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Fishermen are concerned about the sudden layoffs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. As Molly Enking with Maine Public Radio reports, that's because they need weather reports to stay safe in a dangerous business.
MOLLY ENKING, BYLINE: Over 2,000 people from across New England convened at the annual Maine Fisherman's Forum over the weekend to talk all things fish. But this year, between gear expos, panels and buddies catching up, there was an undercurrent of uncertainty after news broke of hundreds of NOAA layoffs in both weather and fish management divisions. At a panel on federal fish management efforts, one NOAA speaker was absent, and the other declined to answer questions about how changes of the federal agency might impact local fishing. Eric Hesse fishes for tuna far off the coast of Cape Cod.
ERIC HESSE: We're worried about the impact of it. We engage with NOAA on, you know, various levels, whether it's reporting, observer coverage. So all these things are part of our daily life on the water, and to suddenly lose part of that could really disrupt our fisheries.
ENKING: NOAA is U.S.'s main weather forecaster, constantly monitoring the seas and the skies. The Coast Guard relies on National Weather Service reports for in-the-moment updates on hurricanes or high winds sent out to boats via radio. Devyn Campbell is a 24-year-old fisherman out of Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
DEVYN CAMPBELL: Yeah. We tow a big net and steel doors around and try to come home with a few fish.
ENKING: He says he compulsively checks his weather apps throughout the day, scrolling them more often than social media.
CAMPBELL: Your life is so dependent on it that it's just something you have to always look at. It's a constant.
ENKING: National Weather Service data feed practically every weather app mariners use. Accurate data, including wind and wave height, is essential to fishermen safety and their bottom line, says fisherman Jim Buxton, especially for those out in deep waters.
JIM BUXTON: Steaming for three hours in the dark to get there to haul their first string at daylight, say, 6 o'clock in the morning, and if the tide changed, the conditions get terrible, they have to steam back for three hours and make no money. This is for real.
ENKING: Andy Hazelton was a scientist at the National Weather Service's Hurricane Research Division before he was laid off last week. He says the department was already understaffed before he and a dozen of his colleagues were let go.
ANDY HAZELTON: I think it's going to make things more dangerous. It risks reversing the progress we've made 'cause we've, you know, seen huge improvements in hurricane forecasts and things like that over the last 30 years, and it risks reversing that and making the public, you know, less safe as a result.
ENKING: Jim Buxton says fishermen like him need weather and ocean data to get more accurate, not less.
BUXTON: When they forecast a bad weather day and it doesn't happen and you choose not to go, that has a real economic cost. And when they forecast a good day and that doesn't happen, there is not only an economic cost, but there's actually a human risk where people are out in conditions that they don't expect, and they potentially could get hurt.
ENKING: Andy Hazelton says his colleagues who are still working at National Weather Service are busy sorting through all the projects he and others left behind. Hazelton is still hoping his job might be reinstated once officials realize NOAA's vital work in keeping the public safe.
For NPR News, I'm Molly Enking in Portland, Maine.
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