Over 2,000 people from across New England convened at the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum over the weekend to talk all things fish.
But this year, between gear expos, panels, and buddies catching up, there was an undercurrent of uncertainty after news broke of hundreds of NOAA layoffs in the weather and fish management divisions.
At a panel on managing fish in Gulf of Maine waters, one NOAA speaker was absent, and the other declined to answer questions about how changes at the federal agency might impact local fishing.
Eric Hesse fishes for tuna far off the coast of Cape Cod. He drove up for a panel on the Gulf of Maine Bottom Longline Survey, which he participates in.
"We're worried about the impact of it. We engage with NOAA on various levels, whether it's reporting, observer coverage," he said. "All these things are part of our daily life, on the water, and to suddenly lose part of that could really disrupt our fisheries."
NOAA is the U.S.' main weather forecaster, constantly monitoring the seas and the skies. The Coast Guard relies on National Weather Service (NWS) reports for in-the-moment updates on hurricanes or high winds, sent out to boats via radio.
Devyn Campbell is a 24-year-old fisherman out of Boothbay Harbor, Maine. He said he checks the weather constantly throughout the day, scrolling his weather apps more than social media.
"I'll check it the night before, I'll check it in the morning, I'll check it on my way out if I still have service. Your life is so dependent on it that it's just something you have to always look at," he said. "It's a constant.”
NWS data feeds practically every weather app mariners use. Accurate data, including wind and wave height, is essential to fishermen's safety, and their bottom line, said fisherman Jim Buxton of Peaks Island, especially for those out in deep waters.
"When you're getting up in the dark at 3 a.m., steaming for three hours in the dark to get there to haul their first string at daylight, say, 6 a.m. in the morning, and if the conditions get terrible, they have to steam back for three hours and make no money," he said.
Buxton said fishermen like him need weather and ocean data to get more accurate, not less.
“When they forecast a bad weather day and it doesn't happen and you choose not to go, that has a real economic cost," he said.
"And when they forecast a good day, and that doesn't happen, there is not only an economic cost, but there's actually a human risk, where people are out in conditions that they don't expect, and they potentially could get hurt."
Andy Hazelton worked at the National Weather Service's Hurricane Research Division before he was laid off last week. He had been with NOAA for years, but just got a promotion last year, which is why he had probationary status.
He said his department was already understaffed before he and a dozen colleagues were let go.
"I think it's going to make things more dangerous. It risks reversing the progress we've made, because we've seen huge improvements in hurricane forecasts and things like that over the last 30 years," he said. "And it risks reversing that and making the public, less safe as a result."
He said NOAA collects ocean data specifically via buoys, balloons, and satellites, and that there already isn't enough coming in.
"Anything that would degrade the amount of data coming in would make things even tougher out there," he said.
Hazelton said his colleagues who are still working at the National Weather Service are busy sorting through all the projects he and others left behind. Hazelton is still hoping his job might be reinstated once officials realize how important NOAA's work is for public safety and the economy.
News also broke Saturday that the University of Maine's multi-million dollar Sea Grant, which supports everything from lobster population research to coastal storm recovery, would be shuttered. Maine has been a Sea Grant recipient since 1971; in fact, the program helped found the Fishermen's Forum in the 1980s.