A federal district judge has delayed enforcement of a National Marine Fisheries Service rule aimed at protecting endangered sea turtles, saying that it would have created economic havoc in Louisiana’s shrimp industry.
Judge Jane Triche Milazzo of the Eastern District of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction against the federal rule on Sept. 9. The injunction was sought by state Attorney General Jeff Landry in a lawsuit against the 2019 rule, which would have required many shrimpers’ skimmer vessels to have turtle excluder devices (TEDs).
“They can’t prove we killed one turtle,” Acy Cooper, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, told the Louisiana Record, “so this is a big win for us.”
Landry noted that Milazzo’s opinion will keep the fisheries service from enforcing the rule in Louisiana’s inland waters through Feb. 1, 2022.
“In addition to the current financial and logistical difficulties of installing TEDs, the industry and the government face … COVID-related supply-chain, manpower and training disruptions that make it impossible to enforce any time soon,” the attorney general said in a prepared statement.
Milazzo’s decision concluded that COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions hurt TED production to the point of making it impossible for many shrimpers to get the new technology installed on their boats, even as the federal rule requiring TEDs on vessels of greater than 40 feet long took effect Aug. 1.
“The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries estimates that 50% of Louisiana’s shrimpers were unable to comply (with the rule) before shrimping season began,” the opinion states.
Milazzo also found that economic harm to the state from curbing many shrimpers’ livelihoods would extend not just to the shrimping industry but to restaurants and grocers.
“The court therefore finds that (the) plaintiff has shown irreparable harm to its economy will result from failing to extend the effective date of the final rule,” the opinion says.
The large amount of debris in Louisiana waters due to Hurricane Ida would have posed serious problems for boats equipped with TEDs, according to Cooper, since the devices interfere with catching shrimp in the debris-filled waters.
“A lot of this stuff went into the waterways and into the bays, and we’re going to catch a lot of debris here,” he said. “With the TEDs in them, we were going to lose everything we catch.”
The six-month delay for implementation of the rule will not pose excessive risks to sea turtles, the court ruled.