Guest post by Carole Garrison
Sometimes, rules that are put in effect for the good have unconsidered negative results.This came to mind when I heard swordfish boat captain Linda Greenlaw speak at the Mariners Museum.
A question came up about the quota boat captains are allowed to bring into the fisheries. Captain Greenlaw said that if a captain catches too many, they have to discard the dead fish over the side of the boat. If they bring it in to the fisheries, they get large fines and tickets.
The captains would rather turn that food over, for free, to be donated to food banks and shelters. This was turned down and the perfectly good dead fish continue to be dumped back into the water.
It is not just on the national level these tunnel vision decisions occur. A local example is with the City of Hampton. The city designated an area of land to develop a school, library, sports facility and youth center. A problem arose over a small sign.
A large sign was put up with four spaces for the names of the buildings. So far, only one building has been built: the sports complex. With the current budget situation, it looks like it could be a decade or so before all the other buildings are built.
A business in the sports complex wanted to put its name in one of the empty spaces on the large sign so customers could find them. They were told no by the city because those areas are reserved – for the non-existent buildings. Now I am sure the business would give up the space when, if ever, the other buildings are built. However, the city has made its decision and the answer is still no. They would rather have the other three signs sit there blank than allow an existing business in the facility to use it.
I wonder why governments on all levels seem to be so adverse to altering their original decisions when it turns out not to work as planned. Is it a tunnel vision problem or the inabilitiy to admit there might be a better way to handle a situation?
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VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Dumping the overkill is Insane. Many people could benefit if fish were donated. However, without the existing rule, how does law enforcement enforce a catch limit?
Well I am not exactly sure how this would work since I am not a fisherman. However I would think, if they are donating what they caught in error then that could be tracked. Then they could talk to the captains who constantly bring in to much. However, at this point there is no verification on the limit as they just dump it and no one knows.
Don’t have to explain overregulation to me. Yesterday I took a drug test administered under U.S. Department of Transportation regulations. There were actually two pages of rules governing my giving an urine sample.
My favorite: if you can’t go at first, there is a reg limiting the amount of water you may drink to pass a sample.
I can’t speak for Ms. Greenlaw, whose books I have enjoyed and who seems to be quite open about the way New England fishermen have depleted much of the Grand Banks fisheries. I’ve also spoken with a number of commercial fishermen in Massachusetts over the years who freely admit that they’d deplete the swordfish fishery without an hint of apology to make a buck. About ten years ago, their daily swordfish catches were down from two figures to maybe one or two fish, if that. Only by establishing limits was the swordfish fishery at all restored. At this point, it’s not even a good idea to eat much wild swordfish because of the mercury.