Important: Herring Amendment 4 Scoping Period!

April 27, 2008

CHOIR UPDATE

IMPORTANT

As you all know, the NEFMC decided to initiate a herring amendment at its meeting in November (2007) and finally the scoping document has been released and scoping meetings have been scheduled, officially kicking off the process of developing the amendment. Scoping is when the NEFMC asks the public to comment on the issues outlined in the scoping document so that they can get ideas for how to move forward with the amendment. This is an important step and one of the key times when they rely on public input; scoping sets the tone for the entire amendment.

The scoping document itself will outline the issues the NEFMC wants feedback on, and gives other important information that will aid in commenting during scoping. The Scoping Document can be found on the NEFMC Herring Page. Click here to get to the Herring Page and you will find the scoping document linked at the top of the page. The document will outline how to comment through the mail, fax or email.

There will also be four meetings where the public can speak and you are also able to send in comments.

The meeting times and locations are:

-10:00am on Wednesday April 30th, at the Holiday Inn, One Newbury Street, Peabody, MA
-9:00am on Thursday May 22nd, at the Clarion Hotel Portland, 1230 Congress Street, Portland, ME
-5:00pm on Monday June 2nd, at the Holiday Inn By The Bay, 88 Spring Street, Portland, ME
-6:00pm on Tuesday June 10th, at the Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center Hotel, 2 Miss America Way, Atlantic City, NJ

This is a crucial step in the amendment process and so we need people to get out to the meetings and to send in public comments so that the NEFMC will put together an amendment that properly addresses the problems in the herring fishery.