NEPA Review of NMFS Management of New England Commercial Groundfisheries

Client: NMFS Northeast Regional Office (NERO)

Location: Northeast

Summary: The final rule implementing Amendment 13 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan articulated a process through which Northeast multispecies (groundfish) permit holders could voluntarily work together to form commercial fishing sectors. To establish these sectors, NMFS required that appropriate NEPA review be conducted in order to evaluate the potential impacts of each proposed sector operations plan. Given the large number of sectors that were proposed for Fishing Year 2010, and a compressed regulatory time table, NMFS requested immediate support and technical expertise to complete the NEPA review process for each operations plan.

Cardno ENTRIX coordinated with New England Regional Office of NMFS, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, academic specialists, and sector representatives to prepare sector-specific Environmental Assessments (EAs). Each EA evaluated potential impacts to 4 discrete resources: physical habitat, stocks of target and nontarget fish species, protected resources, and human communities. The magnitude of potential impacts were based on specific elements of the operations plan proposed by each sector and an iterative process was used to rapidly identify elements of concern and develop plans to mitigate and/or avoid negative environmental impacts.

The primary project challenge was related to the completion of a large volume of EAs in a compressed time schedule. This was exacerbated by a dynamic regulatory framework that continued to evolve during EA preparation requiring multiple changes in scope and direction. In the end, Cardno ENTRIX was successful in providing the required NEPA documents on time and within budget; completing a total of 17 environmental assessments in 10 months allowing implementation of these new sectors at the beginning of the 2010 fishing year. Our success stemmed largely from the teams ability to coordinate across scientific disciplines and with multiple NMFS and sector representatives located throughout New England.