Nathan Thomas, a member of the Whatcom coalition, said data and analysis of the value of the working waterfront is vital when interacting with government entities.
By Doreen Leggett
During an unseasonably cold February week in San Diego, California, hundreds of people from across the country gathered to explore how to protect one of the country’s greatest assets – working waterfronts – and talk about success stories like these:
- The 100 percent Great Lakes Initiative aims to demonstrate how 100 percent of commercially-caught fish from the Great Lakes can be used for different purposes beyond just food. Fancy a whitefish skin wallet? Collagen-serum moisturizer?
- With waterfront property a red-hot commodity, Maine legislators passed a bill that allows owners who protect commercial fishing wharves and other working waterfronts up to 40 percent off their tax bill.
- Fishermen in Kodiak, Alaska were getting crushed by the low price of fish and high cost of fuel, so they made investments and now 99.9 percent of their electricity is renewable.
- The Working Waterfront Coalition of Whatcom County, Washington, has made strides in its first few years: pooled health insurance for members, an earn and learn program, and a negotiated 10-percent reduction in port lease fees.
The conference was the National Working Waterfront Network’s seventh since it launched in 2010. The four-day conference featured representatives from 35 states as well as Canada, speakers representing the Blue Tech industry, Sea Grant, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, commercial fishing and others. Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance staff were part of “Keeping Work in Working Waterfronts: Development programs to sustain livelihoods and expand access to the blue economy,” joining representatives from Maine, Maryland and California.
Organizers said policy makers were grappling with climate change, loss of public access, eroding markets, onerous regulations, a diminishing work force and gentrification.
“Working waterfronts can be ground zero for some of the effects,” said Theresa Talley, California Sea Grant, in opening remarks.
The challenges working waterfronts face, losses experienced, as well as ways to stem the tide were explored in close to 100 presentations.
“Our working waterfronts provide opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people around the nation and were such a critical part of the making of the nation,” Theresa Peterson, fisherman and fisheries policy director at Alaska Marine Conservation Council, told the crowd.
Peterson said Kodiak, Alaska’s largest island, is dependent on commercial fishing. There are 700 boats representing different gear types and fishing for crab, herring, halibut, groundfish and salmon. For reasons including deteriorating infrastructure, stifling regulations, lack of modernization and onerous pathways to jobs, fisheries’ landing values are down close to 40 percent.
Bryan Fluech of Georgia Sea Grant said Peterson’s home has more boats than his whole state. Georgia’s industry has experienced huge losses, from 1,500 shrimp trawlers in the 1970s to less than 200 today.
“The majority of our state doesn’t live on the coast, but it is absolutely critical for the economy,” he said.
Fluech said he knows two older fishermen who have been fishing since they were 12 and have bounced back after virtually everything. But the last few years have been too much. They don’t have crew, or ice, and after Hurricane Helene, no dock. Processing plants have been turned into hotels.
Other spots are feeling the same pressures. Twenty years ago, close to half the counties in Florida reported a loss of working waterfronts, and those numbers have increased. With the most recent hurricane, developers have swept in, relieving some waterfront owners of financial stress, but the use is converted.
John Schmidt, program manager of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers, told a similar story. In years past, when the river used to catch fire, developers turned their collective backs on the Cuyahoga. Today people are moving from California and other places to get close to the now-scenic river in Ohio, which puts new pressures on the waterfront.
Schmidt, and Monique Coombs of Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, said people who come from away have different priorities, join town committees and make it difficult to rebuild traditional working waterfronts.
The desire to change the community you just landed in struck a chord with Imani Black, of Easton, Maryland, which is on Chesapeake Bay. She agrees places need to evolve, but there needs to be respect and protections for traditions.
“Be a historian of your space,” said Black, who founded Minorities in Aquaculture. “If you don’t know the history of where you live, Google that.”
The Northwest Seaport Alliance, representing the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, has seen truck drivers come under pressure. The ports are facing demands to reduce emissions to zero, which affects truck drivers, mostly small, locally-owned businesses. With the amount of cargo diminished they are being asked to invest in technology that is 10 times the cost of what they are currently using. The fear is corporations that can afford the upgrades will buy up the independents.
Dan Tucker, executive director of Whatcom Working Waterfront Coalition, said workers at the Fishermen’s Terminal in Seattle are facing “a thousand cuts,” everything from regulations to increased fees and suspension of bus routes. The coalition fought back with health insurance and changes in docking fees. Tucker said the group also works to make sure people who move in and exist outside the local economy can find ways to invest in it.
Having a coalition with 150 members and an industry worth $460 million, supporting 640 jobs, garners attention. Nathan Thomas, a member of the Whatcom coalition, said data and analysis of the value of the working waterfront is vital when interacting with government entities.
Morgan Rielly, a Democrat who serves in the Maine House of Representatives, told attendees that as he works to translate policy into legislation, specifics help.
“I need data. I can’t be going off vibes,” he said.
He also said working waterfront supporters need to develop broad coalitions.
“You can’t expect people to find you,” he said.
Education is important because working waterfronts are hard to define and have different personalities.
Coombs said Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association published “Scuttlebutt: How to Live and Work in a Waterfront Community” for Harpswell, Maine. She said the guide, which can be adapted for other communities, is meant to be kept in homes, libraries, town halls, so people better understand and value working waterfronts.
The guide is a way to hold townspeople accountable. Convincing fishermen to serve on local boards and promoting right to fish ordinances also helps protect coastal communities.
With traditional ways to water disappearing, fishermen have bought airboats and towns have granted long-time harvesters rights to shellfish even when skyrocketing prices forced them to move.
Janelle Kellman, former Mayor of Sausalito, California and Founder of the Center for Sea Rise Solutions, said lack of affordable housing is a problem in her community, but bylaws allow only 10 percent of marinas for houseboats.
“What would a change to 20 percent look like? How would that strengthen the economy and coastal community?” she asked.
Others emphasized her point, saying we need to step away from valuing property at its “highest and best use” and look at social and cultural metrics as well. Maine leaders, after monumental storms, are trying to rebuild working waterfronts by offering tax breaks if 90 percent of the re-construction could be defined as working waterfront. There are other tax incentives for hazard mitigation which benefit the whole community. Similar programs have been broached in other areas of the country as climate changes creates more challenges.
Coombs said priorities need to include protecting land away from the shore for gear storage, haul-outs and other uses. Training the next generation of fishermen, marine contractors, welders, and mechanics also needs to be prioritized.
“If we don’t have the businesses, it doesn’t matter if we have working waterfronts,” she said.
Towards the end of the conference, Margaret Pilaro, executive director of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association, rattled off a list of disciplines that shellfishermen, and others who rely on working waterfronts, now need to be familiar with; public health, law, engineering, workforce development, economic development, marketing, housing, genetics, public relations, regulation, policy and political science. It’s a lot, particularly when some of the regulators don’t know about the tides, she said.
The network, chaired by Kristin Uiterwyk of UMass Boston’s Urban Harbors Institute, aims to help those on the working waterfront meet the growing challenges and opportunities. Members develop policy positions, analyze legislative efforts, explore pro-bono legal networks, and participate in annual presentations at numerous conferences nationwide.