Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council s1

1 Tab E, No. 2 2 GULF OF MEXICO FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL 3 JOINT REEF FISH/MACKEREL/RED DRUM COMMITTEES 4 5Ramada Plaza Beach Resort Fort Walton Beach, Florida 6 7 November 14, 2005 8 9Reef Fish Others: 10Vernon Minton, Chair Robin Riechers 11Roy Williams, V. Chair Bob Shipp 12Karen Bell Walter Thomassie 13Roy Crabtree Ginny Faye 14Bobbi Walker Clay Porch 15Kay Williams Hal Robbins 16 William Ward 17Mackerel Bart Niquet 18Myron Fischer, Chair Phil Steele 19Corky Perret, V. Chair Monica Smit-Brunello 20Roy Crabtree Judy Jamison 21Karen Foote Jason DeLaCruz 22Phil Horn Jim Roberson 23Vernon Minton Dennis O’Hern 24 James Bruce 25Red Drum Libby Fetherston 26Karen Foote, Chair Russ Nelson 27DeGraaf Adams, V. Chair Ed Maccini 28Columbus Brown Karen Raine 29Joe Hendrix Donald Wafters 30Phil Horn Paul Forsberg 31Larry Simpson Richard Castellano 32 Ken Veach 33Staff: Dave McKinney 34Steven Atran John Merriner 35Assane Diagne Lt. Chad Brick 36Karen Hoak LCDR Scott Rogers 37Stu Kennedy Benny Gallaway 38Trish Kennedy Marianne Cufone 39Rick Leard Russ Underwood 40Charlene Ponce Chris Dorsett 41Cathy Readinger Sal Versaggi 42Wayne Swingle Mark Twinam 43 Adam Miller 44 William Wargo 45 James Green 46 47 - - -

1 1 1The Joint Reef Fish/Mackerel/Red Drum Committees of the Gulf of 2Mexico Fishery Management Council convened in the Ambassador 3Room of the Ramada Plaza Beach Resort, Fort Walton Beach, 4Florida, Monday morning, November 14, 2005, and was called to 5order at 10:40 o’clock a.m. by Chairman Myron Fischer. 6 7CHAIRMAN MYRON FISCHER: Is everybody ready for the Joint Reef 8Fish/Mackerel/Red Drum Committee meeting, better known as the 9Aquaculture? Would everyone be seated? We will now proceed 10with the meeting. The first item is Adoption of the Agenda. 11Does anyone have any changes or alterations to make to the 12agenda? 13 14EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: With the concurrence of the 15committees, what I would like to do is go through the Items 3, 164, and 5 and possibly a handout to the thing and at that point 17in time let you all assess where we are on this issue. 18 19Items 3 and 4 pertain to the council’s action at the last 20meeting that was to table discussion of the aquaculture 21amendment to this meeting and I don’t think I made it clear to 22the six members that were not present at that meeting that that 23motion was made and that’s part of the reason we’re reviewing 24this at this session. 25 26If that would be possible, I think it would flow better going 27through the alternatives under Items 3, 4, and 5 and then 28beginning the discussion of where the committee goes. 29 30CHAIRMAN FISCHER: In a sense, we won’t be coming up with 31committee recommendations until you’re through Item 5. Are 32there any other changes? If there are no other changes, a 33motion for approval? 34 35MR. PHILIP HORN: So moved. 36 37CHAIRMAN FISCHER: The motion moved. Is there a second? 38 39MS. KAY WILLIAMS: Second. 40 41CHAIRMAN FISCHER: Any opposition? Seeing no opposition, the 42motion carries. The next item is Item 2, Approval of Minutes. 43Are there any changes or alterations to the minutes? Seeing no 44changes -- 45 46EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: We don’t have any minutes, Mr. 47Chairman. Joe’s group got a little behind and they just weren’t 48able to produce it for the committee.

1 2 1CHAIRMAN FISCHER: We have no minutes to change or correct and 2we shall move directly -- 3 4MR. VERNON MINTON: What’s the procedure should we do on that, 5Wayne? Should we go ahead and table consideration of those 6until either full council or next meeting or something like that? 7 8EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: I think in this case it’s going to 9have to be until the next meeting, because we conferred with Joe 10and in order to get us our council minutes, they had to forego 11doing some of the committee minutes and so they will not be 12available to the next meeting or we could just normally approve 13them at the next meeting of this group. I don’t really think 14you need a motion to do it. 15 16CHAIRMAN FISCHER: At the next meeting of this committee, we’ll 17look over and approve the minutes. The next item, Item 3, is 18the Review of Aquaculture Alternatives and Mr. Swingle will take 19this along with Item 4 and 5. 20 21EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: This relates to the council’s 22motion to defer the discussion or table discussion of the 23aquaculture amendment to the next meeting and in the process of 24the committee’s actions last time, you all were going through an 25amendment document and options paper for that and Shep Grimes 26brought up the fact that he thought he recalled reviewing a set 27of alternatives that were different from the alternatives that 28the council was reviewing at that time or the three committees. 29 30He was correct. There was another IPT meeting and I guess I, in 31drafting the options paper, had used the set of alternatives 32that you last reviewed at the March meeting and there was an IPT 33meeting in June that developed some additional alternatives. 34 35Tab J, Number 3 answers the question the council had of how 36different were those newer minutes from the ones that were being 37reviewed and actually, if you look at this document, the ones 38that are identically the same are shaded in yellow and the ones 39that are the differences are left in bolded copy. 40 41Most of the changes that actually occurred in that one IPT 42meeting related to Action 3, the permit conditions, and a little 43bit of it to the record keeping and reporting section, but 44essentially they were fairly similar, with I guess a little more 45dialogue being presented for the actions in Alternative 3 and I 46guess Alternative 8 was a bit broader as far as the record 47keeping and reporting requirements. 48MS. WILLIAMS: I was having a little difficulty and I was

1 3 1looking through this and when I compared J-3 and J-4, I would 2come across things under the enforcement section that would say 3“D-Not necessary.” To me, I don’t know what not necessary means 4if I can’t read what it was that someone else has decided no 5longer is not necessary and I would look for “I” and the “I” 6wouldn’t be in either document and so do we have a completed 7document before us at this time with everything in it that we 8can refer back to? 9 10EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: The other issue is that the 11council, by motion at the last meeting, adopted all the Action 9 12enforcement issues that were presented by Mr. McKinney on behalf 13of NMFS Enforcement at that meeting and there is a handout from 14Andy Strelcheck who indicated there was some duplication in that. 15 16What I was going to suggest, since neither Mr. McKinney nor Mr. 17Strelcheck is here, that both of those persons are members of 18the IPT and that would be to have them confer together and try 19to reduce the redundancy between the motions that Mr. McKinney 20submitted and the ones -- 21 22I think what Mr. McKinney did was he just listed all the 23alternatives he felt should be applicable to the enforcement 24issue without really looking at the other actions to see if any 25of those occurred in those, but that’s just my supposition, 26because I assumed he was going to be here and he hasn’t been 27able to, due to a family emergency. 28 29That, Ms. Williams, is what I was going to recommend you do with 30Action 9, which is the same for both of these documents, but 31it’s the same because the council adopted those alternatives at 32the last meeting. 33 34MS. WILLIAMS: I remember the council adopting certain things, 35but we also found out at the last minute that the documents 36didn’t match up and so you were going to go back and correct 37that and I’m still missing stuff. 38 39I’m reading one thing and seeing something else and I don’t know 40where to find it in the document, but maybe when we get to that 41section I can point it out to you. 42 43EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: That was the point I was trying to 44make is Tab J, Number 3 was an attempt to identify for the 45council which of the alternatives were different and all the 46ones in the document that are bolded in yellow are identical to 47the ones that were in the options paper the council was working 48from and that is appended under Number 4 of Tab J.

1 4 1 2The areas where there were major differences appeared to be only 3Action 3 and, to some extent, Action 8, which is the record 4keeping and reporting. There weren’t, I guess, a significant 5degree of difference between the alternatives, but the newer 6version did have more and so that can be easily corrected by 7using the most recent version of the IPT draft, which is in 8Alternative 3, and redrafting the document. 9 10MS. WILLIAMS: I have one other comment. I’m actually having a 11problem with Enforcement Issues, Action 9, but I’ll wait until 12we get there and I’ll point them out. 13 14EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: What I had just recommended that 15the committees do with Action 9, since neither Mr. McKinney or 16Mr. Strelcheck were here, is to defer those back to those two 17persons who are both members of the IPT and have them try to 18eliminate the redundancy between them, because I think Mr. 19McKinney submitted those items that he felt were important to 20enforcement without looking to see whether any of them 21conflicted with alternatives under other actions. 22 23MS. WILLIAMS: If I may, Mr. Chairman, one more time. It’s not 24the redundancy, it’s I want to see what the wording is that 25someone is calling it redundant. If it’s not there in black and 26white, I can’t tell if it’s redundant or not. 27 28CHAIRMAN FISCHER: Kay, when we get to those points, we’ll work 29through them. 30 31MR. JOSEPH HENDRIX: I think one of the problems in what we’re 32dealing with here is because of a number of different factors. 33This document is really not in a form ready for the council to 34review yet. 35 36The IPT did not have a chance to finish the work on it. The 37council has changed, for a number of different reasons, has 38changed priorities on the work on this and I believe this 39document really needs to go back for some more work. 40 41I think we need to give Wayne and the staff direction to do what 42they need to put it in a form ready for the council to review, 43whether we need to get some outside help, and I would ask for 44some direction from you, Mr. Swingle, on that. I’m willing to 45 46 47make a motion, but I would like to hear Wayne’s recommendations 48so we can make the right motion.

1 5 1 2EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: Both Mr. Hendrix and I had hoped 3that we would have gotten some recommendations or dialogue out 4of the National Office of Aquaculture and both Michael Rubino 5and Susan Bunsick indicated that potentially there might be some 6help there and they had agreed to convey that information to us 7last week and that just didn’t happen. 8 9Apparently, from our telephone calls to their offices, they were 10probably in travel status, but anyway, we certainly want to 11pursue that again. 12 13The problem, as kind of outlined in Tab J, Number 5, is that the 14council at the last meeting made a higher priority for doing 15five additional new amendments and possibly six or seven, 16depending on whether amberjack and vermilion snapper had to be 17done, and then agreed that aquaculture would go to the back 18burner. 19 20Recognizing that the IPTs generally use pretty much the same 21slate of people, it creates a shortage of people at the council 22level. I can continue to participate in redrafting this, but I 23don’t think any of the other technical staff can, because 24they’re all committed to the other IPTs for these five or six 25amendments. 26 27I can employ an economist to work on this. That’s one of the 28areas where the data and analyses are particularly lacking. We 29don’t have an RIR drafted or an initial regulatory flexibility 30analysis or even the socioeconomic impact analysis of the 31alternatives and so we have that option, to hire someone to get 32us farther ahead by doing some of the economic analysis that 33would be required, and currently none of that is in the document. 34 35CHAIRMAN FISCHER: I have Joe with another comment and then 36Robin and at this time, I’m going to let Mr. Adams take over the 37chair for a few minutes. 38 39MR. HENDRIX: I would like to make a motion that we let Mr. 40Swingle and council staff go back with this document and arrange 41the preparation of this document to put it in a better form for 42council review and then bring it back to the council when it’s 43ready. 44 45MR. ADAMS: Is there a second? 46MR. MINTON: Second. 47 48MR. ADAMS: Second from Mr. Minton. Is there any discussion on

1 6 1the motion? 2 3MR. HORN: Are you saying we’re not going to go through this 4document this morning, is that what we’re talking about? 5 6MR. HENDRIX: I don’t think it’s in a well organized enough form 7right now, Phil, that we would be doing -- It would be time well 8spent for the council and that’s my take on it. I hate to waste 9council member’s time and we can probably do a lot better by 10letting the staff work on it and then coming back. 11 12In the interim, I’ll help wherever I can and Wayne and I will 13try to get some additional help from maybe the Washington office 14to carry this forward farther. 15 16MR. ROBIN RIECHERS: It seems like we’ve included a couple 17different discussion points in Wayne’s last comments and the 18first was the IPT changes and the differences between the two 19documents that we have in front of us. 20 21I think it might be useful to try to address some of Kay’s 22responses or questions so that we go through -- The difficulty 23we had last time was we had two different versions and I think 24for us to get that clarified so that we all know which version 25we’re now going to work with, I think that might be useful for 26some of the council members around the table. 27 28I think we can still have this motion, which kicks it on back 29and says we need more work and we need to get it in a more 30productive form, but I really think we ought to go through 31Actions 1 through 9 and have some agreement on those at this 32point so that we get past this hurdle of two different documents 33sitting out there, one that the IPT team had worked on and one 34that’s kind of an older document that we haven’t really caught 35up with yet. 36 37MR. HENDRIX: Robin, do you feel like this motion is going to 38inhibit that? 39 40MR. RIECHERS: No, I don’t and that’s why I didn’t necessarily 41speak to the motion. Like I said, I think we really, and as I 42think Phil was questioning, I think we do have some time to go 43ahead and go through the document and at least clarify for 44everyone around the table the changes that were made after it 45 46came out of the IPT and that’s where we had the confusion at the 47last meeting, it appears to me anyhow. 48

1 7 1MR. ADAMS: Let’s go ahead and vote on the motion with the 2understanding that after we vote on this that Mr. Swingle will 3go through the Items 3, 4, and 5 that are on the agenda. All 4those in favor of the motion say aye; all those opposed. The 5motion passes with no opposition. Wayne, do you want to go 6through these Action Items 1 through 9 just briefly? 7 8EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: The document you’re going to need 9is the Tab J, Number 3 document. That is the most recent draft 10of the IPT and then the handout, which is the list of Mr. 11McKinney’s recommendations for inclusion in Action 9 and the 12comments of Andy Strelcheck in red on that. 13 14If those are the documents that we use, I think we’ll make some 15headway in reviewing this. Under that one, I guess if you look 16at the handout, the first comment Mr. Strelcheck had was the 17Alternative 8A that he had submitted to the council and the 18council had adopted and that’s that no one can maintain a marine 19aquaculture facility or conduct aquaculture without an 20authorized permit. 21 22He says that it redundant with Action 3. Action 3 is on page 2 23of Tab J, Number 3 and I have some problem determining what he 24means by that’s redundant, but -- 25 26MR. ADAMS: I think, Wayne, what he’s saying is Action 1 is 27whether or not we want to establish whether or not an operator 28needs a permit or not and Action 3 requires the permit holder to 29perform in a certain manner under his permit. 30 31What he’s saying is if you didn’t have a permit then 3 would go 32away and so if you’re saying in Action 3 that a person does need 33a permit, there’s no need for Action 1 to decide whether they 34need a permit or not. 35 36CHAIRMAN FISCHER: Wayne, before you go much further, I would 37like to ask consensus of the committees and if the motion passed 38previously to rewrite and put this in a format more easily 39understood, couldn’t we just wait to get the review at that time 40or, Joe, did you think we should be doing the review now and 41then after our comments we still have the staff go forward? 42 43MR. HENDRIX: Robin brought up after you left that we do have 44time available and we could go ahead and address it now, go 45through the list. I think the biggest thing everyone needs to 46recognize is that the document hasn’t been consolidated and a 47lot of these redundancies removed and, Kay, I think that’s one 48of the things that you’re having a problem with in looking at

1 8 1this, because one of those items that was removed is in this 2list and I believe it’s D and I don’t recall what it is and 3that’s probably what it is, but I think it’s going to be time 4better spent once this document is completed or put in a better 5form. 6 7CHAIRMAN FISCHER: Considering that, I think what we should do 8then is just let Wayne review it generally and we move forward 9and not have us try to tweak the individual points at this stage 10until they compile them all into one document. 11 12MR. HENDRIX: I think that was Robin’s objective. 13 14CHAIRMAN FISCHER: Let’s not interrupt Wayne and just let him go 15through it to review. 16 17MS. WILLIAMS: My comment was in Wayne reading this under Action 181, I’m reading what it says there and then I look back at the 19other document on page 8, Tab J, Number 4, and I see a preferred 20alternative. Does that mean our preferred alternative went away? 21 22EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: No, those of you that were here at 23the last meeting will recall, and I didn’t get into this, but 24starting with Section 4.4 of the Tab J, Number 4, and that’s on 25page 8, we did review the alternatives and the committees were 26selecting their preferred alternatives and selecting 27alternatives to put into a considered but rejected mode. 28 29For instance, on the first action, the Alternative 2 was 30selected as the preferred alternative and Alternative 3 was 31selected by the committee and council to be in the considered 32but rejected column and so it’s underlined and we got to a point 33in doing this when I guess that Dr. Crabtree pointed out that 34there really was not a good rationale for selecting preferred 35alternatives, because the economic analyses had not been done in 36this document and that we really ought to defer that to a later 37date. 38 39That was part of the reason, I think, that the council passed 40the motion to table this action on this amendment and consider 41it at this meeting here. 42 43MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you, but it’s still awful confusing to me 44when you look at one document and there’s no preferred and you 45flip to the other document and there are preferreds, but that 46maybe that will be worked out next time. 47 48CHAIRMAN FISCHER: I’m going to let Mr. Swingle go through the

1 9 1documents and we’ll be using this as a review and sending it 2back to staff and so let’s let Mr. Swingle continue. 3 4EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: The only other point that I was 5going to make was that in the IPT Document Number 4, beginning 6on page 8, the committee actions were done to select preferred 7alternatives and select those that ought to be removed and put 8into the section of considered but rejected. 9 10Then, as I just was indicating, Dr. Crabtree suggested that we 11not continue with that action, because we didn’t have any of the 12economic analyses, and so then the council tabled the action to 13the next meeting or the committees tabled action until the next 14meeting. 15 16CHAIRMAN FISCHER: I would like to also ask the committee, in 17light of this and in light of the fact that we shouldn’t have 18been choosing preferred alternatives without all the information 19in front of us, should we delete those phrases from the document 20under J-4? Would that be appropriate, to delete them and come 21back in the future where we could analyze them with the economic 22analysis and then put our opinion? 23 24EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: You certainly could do that, but I 25think once you got the economic analysis, you would do that 26anyway. You would reexamine the things to see whether or not 27you wanted to change preferred alternatives. 28 29MR. HENDRIX: This document is not in the final form yet and so 30we’re going to have ample opportunity to correct anything. 31 32CHAIRMAN FISCHER: I understand that. I just wonder if we 33should continue the document with preferred alternatives 34considering the changes that’s going to be made and maybe we 35shouldn’t have chosen those anyway, but we have no motion to 36delete the preferreds. 37 38MS. BOBBI WALKER: If you’re asking for a motion to delete the 39preferred alternatives, I will make that. 40 41CHAIRMAN FISCHER: Not to delete the preferred alternative, but 42to delete the phrase “preferred” in this document so we 43reexamine it and we don’t necessarily have a prejudice towards 44 45something that we voted on without sufficient data in front of 46us. 47 48MR. HENDRIX: Those two preferred alternatives came from IPT

1 10 1recommendations too and so it’s something that will be reviewed 2again, but it’s unlikely to be changed. We have a basis for the 3decisions that have been made on that and, once again, it’s not 4a final document. 5 6MS. WILLIAMS: Is it my understanding the IPT made some 7suggestions, but this council does not necessarily have to 8choose what the IPT came up with and so everything will be 9brought back before us in black and white, even though the IPT 10team does not agree with it and we will see the whole list of 11things? Is that correct? 12 13CHAIRMAN FISCHER: Correct. 14 15EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SWINGLE: That’s correct. We would merge the 16copy under J-3 with J-4 and come up with more recent set of 17alternatives and then bring it all back to you. 18 19MR. ADAMS: I think we’re starting to go in circles here and 20we’ve already had a motion and passed it to send the document 21back and I think we ought to do that and wait until this thing 22comes back and just move on. 23 24CHAIRMAN FISCHER: That’s what I asked earlier, if the consensus 25wanted to hear the review, where we stood now, as Robin 26discussed earlier, or just wait until we get in back in front of 27us. I don’t want to say we’re wasting our time. It’s reviewing 28it, but I agree that we’re just going in a circle. 29 30If the consensus wants Wayne to go through it, that’s fine, 31knowing it’s going back to staff and everything will be merged 32into a document and it will come back to us in the format that 33we’re used to seeing and if we want to wait for that to happen 34before we do anything else, we can adjourn for lunch earlier, 35because Mr. Minton is going to need every minute of time he can 36get for Reef Fish. If either by motion or consensus, but it’s 37whatever you all wish for Wayne to do. 38 39MR. HORN: We’ve got three documents we’re trying to work from 40and we don’t know which ones are which. I move that we table 41this discussion until we get one document brought back before 42these committees so we can discuss it like we always do and 43nobody will be confused. 44 45CHAIRMAN FISCHER: We have a motion to table and do we have a 46second? Seconded by Mr. Hendrix and we need a vote and let’s 47have a voice vote. All in favor of tabling this until we get 48one document back in front of us as Mr. Horn’s motion stated,

1 11 1all in favor aye; all opposed same sign. With no opposition, 2the motion carries. This is tabled. That should conclude this 3committee. We are adjourned. 4 5(Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 11:15 o’clock a.m., 6November 14, 2005.) 7 8 - - -