The Louisiana Department
of Wildlife and Fisheries is reminding qualified commercial
resident fishermen, certain commercial fishing vessel license
holders, wholesale/retail seafood dealers and charter boat
fishing guides, impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, that
the deadline for submitting required forms for federal fisheries
economic assistance is Oct. 31, 2008.
The South Central
Planning and Development Commission (SCPDC) is receiving and
processing all information about this assistance program and
anyone who is qualified to receive assistance and has not
received a packet should contact the SCPDC as soon as possible
by calling 1-800-630-3791 (toll-free) or 985-655-1051 (local)
or mailing SCPDC at P.O. Box 1240, Gray, LA 70359-9902 or
visiting the SCPDC Web site at www.scpdc.org/fisheriesassistance.
Any questions concerning eligibility, requests for information,
etc. should also be directed to the SCPDC.
The LDWF is providing
$28.2 million in assistance to the state’s commercial
fishing and charter boat industries through a $41.3 million
federal fisheries economic assistance grant from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through the Gulf States
Marine Fisheries Commission.
Louisiana resident
commercial fishermen, certain commercial fishing vessel license
holders and wholesale/retail seafood dealers with trip ticket
recorded sales or purchases of seafood during the twelve-month
period (Sept. 1, 2004 - Aug 31, 2005) prior to Hurricane Katrina
as well as Louisiana resident charter boat operators who held
a LDWF charter boat fishing guide license in the qualifying
period (Sept. 1, 2004 – Aug 31, 2005) qualify for some
level of personal assistance. The LDWF requires trip tickets
to collect commercial landings and associated information
by trip.
Approximately
$26.9 million is available for fisheries economic assistance
payments to qualified participants under this program. To
date, LDWF has received completed forms from 4,437 eligible
participants and processed assistance payments totaling $10.4
million to 2,359 of these participants. An additional 1,120
participants have been contacted by SCPDC and advised that
they submitted incomplete information and provided with additional
information and instructions. Approximately 2,900 eligible
participants have failed to respond and LDWF suggests that
anyone in touch with these qualifying participants urge them
to contact SCPDC as soon as possible.
