Nearly two years into the nation's most ambitious experiment in catch share fisheries management, the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition has urged the governors of New England's coastal states and New York and New Jersey to issue a joint request for a federal "fisheries failure" declaration.
Such a finding would make federal financial aid available for assessing and mitigating economic and social dislocations.
The joint declaration would cover the Northeast groundfishery, which drew adventuresome European fishermen into the Northwest Atlantic before the onset of colonization and has been the lifeblood of Atlantic ports for more than 300 years.
The Obama administration has still not responded to a solo filing for a "disaster" declaration last November by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, now a co-chairman of the president's re-election campaign.
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