Saving Seafood

Law

US commercial fisherman held prisoner in British Virgin Islands finally returns home

November 24, 2020 — U.S. commercial fisherman Michael Foy, who was held prisoner on the British Virgin Islands for more than four months, has finally returned home.

Foy was imprisoned on 8 June after being charged with “illegal entry and unlicensed fishing” after being told by the British Virgin Islands customs department to dock his boat in the waters off of Tortola, according to a Change.org petition. Foy claimed he had received permission in order to get passport stamps required for some of his crew, who are Indonesian nationals holding C-11 transit visas. A subsequent investigation found that Foy was denied entry due to the territory’s COVID-19 response.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

North Carolina facing lawsuits from recreational fishing groups over marine management

November 18, 2020 — The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries is facing lawsuits from two recreational fishing groups, alleging the agency exhibits “abject failure in properly managing the state’s coastal fisheries resources.”

The lawsuits have been filed by the North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group (NCCFRG) and most recently, by the Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina (CCA).

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Federal judge rules FDA must reevaluate effects of potential GE salmon escape

November 9, 2020 — AquaBounty Technologies is facing another legal battle over its AquAdvantage salmon, as a California court ruled last week that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated core environmental laws in approving genetically engineered salmon for sale and consumption.

On 5 November, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled the FDA ignored serious possible environmental consequences by approving genetically engineered salmon, and was also violating the National Environmental Policy Act. The judge also ruled the FDA approval was in violation of the Endangered Species Act, as the agency did not consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service before taking an action that “may affect” a listed or endangered species.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Stafford fisherman free from British Virgin Islands jail after plea deal

November 3, 2020 — After a five-month ordeal in which he was imprisoned in the British Virgin Islands, Stafford fisherman Michael Foy accepted a plea deal Friday and is free to go, aside from paying a $4,000 fine.

Foy, 60, was arrested June 8 by British Virgin Islands custom officials and charged with illegal entry for violating the islands’ COVID-19 curfew.

He was subsequently charged with unregistered and unlicensed fishing, and failure to arrive at a customs port.

The Magistrates Court dropped the illegal fishing charges on Oct. 9. Foy’s attorney Paul Edwards of the law firm Hunte & Co. on Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, said Foy accepted a plea deal that would allow him to keep his fishing vessel, Rebel Lady.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

Alaska’s Supreme Court to rule on fish tax, with millions at stake

November 2, 2020 — The Alaska Supreme Court is currently reviewing the constitutionality of a lucrative landings tax on fish caught in federal waters and brought through Alaska ports to be exported to international markets.

Every season, millions of tons of fish are scooped up by factory trawlers in the Bering Sea’s federal waters, which start three miles off the coast of Alaska. Most of those fish are processed at sea, then taken to ports like Dutch Harbor to be transferred to other ships and containers for export. Since 1994, Alaska has been collecting a three percent tax on that catch and distributing it to state and local governments.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Lawsuit: Pipeline could push 2 fish species to extinction

October 29, 2020 — Environmental groups have filed a legal challenge against the Mountain Valley Pipeline that says the project could push two endangered species of fish to extinction.

The Roanoke Times reports that the legal challenge was filed Tuesday in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. It involves the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter species of fish.

The route of the 300-mile long pipeline would go from northern West Virginia to southwestern Virginia and connect with an existing pipeline in North Carolina.

The coalition of environmental groups also asked the federal appeals court to review a recent biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency had found that construction of the pipeline is not likely to jeopardize protected fish, bats and mussels.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CBS 19

Seafood companies sue federal government, claim Trump administration plays favorites with tariff relief money

October 26, 2020 — The Trump administration was taken to court on 21 October by three seafood-related companies that claim the federal government’s trade policies has harmed their businesses.

Texas-based Houston Seafood Company, LLC along with Gulf Marine Product Co., Inc. and Ningbo Trading Company, LLC, both based in Louisiana, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for Southern Texas.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Lawsuit claims Gulf of Mexico drilling permits violate Endangered Species Act

October 23, 2020 — Environmental groups went to federal court Oct. 21 with a lawsuit claiming the Trump administration is violating the Endangered Species Act by an inadequate interagency consultation on oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

The San Francisco-based legal foundation Earthjustice filed the action on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Turtle Island Restoration Network. The lawsuit attacks an assessment of the hazards that offshore oil and gas drilling and production pose to endangered marine species, issued in March by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

In an earlier 2018 lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida, Earthjustice and other groups complained NMFS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had unreasonably delayed developing a new biological opinion – or “BiOp” in the argot of federal bureaucracy – to evaluate impacts as required by the Endangered Species Act.

The law requires certification that government actions – such as permitting offshore drilling – won’t harm endangered species. The last biological opinion was issued in 2007; BP’s Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill in 2010, with its sweeping environmental impacts and losses of marine life, triggered the process for a reassessment of the dangers.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Suit: Feds ignore risk of huge spills to endangered species

October 22, 2020 — Environmental groups asked a federal court Wednesday to throw out the Trump administration’s assessment of oil and gas activity’s likely effects on endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, saying it dismisses the chance of another disastrous blowout like the BP spill of 2010.

The National Marine Fisheries Service’s 700-page analysis greatly underestimates both the likely number and size of oil spills, according to the suit filed by Earthjustice for the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Turtle Island Restoration Network.

Even though the study was prompted by the 2010 spill, it “essentially pretends the Deepwater Horizon spill never happened — that there was nothing to learn from that disaster,” Earthjustice attorney Chris Eaton said in an interview Tuesday.

Read the full story at The Post and Courier

State asks federal court to dismiss suit over Metlakatla tribal members’ fishing rights

October 20, 2020 — State attorneys are asking a federal court judge to dismiss a fishing rights case brought by Metlakatla Indian Community at the southeastern tip of the state.

The state’s sole native reserve — that’s similar to Lower 48 reservations — argues Congress granted it the right to fish in its traditional waters — even outside the marine boundaries of the Annette Islands Reserve. The tribe says the state thus doesn’t have the right to require state fishing permits for tribal members in state waters.

But in a 38-page filing Thursday, Department of Law attorneys argue that’s not the case.

“…in 1891, did Congress intend to grant off-reservation fishing rights to the Metlakatlans? The answer is ‘no,’” state attorneys write.

They say the full text of the 1891 law establishing the Annette Islands Reserve as a permanent home for native Tsimshian people, and congressional debate around that time show that lawmakers never intended to grant residents the right to fish outside the reserve’s boundaries.

Read the full story at KRBD