on this case are
encouraged to contact Marine Patrol Ser- geant Rob Beal by phone at 207-479-3931 or to call the Operation Game Thief hotline at 1-800-ALERT-US (1-800-253-7887).
Maine’s DMR to Issue Third Round of Federal Disaster Relief Funds for Groundfi shermen
The Maine Department of Marine Re-
sources will soon be issuing the third and fi nal payment to thirty-two Maine-home- ported commercial Northeast Multispecies (groundfi sh) permit holders who are eligible to receive direct assistance under federal disaster relief funding. To be eligible, Maine-homeported
groundfi sh permit holders must have land- ings of over 5000 pounds in any one Fishing Year from 2010-2013. In addition, permit holders must have landed a minimum of 5000 pounds of groundfi sh in either Fishing Year 2013 or 2014. “The intent of these criteria is to focus disaster relief eff orts on permit holders who
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JOHANSON BOATWORKS Full Service Yacht Yard
P. O. Box 88 Belfast, Maine 04915 –
dassatt711@yahoo.com Month: September – 2015 - 2016 – “Working together”
Name: _____________________________________ Address: _________________________________ Town/city: __________________ Zip: ________
Phone number:___________________E-mail address___________________ Type of membership:
( ) Lobsterman/stern man ($100) yearly
( ) Lobsterman – age 70 & over ($50) ( ) Student ($56) yearly ( ) Business associate ($113) yearly ( ) Avid supporter ($132) yearly ( ) Friend of DELA ($100)
( ) I wish to support DELA’s legal fund _____________
( ) I wish to support DELA’s Scholarship Fund____________ We also take Master Card and Visa
Card _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _- _ _ _ _- _ _ _ _ Expiration date _ _/_ _ Security code _ _ _
Card holder’s name (print) _______________________________________________ Card Holder’s signature___________________________________________________
Rockland, Maine • 207-596-7060
info@jboatworks.com •
jboatworks.com
*Downeast Lobstermen’s Association is a qualified tax exempt organization under section 501 ( c ) (6) of the Internal Revenue Code
License no. ___________
DELA Board of Directors after sending the information forward. I took a poll with the reply being in favor of support for this bill. We wrote a statement of support for
the hearing. With the snowstorm, Hilton and I did not make it to Augusta as planned. We called forward and sent our statement to Sarah Cotnoir, Commissioner Patrick Keliher and Colonel Jon Cornish, so our presence and statement was still submitted. We would like to “Thank” these people for helping us out under extreme conditions of weather. I did see bits and pieces of the hearing on the evening news and hope that the decision will be favorable. For the amount of risk that these offi cers take just doing their jobs, they deserve the respect and pay that refl ects the intensity of their positions. We held a drawing that was sponsored
by John McMillan of McMillan Off shore Training at the Fishermen’s Forum. This was to give away free survival training courses to the winners. I have the results from John with the following winners: Zachary Strout-Harrington, Mike Michaud- Vinalhaven, Abby Dunnigan-Portland, Proctor Wells-Phippsburg, Phil Black- Blue Hill, Sari Bunker-South Thomaston and Rebecca Spearing-Owls Head. Also, here are the locations and the dates for the future Drill Conductor classes: March 26-Belfast, March 31- Cundy’s Harbor, April 3-Stonington, April 15- Southwest Harbor, April 16-Belfast, April 23-Boothbay Harbor, April 29-Portland, May 7-Eastport,
May 8-Jonesport. John can be reached at 207-233-0787 for more details, also by e-mail: jmcmillan/@mcmillanoffshore. com.
In addition to the free courses, Hamilton
Marine has donated a $25 gift certifi cate and Damage Control Kit (Value $150) for each of these programs to be raffl ed. DELA congratulates all of the winners! I have taken this program myself in February and found it to be factual, fun and a defi nite life saver. There’s nothing like fl oating around the harbor in February in a survival suit. Our Labrador retriever, Lucy, thought I was in distress, so when I started fl oating in the harbor, she swam right out and tried to retrieve me! I will never forget that one. She was quite a friend. Our Aquaculture Class, hosted by
Maine Sea Grant and CEI is going very well. Bob Fortin has a very impressive line of kelp that he and his wife Michelle are about to harvest at the end of the month. He sent pictures of his product that I took to the class. This shows the results of the aquaculture project, which is up-coming for the future. Our next scheduled meeting will be the
second Thursday of the month, which is May 12th
. I will post the location for this meeting
the closer that we get to the date. Please contact me if you have further questions or suggestions. Perhaps there is a certain guest that you would like to suggest that we invite to our meeting. Give me a call or an e-mail and I will be happy to give it a try. See you around, Sheila
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