CV and SP focus group notes - complete documenbt

GOA Trawl Economic Data Report Data Collection Project:
Public outreach and survey pretest notes
Brian Garber-Yonts
NOAA Fisheries, Alaska Fisheries Science Center
Draft GOA Trawl EDR forms for catcher vessels (CVs), onshore processors, and
catcher/processors (CPs) were developed to implement collection of data elements
specified per the NPFMC (Council) recommended Preferred Alternative (PA). Where
appropriate, the structure and stratification of data elements and phrasing of reporting
instructions were designed to replicate the design of existing EDR forms (BSAI crab,
Amendment 80, and Amendment 91 EDRs). Data elements specified in the PA are as
follows:
CVs
CV data type

Data
element

Alt 2. (PPA)

Notes

Payments to crew

Annual

GOA Trawl; after all vessel expense deductions

Payments to captain

Annual

GOA Trawl; after all vessel expense deductions

Crew license number/CFEC permit
number

Annual

GOA Trawl; list of all crew members working on
the vessel during the year

Trawl Purchases

Annual

Fishing gear leases, repairs, and purchases
fully expensed in calendar year (e.g., nets,
doors, cables)

Excluder Purchases

Annual

Excluder leases, repairs, and purchases fully
expensed in calendar year

Employment

Costs

Fuel used - gallons

GOA trawl fisheries (gallons only)
Annual

Fuel used - cost

GOA trawl fisheries ($ only)

Fuel Used fishing

Gallons/hr.

Fuel used steaming (empty)

Gallons/hr.

Fuel used steaming (loaded)

Gallons/hr.

annual

Processors
Plant data type
Labor

Data
element

Alt. 2 (PPA)

Notes

monthly

all fisheries/areas/gear

Processing employee man-hours

monthly by housing

all fisheries/areas/gear

Total processing labor payments

monthly $ by housing

aggregated across all fisheries

$ annual

all fisheries/areas/gear

Water Purchased from Community Provider

gallons/month

groundfish plants

Water Purchased from Community Provider

$/month

groundfish plants

Electricity Purchased from Community Provider

Kw hrs./month

groundfish plants

Electricity Purchased from Community Provider

$/month

groundfish plants

Average groundfish processing positions

Payments to foremen, managers, and other nonprocessing employees at the plant
Utility information from
Kodial processors

CPs
Additions to existing A80 EDR form
C/P Data type

Data
element

Harvesting Crew (as defined by those Crew license number/CFEC
required to have a license/permit) permit number

Alt 2. (PPA)

Notes

aggregated across all
groundfish fisheries

processing only employees
are not included

Added Western/Central GOA stratum to reporting of fishing and processing
activity days; existing A80 EDR stratifies activity day by A80 fishery and All other
fisheries
It is anticipated that the reporting forms will be administered primarily on-line, with
secure, password protected access to an interactive web application developed
specifically for the data collection program. The web application will incorporate
programmed validation logic to minimize submitter data entry errors and item nonresponse, and functionality designed to reduce submitter burden, including support for
copy/paste entry of tabular data from users' speadsheet/accounting software, and oneclick access to online registries to enable the user to look up crew license/permit
numbers using crewmember name and residence. Paper forms will be available by
request to data submitters who wish to opt out of the online data submission.
Draft EDR forms were distributed via email to industry members for review on March 17,
2014. Outreach to Kodiak-based industry members was facilitated by representatives of
the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank (AGDB). 1 An informal focus group meeting on April 4,

1

AGDB is a membership trade organization that includes the majority of both the shorebased processors
located in Kodiak and catcher vessels home ported in Kodiak that participate in the Central GOA groundfish
trawl fisheries.

2014 in Kodiak, AK 2 was held with owner/operators of CVs active in the GOA trawl
fishery to test the preliminary Annual Trawl Catcher Vessel EDR (CV EDR) form design.
Sections of the form were reviewed in succession with meeting participants to assess
the clarity and completeness of instructions and the description of each variable, identify
and resolve any points of ambiguity that could result in inconsistent interpretation of data
elements to be reported by submitters, and determine whether typical recordkeeping
systems as currently maintained by operators within the sector are likely to permit
accurate and consistent data reporting without excessive submitter burden.
Plant managers at four groundfish processors in Kodiak were interviewed individually
during April 3-4 to assess the preliminary Annual Shoreside Processor EDR form. The
interviews lasted from 20-60 minutes, and in some cases included review of electronic
plant operating and payroll records.
Note that the Annual 
Trawl Catcher/Processor (CP) EDR is a continuation of the
ongoing Amendment 80 EDR data collection, expanded to include a limited number of
additional vessels and collection of crew member license/permit numbers. As such, all
elements specified in the PA and in the draft CP EDR form have been previously
implemented, and no additional pretesting is considered necessary.

Participants in the focus group and interviews identified several issues with the draft
forms, as summarized below:
CV EDR
Table 1: Vessel Characteristics, Fuel Consumption
• Fuel consumption rate, generally or by vessel activity, is not monitored or tracked
systematically by most vessel operators, and would require purchase and
installation of fuel flow meters that many (possibly most) vessels do not currently
have. Participants generally agreed that the question should be dropped from the
CV EDR.
Table 2: Vessel Expenses, Annual
•
• Issues with fuel costs:
o Fuel gallons and cost is likely to be somewhat more burdensome to report
than for crab fleet or CPs due to greater frequency of fuel purchases
o PA didn't specify whether lubrication costs to be included in fuel costs
o Fuel gallons and cost will have to be extracted from itemization on fuel
invoices to back out fuel and lubrication totals
• Specification of trawl gear and excluder costs as fully expensed doesn't
adequately describe how to treat depreciated costs (note: when gear costs have
been collected previously (original crab, A80 EDR), costs have been segregated
into purchase costs of capitalized assets and expenditures on fully expensed
items; unclear what is most consistent with Council intent)
• Excluders may be used for other purpose than halibut/salmon - should costs for
excluders used for other purposes be included in trawl gear costs or excluded
altogether.
2

Eight individuals attended in person, 6 by telephone conference; meeting announcement is attached as
appendix. Consistent with outreach efforts, the majority of focus group participants were bookeepers and
similar personnel likely to be tasked with completing and submitting EDR forms on behalf of vessel owners.

Table 3: Labor Payments to Captain and Crew
• Clarify whether GOA groundfish trawl fisheries includes or excludes GOA
rockfish fishery; would be easier to report inclusive
• Possible to have more than 1 captain during the year; change reference to
"captain" to plural, as appropriate
• Instructions should direct submitters to report total crew count/pay for all crew,
including full- and part-time

Processor EDR
Table 1: Groundfish Processing Labor Cost
• Processing "positions" may be difficult to quantify; more straightforward to report
total # of payrollees
• Clarify treatment of other hourly labor types that not part of the "processing line",
i.e., dock, QC, case up, maintenance, and administrative personnel; supervisory
personnel in each group are salaried, not hourly and should be treated as nonprocessing, as well as hourly admin staff
• Monthly totals for man-hours may reflect variation in shift-length over time and
across processors; as reported, it will not be possible to differentiate variation
due to expanding/contracting shift lengths and/or changes versus number of
individual shifts; suggestion that alternative reporting structure would be to collect
man-hours segregated by normal and overtime hours.
• Besides total employment and wages, note that employment stability is important
performance metric, may not be identifiable with data as currently specified.
Table 3: Kodiak Processor Utility Consumption and Cost, by Month
• Waste disposal costs (solid waste, fish meal) are a significant portion of utility
costs but are excluded from EDR reporting; note that fish meal disposal can act
as capacity constraint during peak periods when meal plant backs up.

Appendix: GOA Groundfish Catcher Vessel EDR Meeting Announcement, Kodiak

Meeting Invitation: GOA Groundfish Trawlers
Meeting Topic: GOA Groundfish Trawl Economic Data Report - Industry
Outreach and Consultation
When: Friday, April 4, 2014, 1:00-2:30
Where: Kodiak Public Library (612 Egan Way), Alaskana Room.
Teleconference #: 1-800-791-2345, participation code 95539#.

Brian Garber-Yonts, economist with NMFS Alaska Fisheries Science Center
(AFSC), will host an informal meeting to discuss plans for implementing the North
Pacific Fishery Management Council's economic data collection initiative for the
groundfish trawl fisheries in the Central and Western GOA, and the voluntary
GOA Groundfish Trawl Fishery Social Survey currently being conducted by
AFSC social science staff.
Topics to be addressed are:
• consultation with industry members that would be affected by the
mandatory GOA Trawl EDR data collection
• NMFS' plans for conducting the data collection in collaboration with Pacific
States Marine Fisheries Commission
• review draft EDR forms
• questions and suggestions to ensure the program works efficiently and
with minimum cost and burden for submitters.
• Ongoing research by AFSC focused on social dimensions of the fishery
and potential effects of bycatch management on individuals and
communities
Copies of draft EDR forms will be available at the meeting or can be obtained by
contacting Brian Garber-Yonts by email at [email protected], or by
phone: (206) 920-8377. When posted, documents for the Council meeting will be
available at http://goo.gl/QU98Vb. Information about the Gulf of Alaska
Groundfish Trawl Fishery Social Survey is available online at
http://tinyurl.com/GOATrawlSurvey.
Background
In October, 2013, the Council took final action on its preferred alternative to
initiate a program to collect baseline economic and employment data from
vessels and processors in the GOA groundfish trawl fishery to better understand
the fishery before a bycatch management catch share program is implemented.
The GOA Trawl Economic Data Report (EDR) Program would be a mandatory
annual reporting requirement for owners and operators of trawl vessels and
processors that harvest or process groundfish from federal fisheries in the
Central and Western GOA. At the upcoming April Council meeting, NMFS will

Appendix: GOA Groundfish Catcher Vessel EDR Meeting Announcement, Kodiak

present Draft EDR forms and a Draft Proposed Rule that would implement the
data collection (agenda item C-2). Pending NMFS' publication of the final rule,
the expected initial due date for EDR submission is June 1, 2015 for data
pertaining to the 2014 fishery.
The EDR program would collect employment data from catcher vessels and
catcher/processors that harvest GOA groundfish using trawl gear, and from
processors that receive landings from the fishery. The data would be collected for
NMFS by Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC). All data would
be treated as confidential, and PSMFC would be required to anonymize all data
before making it available to authorized agency analysts.
Catcher vessels would be required to report total annual aggregate payment to
harvesting crew and aggregate payment to the captain(s), and provide a list of
the crew license numbers or CFEC permit numbers for each harvesting crew
member that worked on the vessel. Vessel operating cost data would be
collected on fuel purchased, gear costs, and excluder purchases during the
calendar year.
Catcher/processors operating in Central and Western GOA would submit EDRs
under the ongoing program for the Amendment 80 C/P sector, with the addition
of license numbers for harvesting crew.
Processors that take deliveries of trawl caught groundfish would be required to
submit monthly data on water and electric utilities purchased from the community
provider in Kodiak, monthly averages of numbers of groundfish processing
positions, processing employee man-hours, and total processing labor payments.
Processors would also be required to submit annual aggregate payments to
foremen, managers, and other non-processing employees at the plant.