NEW BEDFORD — The city’s commercial fishing industry — battered by last month’s arrest of magnate Carlos Rafael on federal conspiracy charges, last week’s drug raids on the waterfront and ongoing monitoring costs — took another punch to the gut this week, as government regulators proposed new cuts to cod catches that could take effect May 1.

“Those cuts will be devastating to the groundfishing fleet of New Bedford, and the whole New England coast,” said John Haran, manager of groundfish Sector 13.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in conjunction with the New England Fishery Management Council, released a proposed update Monday to the federal management plan for the northeastern fishery.

The proposal includes updated catch quotas and fishing limits for the fishery’s 20 groundfish stocks — including cod, flounder, haddock and more — for the next three years. The 2016 groundfish year starts May 1.

The proposal includes a new, 62-percent reduction from last year in the allowable catch for Georges Bank cod, a key species for the New Bedford fishing industry.

“Our fleet is entirely concentrated on Georges Bank West cod,” Haran said, referring to boats not only in his sector, but also in New Bedford-based sectors 7, 8 and 9.

“We also fish for Georges Bank East cod, but not as much,” said Haran, who is running for Select Board member in Dartmouth.

The proposal allows a total catch limit of 762 metric tons of Georges Bank cod in the 2016 fishing year. The total catch limit for Georges Bank haddock, by comparison, is 56,068 metric tons — an increase of 130 percent from a year ago.

Haran said the problem is that cod is a “choke species,” because once a crew reaches its quota for cod, it can no longer fish for other species, such as haddock, because everything is caught at the same time.

The government update says the measures “are intended to help prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, achieve optimum yield, and ensure that management measures are based on the best scientific information available.”

Former New Bedford Mayor John Bullard, now regional administrator for NOAA fisheries, said that on top of previous cuts, the new update would create “about a 95 percent cut” to catch limits for Georges Bank cod since 2012.

The update also includes, though, a 30 percent increase from last year in catch for Gulf of Maine cod, and increases of 130 percent for George’s Bank haddock and 28 percent for pollock. Redfish sees a 14 percent decrease, but the total catch limit for 2016 is 10,338 metric tons — much greater than most other species.

“There are a lot of good-to-eat fish to catch, but they’re not cod – so the challenge is, how do you avoid cod while catching haddock, and, similarly, pollock and redfish?” Bullard said.

Kevin Stokesbury, chairman of the fisheries oceanography department at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology, said that’s a big challenge, given the new cod limit.

“It’s going to be very hard for people to catch anything else — that’s not a very large allowable catch,” Stokesbury said.

The proposed update also includes measures to reduce the number of at-sea monitoring trips — when government regulators join fishing trips to track catches firsthand, at sea.

NOAA transferred the costs of such monitors from the government to the fishing industry as of March 1. Bullard said the proposed measures could reduce the percentage of trips that include at-sea monitors from about 26 to about 14.

Haran called the decrease “a welcome relief,” but said the larger issue remains.

“The fishing industry is still paying for something it can’t afford,” Haran said. “The fishing industry is not opposed to taking at-sea monitors — they’re just opposed to paying for them.”

Haran is a party to a lawsuit filed in December in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire. A group representing East Coast fishermen sued the federal government in an effort to block the transfer of at-sea monitoring costs.

Haran said Tuesday that the lawsuit remained pending.

NOAA is seeking public comment on the proposed management plan update until April 5. The update could take effect May 1.

Follow Mike Lawrence on Twitter @MikeLawrenceSCT