Proposal fails to establish a biological problem, omits serious economic warnings, and threatens livelihoods of union and African American working families before ongoing research is complete.
KEY POINTS
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No demonstrated biological problem. The draft relies on statements about what “may” happen, what “could” occur, or what is “possible,” while acknowledging that sufficient data do not exist.
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The ASMFC’s own record does not support new restrictions. The current Bay Cap is already highly precautionary, and the Technical Committee found no consistent relationship between fishing timing and Maryland pound-net catches.
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Critical economic warnings were omitted. The addendum leaves out the ASMFC’s Committee on Economics and Social Sciences warnings of structural unemployment, a minimum operating volume threshold, and a possible 100 percent shutdown.
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Civil rights and labor concerns have been raised. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference expresses concern that African American workers, union families, and rural communities may be disproportionately affected.
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The research is not finished. The ASMFC is considering new restrictions before work intended to support a scientifically based Bay Cap is complete.
REEDVILLE, VA / ACCESS Newswire / August 3, 2026 / The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board is considering Draft Addendum II to Amendment 3 of the Atlantic Menhaden Interstate Fishery Management Plan, which proposes further reductions to the Chesapeake Bay Reduction Fishery Cap, automatically linking the Bay Cap to the coastwide total allowable catch, and directing Virginia to divide the cap into seasonal quotas.
The proposal raises three serious concerns. First, its own “Statement of the Problem” does not establish that a biological problem exists, and the ASMFC leadership previously acknowledged that the record did not provide evidence supporting the reduction that produced the current cap. Second, the Menhaden Technical Committee found no consistent evidence that the timing of reduction fishing affects Maryland pound-net catches. Third, the addendum leaves out the most serious warnings from the ASMFC’s economic advisers-including structural unemployment and the possibility that further cuts could force a 100 percent shutdown of the Reedville facility.
Those risks fall on a rural union workforce that includes a majority African American workers and supports multigenerational families in a community with no comparable jobs. At the same time, the Commission acknowledges that additional research is needed to develop a scientifically based process for setting the Bay Cap. The Board is therefore considering specific new restrictions, with certain economic pain, before that research is complete, without demonstrating that the existing cap has failed or that the proposed measures would produce a documented biological benefit.
For these reasons, Ocean Harvesters has written to the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board urging it not to approve Draft Addendum II for public comment or potential implementation. The company is asking the Board to take no further action until ongoing research provides the information necessary for a scientifically defensible management decision.
The Addendum Does Not Establish a Biological Basis for New Restrictions
The addendum is a solution in search of a problem. Its own “Statement of the Problem” begins with what “may” be happening, proceeds through what is “possible” and what “could” occur, acknowledges that “there are currently not sufficient scientific data available,” and proposes restrictions to address a problem it never defines.
The addendum says menhaden availability “may be affected” by changes in abundance and distribution and that recent observations “suggest that availability of menhaden in Chesapeake Bay may be changing.” It then concedes that “there are currently not sufficient scientific data available” to comprehensively characterize menhaden abundance and distribution in the Bay or the influence of fishing pressure.
The lack of evidence is not new. In a 2018 letter responding to Virginia’s appeal of Amendment 3’s 41 percent Bay Cap reduction, then-ASMFC Chair James J. Gilmore Jr. wrote:
“There is no evidence in Amendment 3 to support the view that lowering the Bay Cap was necessary to protect the Bay as a nursery area for menhaden and there is no evidence to suggest the Bay Cap is necessary to protect the Bay as a nursery for other species. Leadership agrees the Amendment does not provide sufficient evidence to support such claims.”
The current 51,000 metric ton Bay Cap is the product of repeated precautionary reductions. It was established in 2006 to prevent expansion of the reduction fishery while scientific studies examined the possibility of localized depletion, reduced by 20 percent in 2013, and lowered again 41 percent down to 51,000 metric tons in 2018.
Eight years later, Draft Addendum II proposes still further reductions without supplying the evidence ASMFC leadership said was missing when the current cap was adopted. The existing cap has constrained Chesapeake Bay reduction harvests to historically low levels, yet the addendum identifies no scientifically established Bay-harvest threshold and does not demonstrate that the current cap has failed to protect the resource.
The rationale for seasonal quotas is equally speculative. The addendum says “it is possible” that higher catch rates “could affect” availability to predators or other fisheries, but it does not establish that localized depletion occurred, that predators lost access to menhaden, or that another fishery was harmed.
The Menhaden Technical Committee’s review found no consistent relationship between the timing of reduction fishing and Maryland pound-net catches. For 2023, the analysis indicated little influence from the reduction fishery. For 2024, it said only that an effect was possible and acknowledged that any relationship would depend upon fish movements and fishery dynamics at a finer scale than the analysis could evaluate.
Taken together, the addendum says menhaden availability may be changing; several different factors could cause it; available science cannot determine Bay abundance, distribution, or fishing effects; and therefore the Commission should consider reducing and seasonally redistributing reduction harvest. That is not a demonstrated problem-and-cause relationship or a scientific basis for imposing new restrictions.
The Draft Omits Its Own Advisers’ Most Serious Warnings
Draft Addendum II selectively presents the findings of the ASMFC’s Committee on Economics and Social Sciences. The highlighted sections-covering the reduction industry’s central role in the Reedville economy, the risk of structural unemployment, the minimum operating-volume threshold, and the potential for a 100-percent shutdown-were left out of the addendum text.
In the fall of 2025 and spring of 2026, CESS was tasked with examining how changes in menhaden management could affect jobs in the commercial reduction and bait sectors. It found that the reduction sector supported approximately 519 full- and part-time jobs in Maryland and Virginia, including 347 in Northumberland County, where comparable employment opportunities are limited.
For Chesapeake Bay-specific restrictions, the analysis associated each 1,000 metric ton quota reduction with approximately 3.7 total jobs, including 2.1 direct reduction sector jobs. If Bay harvest were eliminated and vessels could not replace those landings in coastal waters, Northumberland County could lose as many as 176 jobs, including 98 direct jobs.
CESS warned that the reduction industry is a “critical and central sector” for the Reedville economy and that job losses could lead to “structural unemployment rather than frictional transition.” The Reedville operation is a capital-intensive business with substantial fixed costs associated with its processing plant, fleet, insurance, infrastructure, and workforce. As CESS explained, “a processing plant would require a minimum volume of fish to cover its fixed costs of operation.”
“If additional restrictions push landings below that break-even threshold, the result could be ‘not a partial layoff but potentially a 100% shutdown of the facility.’”
A 10 or 20 percent reduction in allowable harvest therefore would not necessarily produce only a 10 or 20 percent reduction in employment. A seemingly modest cut could push the operation below the minimum volume needed to remain viable, triggering major layoffs or the complete loss of the facility. CESS did not identify the precise reduction that would cross that threshold, but warned that the consequences could become dramatic once it is reached.
The addendum repeats the older linear estimates of jobs associated with each 1,000 metric ton quota change and emphasizes that those models may overstate long-term effects because they do not account for market adjustments or business adaptation. But it omits the companion warning that the reduction sector’s response may be nonlinear, that job losses could become structural, that the operation must maintain a minimum volume, and that crossing its break-even threshold could result in a complete shutdown rather than a proportional reduction in employment.
The full CESS memorandum appears later in the broader meeting packet, but the addendum itself-the document the Board is being asked to approve for public comment-does not adequately disclose those risks. Emphasizing the possibility that a linear model may overstate gradual losses while omitting the warning that it may fail to capture a catastrophic threshold presents an incomplete and potentially misleading picture of the economic consequences.
A Maryland-Initiated Proposal Could Impose Lasting Harm on Union and Minority Workers
The effort to develop the addendum began with a motion by Maryland’s delegation to the ASMFC to consider seasonal Bay Cap periods and reductions of as much as 50 percent. The consequences, however, would fall primarily on a Virginia-based workforce that includes union members and many African American workers in and around Reedville.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization whose founding president was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has urged Maryland Governor Wes Moore to ensure that the state considers the workers and families whose livelihoods are at risk. SCLC asked that Maryland’s position be guided by “balance, sound science, environmental stewardship, economic justice, and a full recognition of the workers and families whose lives may be directly affected.”
SCLC said the issue sits at the intersection of environmental responsibility, rural economic life, labor, wages, race, and the dignity of work. It stressed that protecting workers, wages, benefits, and family stability is particularly important “where African American workers, union families, and rural communities may be disproportionately affected.”
“The menhaden fishery has long provided meaningful blue-collar employment for workers in communities where stable jobs with benefits are increasingly difficult to find.”
SCLC described the jobs as locally rooted, multigenerational, and connected to working waterfront communities where people are trying to remain close to home, raise their families, and build a future with dignity. For African American working families and rural communities, it said that employment is “not simply an economic statistic.” It represents “stability, opportunity, and the ability to provide for one’s household with pride.”
SCLC did not dismiss the importance of the Chesapeake Bay or responsible environmental management. It asked Maryland to recognize the full complexity of the issue and cautioned against treating affected workers as an afterthought.
“The goal should not be to place the Bay against working people, or working people against the Bay, but to make policy in a way that honors both.”
The Workers and Families Behind the Numbers
The Reedville workforce includes union members represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 and many African American workers whose families have depended on the fishery for generations. In a brief UFCW Local 400 video, fishermen explain how these jobs provide middle class wages, health insurance, retirement security, homeownership, college opportunities, and stability for multigenerational working families.
The video also explains the importance of these jobs and benefits to the African American community in Northumberland County, where comparable employment is limited and health coverage continues during winter months when seasonal workers are not working. The workers describe what the loss of the fishery would mean for their families and the wider Northern Neck community.
Watch the UFCW Local 400 video
The video Our Sundays Are Different portrays the distinctive rhythm of life in this multigenerational fishing community. During the season, fishermen may leave Reedville on Sunday and remain away until Wednesday or Friday. Their families describe emotional Sunday goodbyes, missed birthdays, interrupted church responsibilities, and the ordinary family moments sacrificed to earn a living and provide for their households.
The fishermen also explain how the fishery allows them to support their families, remain in the communities where they were raised, and continue a way of life passed from one generation to the next. In a rural county with few comparable opportunities, these union jobs provide stable income, health insurance, and the means to build a secure life.
Watch Our Sundays Are Different
Complete the Research Before Imposing New Restrictions
Ocean Harvesters is asking the Board to take no further action on the addendum until ongoing research provides the information needed to make a scientifically defensible decision about Chesapeake Bay menhaden management.
That research is no longer merely proposed. In October 2025, the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), funded a team of scientists from VIMS, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and NOAA to develop a research roadmap identifying the data, methods, costs and timetable needed to establish a scientifically defensible and ecologically meaningful Chesapeake Bay harvest cap. The project is examining how future research could measure Bay-specific menhaden abundance, fishing mortality, movement between Chesapeake Bay and coastal waters, and availability to predators. Its final recommendations are expected by the end of 2026. Ocean Harvesters and Omega Protein support the SCEMFIS project, and Ocean Harvesters is cooperating with pilot work evaluating whether tagged fish can be detected through commercial fishing and processing operations.
Virginia has also committed $2 million over two years to a VIMS-led Atlantic menhaden research program. The funding was restored through an amendment submitted by Governor Abigail Spanberger and approved by the General Assembly in June. The budget directs VIMS, working with the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and affected stakeholders, to conduct research needed to inform a scientifically defensible Bay Cap. The authorized work includes menhaden abundance and movement, predator consumption, the timing and location of commercial fishing effort, localized-depletion questions and the workforce consequences of future harvest restrictions. The budget language expressly permits VIMS to build upon the recommendations of the SCEMFIS roadmap.
These complementary industry-supported and publicly funded efforts are intended to develop the Bay-specific scientific information the Commission acknowledges is presently lacking. Yet the Board is considering reductions, automatic cap adjustments and seasonal quotas before either effort has produced its findings.
The imbalance is clear: the addendum offers speculative and undefined biological benefits while exposing a rural, multigenerational workforce, including union members and many African American workers, to substantial and potentially irreversible economic harm.
The Commission should not release for public comment a document that does not define the problem, does not demonstrate that the proposed measures would solve it, does not fully disclose the possibility that the restrictions could cost hundreds of jobs, and does not disclose that they could cause the shutdown of the Reedville operation.
About Ocean Harvesters
Ocean Harvesters owns and operates a fleet of more than 30 fishing vessels in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of America. The company’s purse-seine fishing operation is exclusively engaged in the harvest of menhaden, a small, nutrient-dense fish used to produce fish meal, fish oil, and fish solubles. Both its Atlantic and Gulf Menhaden fisheries are certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. Committed to responsible fishing operations, Ocean Harvesters is proud to be heir to a fishing legacy that extends nearly 150 years.
Press Contact
Stove Boat Communications
(202) 595-1212
contact@stoveboat.com
SOURCE: Ocean Harvesters
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