The New England Boom

There's a boom going on in New England, but it isn't where you'd think.  It's going on offshore in the haul of a little fish called the Atlantic herring.

This herring travels in groups sometimes numbering in the billions and was caught in the greatest numbers last year in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.  New England fishermen caught more than 95,000 metric tons of the fish last year for the first time since 2009, according to federal statistics reported by Patrick Whittle in The Providence Journal, July 13, '15, p. A10.

This was good news for fishermen, right?

A Herring Catch
Photo uploaded to public domain by Gentgeen April, '05

Yes and no.

Cod and tuna fishermen complain that the herring trawlers have left sections of the ocean bereft of the herring species, which cod and tuna rely on to eat.  Whittle quotes Maine tuna fisherman Steve Weiner as saying, "Everything from seabirds to whale-watching boats rely on a steady supply of herring for stability."  With strict cod quotas, Cape Cod fishermen are struggling to make a living.

The herring trawlers can be more than 100 feet long and drag 300-foot nets. Environmentalists claim the nets sometimes kill marine mammals, including four pilot whales, three seals, and a dolphin through incidental catch in 2014.

Herring is in high demand because it is the preferred bait for Maine's lobster industry (also reporting record catches in recent years).  Herring not used for bait become canned, smoked, pickled, or salted.

According to Whittle, the Northeast has struggled with herring quota cuts as recently as this decade.

Regulating fishing in the area is the New England Fishery Management Council, which will solicit feedback from the industry and the public.  "It will be important to develop scientific metrics for localized depletion," said Mary Beth Tooley, who sits on the Council and works for a corporation operating two herring trawlers. "The issue has become political," Tooley said.

What else is new?

Rum Runners in Our Town?

We live in the coastal town of Westport, Massachusetts, almost half the year. Charley grew up not far from here, and I grew up on the coast of southern Connecticut.  Both states were rum-running territories during Prohibition and the temperance movement of the 1920's.  In fact, the entire east coast was rum-running territory.

Slatted wooden folding chairs pressed against each other on the floor of the Westport Methodist Church hall one night last week. Standees lined the walls.  In front at a table with three other panelists and a moderator sat Carlton Macomber, aka Cukie. Cukie reminded me of a diminutive ninety-something Santa, but when he took the microphone, his unassuming voice transported us into black ships' dangerous waters.

"Boys doing the rum running outfitted their boats to meet the mother ships beyond the three-mile limit, in Rum Row. Those ships came from the deep south, overseas, and Canada.  Without lights (hence, the name "black ships"), the Westport boys tried to outrun the Coast Guard cutters.  They delivered their loads to trucks signalling from Horseneck Beach or up the Sakonnet River. Later on, when things really heated up with the Coast Guard, the mother ships anchored twenty-five or thirty miles out.

"I knew the guy who was the most successful," Cukie said.  "He put two 300-horsepower aircraft engines on his boat, the Star.  No Coast Guard cutter could ever catch him, 'cause he'd disappear into the Devil's Pocket.  From outside the harbor at Half Mile Rock, it looks like there's no opening.  Then his buddy would turn the big wheel to open the rotating bridge over the East branch (of the Westport River), and the Coast Guard thought he'd vanished into thin air.  But he saved his money, and he was generous.  If anyone needed cash, no matter who it was, he'd give it to him on the spot."

"Would you say that half the town was in on the action?" Dawn Tripp, local author and moderator, asked.

"Half the town heard the trucks go up their dirt lanes from the beaches and then up Main Road.  They just kept their shades down.  It was the middle of the night and those trucks never put lights on till they got out of town.  They went to Fall River, Providence, New York, Boston.  Heck, Mayor Curley of Boston sent people down to pick up his shipments."

"Were the syndicates involved?" Dawn said.

"If Mayor Curley was into it, my guess is a 'Yes,'" Cukie said.  "What started out as a cat-and-mouse game between local boys and the Feds turned cut-throat.  More and more money exchanged hands, and everyone wanted a payoff.  More violence, too."

"Since we're talking about federal laws being broken, did local law enforcement get involved?"

"Oh, there might have been one or two arrests with a fine in Fall River court, but it was a slap on the wrist, really.  You've got to remember, there was only one constable here in town.....and he didn't have a driver's license.  If an accident happened, he called his son to take him to the scene."