Growth and Its Limits

Growth and Its Limits. , The 1970s and 1980s were boom times for Galilee fishermen., Glory days and days of reckoning for Galilee's fishing fleet. , In the 1960s, New England fishermen faced rising competition from foreign-owned "factory trawlers" operating in local waters. These boats were highly efficient. They lit up the horizon like cities on the sea and left whole areas of the ocean empty when they passed through., After seeing their catches fall for the first time in the port's history, Galilee fishermen banded together with their peers across the nation to secure an extension of U.S. jurisdiction from twelve to two-hundred nautical miles. Their efforts paid off: in 1976, Congress passed the nation's first comprehensive fisheries legislation, banning foreign ships and escalating development of the domestic fleet., The new law ignited a heyday for Galilee. For the next decade, the federal government provided many incentives to aspiring fishermen. Banks lent them money eagerly, and the University of Rhode Island opened a fisheries training program to equip them with skills., In the late 1970s and 1980s, the fleet expanded at breakneck speed with each new vessel larger than the last and built to travel further. Dockage was in such demand that the Department of Environmental Management, which owns the port, considered building an island in the pond to accommodate more piers., But by the 1990s, concerns about sustainability were mounting, and the government was reversing course. After a decade of fisheries promotion, it entered a long and agonizing era of fisheries restrictions. Among the many casualties during this era was the Point Judith Fisherman's Cooperative. It closed its doors in 1995, just shy of its fifty-year, [Captions:] , Foreign factory trawlers like these Soviet ships were a common sight in New England fishing grounds before 1976., Point Judith Fishermen's Co-op president Jake Dykstra became one of the most influential fishermen in America, playing a key role in securing the expansion of federal fisheries jurisdiction to 200 miles.