SWAMPSCOTT — The last commercial fishermen in town are concerned that they will have to leave the harbor for good if it is not dredged, while the town considers improvements to the waterfront and Fisherman’s Beach.
“It is really a matter of life and death. If we don’t have a dredged harbor we are not going to have the fishing harbor,” said Michael Gambale, president of the Swampscott Fishermen’s Alliance.
Swampscott’s fishermen produced more than $675,000 of landing value in 2018, according to a Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries report published in April 2021.
However, the Fishermen’s Alliance has not been consulted about what they thought of the pier project and what their needs were by the Harbor & Waterfront Advisory Committee, the town or McAllister Marine Engineering, who presented preliminary design concepts for the new pier on Jan. 6.
“We’d love to work with the town,” said Gambale, who is a life-long Swampscott resident, a former town’s reserve police officer and a hockey coach. “I would fight tooth and nail on dredging the harbor.”
Gambale has been fishing year round in Swampscott for 44 years for lobster, cod, haddock, flounder and other groundfish. In 2020, Gambale fished from mid-March to the second week in January; however, the shallow harbor makes it dangerous for him, as well as for other full-time commercial fishermen, to continue fishing outside of the summer months.
As the Fishermen’s Alliance described in a letter to the Swampscott Harbor & Waterfront Advisory Committee on Nov. 29, 2021, many commercial vessels are aground or nearly so when the wind blows from the west. During or after nor’easters, the shallow water creates a critical hazard to the moored boats when the ground swell rolls through the harbor. The harbor shoals up year by year, made even worse by astronomically low tides, the letter said.
The remaining six commercial fishermen in the harbor are constantly taking a risk of losing their boats. A lost boat would mean a loss of income for a year or two and can completely destroy the business, Gambale said.
Two out of six remaining commercial fishermen with significant landings only work here in the town from June through October, and use seasonal docks elsewhere for the rest of the year. The four other fishermen are on the waiting list at another port or are considering leaving.
“We all have to leave soon without a safer harbor,” said Gambale.
Dredging the harbor and building a breakwater would protect not only their boats but also the beach, properties and roadways along Humphrey Street and lower Puritan Road from the vicious easterly swells generated during powerful storms. It would also make the old pier or the new pier more accessible and would attract more commercial boats to come back into the harbor, said Neil Rossman who also holds a commercial fishing license and is a member of the Fishermen’s Alliance, but has moved his boat out of Swampscott.
“Building a new pier or refurbishing the old one won’t help commercial fishermen one bit,” said Rossman. “Don’t say you are doing it to help the commercial fishermen.”
If the new pier is built primarily with leisure in mind, it will adversely affect the parking situation which is already complicated, the fishermen said.
The Fishermen’s Alliance wants to save commercial fishing because of its historical importance to Swampscott. In his book “Gleanings From The Sea” which was first published in 1887, Joseph Warren Smith wrote that Swampscott used to be the main fish market prior to 1840, where many fish were brought in and as many as 50 to 100 vehicles from Boston to Canada would line up to purchase seafood.
In the 1950s to 1970s, Fisherman’s Beach was covered in drying reels for nets, boats being built and dories, said Rossman. At the height of modern fishing, Swampscott harbor had about 30 full-time commercial fishermen.
Swampscott is famous for its double-ended dories and lobster traps that were invented in the town, not to mention Capt. James Phillips depicted on the town’s seal.
“We have more heritage and more history here than probably any of the harbors,” said Gambale. “Fishing is a handed down tradition in Swampscott.”
Another commercial fisherman Paul Whitten said he grew up in the Swampscott harbor.
“My father lobstered and tuna-fished, and striped-fished,” said Whitten. “There are pictures of my grandfather in the locker in the Fish House, pictures of me making nets and building oak lobster traps.”
Whitten has recently bought a new boat and was considering relocating it to Beverly, which would definitely be safer, he said.
But moving to another harbor has its own challenges. It is not easy to get a mooring spot as many harbors have waiting lists. Fishermen would have to let go of fishing in the Swampscott fishing grounds, but commercial fishing is very territorial and competitive, Gambale said.
“If I move my whole operation over to Gloucester, I am not steaming an hour and a half back to Swampscott. Now I got to fish new grounds and make good with the guys in those areas,” said Whitten.
The fishermen understand the fiscal issue with dredging. Replanting eelgrass habitat, required by the state, would make it expensive. But they wonder how much more expensive that would be than building a new pier that does not help them in any way.
“Do you want Swampscott to maintain the fishing community?” is what Gambale would like to ask the town and the state. According to him, at least three to four people would come back if the town makes the harbor safe.
Gambale, who is 68 years old, said that he is planning to fish for as long as he can, probably into his 80s.
“And I will, with or without this pier and dredging, I’ll fish for the remainder of my career,” Gambale said. “I am here because I would like to see this harbor maintained the way it’s been since the beginning of time.”
He would hate to throw in a towel because some high school kid might be considering being a fisherman and wants to fish from Swampscott, Gambale said.
“I would hate to see it all gone and that is why I am such an advocate for the dredging project. It is literally going to be the end of an era if it doesn’t get done,” Gambale said.
Alena Kuzub can be reached at [email protected].
