Commercial fishermen, advocates oppose Cuomo's artificial reef expansion plan

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s highly public campaign for a vast expansion of artificial reefs in the waters around Long Island has hit a wave of opposition from commercial fishermen who say it would rob them of fishing grounds and income.

The reef project, which Cuomo first announced in 2018, is in the early stages of a plan to more than double in size, to more than 6,800 acres of sea bottom. The reefs use vast amounts of cleaned waste metal, concrete and rock dropped from barges into waters from the Rockaways to Huntington Bay, with the aim of creating structure for undersea wildlife. The program has received widespread support from environmentalists, recreational divers and sports fishermen.

But commercial fishermen in recent months are saying they were denied a seat at the table when plans to expand the existing 3,389 acres of sea-bottom were being publicly reviewed in 2020. They say the expanded reefs, including in federal waters, will obstruct fishing grounds in places where they target squid, black sea bass, striped bass and surf clams, among other species.

"Taking more fishing grounds from these guys when they are already facing losses due to offshore wind farms is unconscionable," said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, a Montauk advocacy group. The group is not objecting to the initial artificial reef project announced in 2018.

Sean Mahar, chief of staff at the Department of Environmental Conservation, downplayed the opposition by the commercial fishermen's group as "maybe a ripple" compared with what he called "a tsunami of support" for the project, which he said used "science to strategically grow the reefs to have a minimal impact."

But Tom Kehoe, who chairs the Fisheries Committee of the Suffolk Legislature’s Marine Industry Revitalization Committee, said the reefs, while perhaps helpful for sport fishermen, "really minimize where these commercial fishermen, women can put their trawls and their nets."

Worse, Kehoe said, "If you or I dumped something like that [metal waste] in a lot, they [the DEC] would have you arrested."

In a correspondence with the state DEC in recent months, the fishing association accused the state of poor communications about the program.

The association and its hundreds of members were "wholly unaware of the reef expansion/creation program" until a Sept. 16 story last year in Newsday detailing its scope, Brady wrote in a state filing. Cuomo has made multiple trips to Long Island to tout the program from its earliest days, starting with one at Sunken Meadow State Park in 2018. Last fall, he led a similar awareness campaign off Point Lookout, as barges dropped hundreds of tons more of rail cars, Tappan Zee Bridge parts, tugboats and power-plant turbines into state waters three miles from shore. The DEC and Cuomo have touted the program as a vital catalyst to recreating booming underwater ecosystems for wildlife.

In a letter to the fishing association in December, DEC commissioner Basil Seggos said the state gave careful review of potential commercial fishing impacts before identifying reef areas, and that fishermen had ample opportunity to air their views about the expansion plan starting in early 2020. There were well-publicized public hearings, news releases and targeted emails, he said. The DEC "took seriously our responsibility to engage and listen to the public."

Seggos said while the reefs "prevent certain types of gear from being used" in the areas, notably trawl and gill nets, those impacts were "reviewed closely" during the environmental impact process. In the end, the DEC concluded that "any impacts to the commercial industry will not be significant."

But the fishing association said regulators didn't provide adequate notice and forums for commercial fishermen to have a say in the reef expansion, including into the "cumulative negative impacts" for those using gear such as trawl nets who would "in essence lose essential ocean bottom" as reefs are expanded, according to a letter sent to the DEC in the fall.

Brady, in written comments to the DEC, noted the expansion of some individual reefs from an initial 45 acres to upward of 850 acres "has huge economic consequences to those commercial fishermen, trawlers, gill netters or pot fishermen whose traditional and historic fishing grounds would in essence be taken from them without appropriate input, due process or recourse."

One of those fishermen who "strongly" opposes the reef expansion is Victor Makis Jr., who fishes for squid, fluke, sea bass and striped base from the fishing trawler, Terri Sue, at the Shinnecock Commercial Dock in Hampton Bays.

"These reefs will conflict with tows that many boats make across Shinnecock and Moriches Inlet," requiring fishermen to haul up their nets, "steam across the reef," then reset his nets. Since state boats can't fish in federal waters beyond three miles, they can’t merely steer into federal waters around the reefs with their nets still out, Makis wrote in comments submitted to state.

Malcolm McClintock, a 40-year commercial fisherman with two trawlers who fish the South Shore, said expansion of the Shinnecock reef will "limit access to valuable fishing grounds for squid," while expansion of the Moriches reef would "negatively affect commercial fishing in a large way" because fishing in the area has occurred "for decades."

Another state reef called Sixteen Fathom, a newly created reef, is a "productive federal fishing ground" for the entire mid-Atlantic fleet, McClintock wrote in comments to the state. Brady, in correspondence to the DEC, said creation of this reef would be "catastrophic" for trawlers and surf clam boats, among others. It would "not only destroy the productive ocean bottom" but also limit traditional grounds where trawlers tow their nets, leading to the loss of potentially millions of pounds of fish each year, she said.

The DEC, citing fishing data collected from commercial fishing boats, countered that commercial fishing activity near Sixteen Fathom reef was "limited."

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.