Justification of Change

JUSTIFICATION FOR CHANGE
NMFS ALASKA REGION
VESSEL MONITORING SYSTEM (VMS) PROGRAM
OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-0445

Groundfish fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) are managed under the Fishery Management
Plan for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska (FMP). The North Pacific Fishery Management
Council (Council) prepared the FMP under the authority of the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson–Stevens Act). Regulations implementing the
FMP appear at 50 CFR part 679.
The FMP designates essential fish habitat and habitat areas of particular concern (HAPCs) in the
Gulf of Alaska. HAPCs are areas within essential fish habitat that are of particular ecological
importance to the long–term sustainability of managed species, are of a rare type, or are
especially susceptible to degradation or development. The Council may designate specific sites
as HAPCs and may develop management measures to protect habitat features within them. In
order to protect HAPCs, certain habitat protection areas and habitat conservation zones have
been designated. A habitat protection area is an area of special, rare habitat features where
fishing activities that may adversely affect the habitat are restricted.
Two HAPCs are designated in the Fairweather Grounds and one HAPC is designated near Cape
Ommaney in the Gulf of Alaska. Within these HAPCs, five Coral Habitat Protection Areas were
identified where high concentrations of sensitive corals occur. Fishing is restricted only in the
five Coral Habitat Protection Areas, not the entire HAPC.
Anchoring and the use of bottom contact gear by any federally permitted fishing vessel in these
five areas are prohibited as they adversely affect coral habitat by breaking and injuring the coral
and disturbing the substrates to which corals attach.
Mobile (removable, retractable) bottom contact fishing gear includes nonpelagic trawl, dredge,
and dinglebar gear. Dinglebar gear is similar to salmon troll gear with the addition of a heavy
metal bar that keeps the hooks close to the seafloor. Of the types of mobile bottom contact
fishing gear, only dinglebar gear is used off the coast of Southeast Alaska in the State of Alaskamanaged fishery for lingcod. Although lingcod is not managed under the FMP, if a vessel
catches and retains any groundfish managed under the FMP in the exclusive economic zone off
Alaska, it also is considered to be fishing for groundfish, and therefore must carry a Federal
Fishing Permit.
All federally permitted vessels with mobile bottom contact gear aboard are subject to VMS
requirements (50 CFR 679.7(a)(22)). Consequently, at this time, vessels fishing for lingcod with
dinglebar gear also must carry a transmitting VMS onboard.
Final rule RIN 0648-AX01, published January 21, 2009, removed the VMS requirement
associated with one type of mobile bottom contact gear: dinglebar gear. This change did not: 1)
remove dinglebar gear from the definition of mobile bottom contact gear; 2) exempt vessels

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using dinglebar gear for other fisheries from VMS requirements; nor 3) exempt vessels fishing
for lingcod with other gear types from the VMS requirement.
The dinglebar fishery for lingcod does not overlap with areas where sensitive coral species
occur, so the VMS requirements are an unnecessary burden to a small fleet. All such vessels are
considered ‘‘small entities’’ for purposes of the Regulatory Flexibility Analysis. NMFS has
identified eight to twelve small entities that would be affected by this proposed rule.
Twelve respondents would be removed from this collection, to create the following results.
Estimated total unique respondents: 1,842, down from 1,854. Estimated total responses:
10,638,853, down from 10,656,132. Estimated total burden hours: 23,766, down from 23,837.
Estimated total miscellaneous costs: $1,276.834, down from $1,278,774.

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