Saving Seafood

Law

Atlantic Fishermen in NCLA Video Explain the Need to Reel in NOAA’s at-Sea Monitor Rule

August 2, 2021 — The following was released by the New Civil Liberties Alliance:

The New Civil Liberties Alliance released a video today outlining why it is unconstitutional to force Atlantic herring fishermen to fund government-mandated monitors at sea. It is “the equivalent of having a cop in your car who’s policing you while you drive, and you have to pay his salary out of your own pocket,” said Meghan Lapp, Fisheries Liaison & General Manager for Seafreeze, Ltd. about the rule being challenged in Relentless Inc., et al. v. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, et al.

The Relentless Inc., Huntress Inc., and Seafreeze Fleet LLC are small businesses of high-capacity freezer trawlers incorporated in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that have commercially fished Atlantic herring as well as Loligo and Illex squids, butterfish, and Atlantic Mackerel for more than thirty years. The rule penalizes NCLA’s clients unfairly by making them pay for herring monitors even when fishing for other catches.

NCLA, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, represents these private fishing companies in their lawsuit against the Department of Commerce (DOC), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC). The at-sea monitor mandate, issued in 2018, is unlawfully “industry-funded.” These agencies do not have statutory authority from Congress to order additional industry funding for a program that the agencies think is underfunded, but they have issued a rule that threatens the livelihoods of fishermen regardless.

Earlier this week, NCLA presented oral argument before the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Both sides have moved for summary judgment.

Read the full release here

Lawsuit seeking to stop Vineyard Wind claims NOAA Fisheries opinion was faulty

July 22, 2021 — The Vineyard Wind project, an 800-megawatt offshore wind energy installation slated to be built off the coast of the U.S. state of Massachusetts, is now facing a federal lawsuit.

The suit is challenging the permit for the Vineyard Wind offshore energy. It was filed by a solar energy generation company, but the potential impact on the commercial fishing industry is a cornerstone of the suit’s argument against the project.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EU pleads with US judge to limit discovery in salmon price-fixing class-action lawsuit

July 21, 2021 — The European Union has not issued any public comment regarding its antitrust investigation into Norwegian salmon farmers for more than a year, but on 13 July, it made clear its inquiry is still active.

In a brief filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, the European Commission contended that a class-action suit filed on behalf of U.S. purchasers of Norwegian farmed salmon in 2019 is interfering with its investigation. The lawsuit accuses Mowi, SalMar, Lerøy Seafood, Grieg Seafood, and Cermaq Group of exchanging competitively sensitive information among themselves, with the aim of artificially controlling the price of farm-raised salmon sold in the United States.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Solar co sues feds over offshore Vineyard Wind farm approval

July 20, 2021 — A solar energy company has sued the Department of the Interior over its approval of the nation’s first major offshore wind farm, alleging that the project off the coast of Massachusetts threatens the area’s fishing industry and imperiled marine life.

In a complaint filed Sunday in Boston federal court, Allco Renewable Energy Ltd accuses the DOI of overlooking risks that the Vineyard Wind project could pollute nearby waters and jeopardize endangered species should the turbines fail to withstand strong hurricanes.

Allco develops and invests in solar projects, making it a competitor to the planned wind farm in the renewable electricity market.

DOI spokesperson Giovanni Rocco declined to comment.

Read the full story at Reuters

Oceana sues NMFS over California sardine management

July 20, 2021 — Alleging that West Coast fisheries managers are repeating mistakes of the past half-century, the environmental group Oceana is suing NMFS over its approval of the latest sardine management plan and demanding more action to rebuild the stock.

“Despite these hard lessons, NMFS repeats these management failures in Amendment 18,” states the group’s complaint, filed by the legal group Earthjustice July 14 in the U.S. District Court for northern California, naming Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, NOAA and the fisheries agency.

Oceana says NMFS should not have approved the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s amendment to the coastal pelagic species management plan, allowing managers to “chose a suite of already disproven, status quo management measures that will keep this population at levels too low to support either the ecosystem or the primary fishery that relies on sardine for half a century or more.”

Managers recognize that the sardine stock size is primarily driven by environmental factors, and that there is inadequacy of surveys used in assessments, said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association.

“Oceana just refuses to acknowledge the reality,” said Pleschner-Steele. “We’ve been arguing for years that the surveys don’t capture the (accurate number) of fish.”

The accusation of “status quo is misrepresenting management,” said Pleschner-Steele. The council and NMFS need flexibility to improve surveys and assessments, monitor environmental factors and consider the fishing community needs with “the only reasonable rebuilding plan,” she said.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Conservation groups claim flaws in new federal right whale document

July 6, 2021 — Now that they have released a new biological opinion, federal fisheries managers are asking a federal court to end the ongoing litigation over the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.  

Last month, the federal government filed for a final judgement in the lawsuit filed against the National Marine Fisheries Service by several conservation groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Conservation Law Foundation, Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society.  

NMFS argued that, if there was an issue with the adequacy of the new biological opinion – a document from the service that states whether or not a federal action will jeopardize a species or its habitat – a new challenge would have to be filed.  

The conservation groups have pushed back against this legal logistics claim and have filed a motion of their own contending that there are several issues with the biological opinion. The new opinion does not address the issues the court found in the document’s previous iteration, which are central to the lawsuit in the first place.  

“NMFS cannot simply ignore the Court’s Opinions and Orders because it disagrees with the analysis or because compliance would be inconvenient,” the groups wrote in a recent filing. 

Last year, a federal judge found that the NMFS was in violation of the Endangered Species Act when it allowed the American lobster fishery to continue without an incidental take permit for North Atlantic right whales. Entanglements are considered one of the biggest threats to the species, which now has less than 400 individuals.  

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Subway Tuna Lawsuit Update: Plaintiffs Say Chain’s Sustainability Claims Are “False and Misleading”

June 22, 2021 — The Subway tuna lawsuit drama continues.

In January a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that the sandwich chain’s tuna sandwich is “made with anything but tuna.” Independent lab tests that were reportedly taken from multiple California Subway locations found that the tuna was a “mixture of concoctions that do not constitute tuna, yet have been blended together by defendants to imitate the appearance of tuna.” The two plaintiffs, Karen Dhanowa and Nilima Amin of Alameda County, were hoping to get their claim certified as class action, which would open the case up to others in California who bought tuna from Subway after January 21, 2017.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Ninth Circuit Revives Fight Over Mining Plans in Pristine Alaskan Bay

June 18, 2021 — Home to the greatest wild salmon fisheries in the world, Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska also lies near prized natural resources long sought by a mining enterprise. To protect the pristine Alaskan frontier, the Obama administration’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sought to restrict a proposed mining operation in 2014 — a move later dumped by the Trump administration.

Conservationists sued, but a federal judge found the Trump EPA’s decision unreviewable and dismissed the case.

On Thursday, a Ninth Circuit panel ordered the case remanded to determine if the EPA’s about-face was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or contrary” to federal law.

The legal history surrounding this pristine slice of Alaskan wilderness stretches back to 2014, when the EPA announced it would seek to restrict mining operations in Bristol Bay under the authority of the Clean Water Act. The proposed Pebble Mine operation would extract copper, gold and other minerals and would be the largest of its kind in North America. The operation’s toxic waste pits could sit at the headwaters to Bristol Bay, and any type of collapse would likely contaminate the region’s watershed.

But in 2019 the Trump EPA withdrew its proposed determination. Several lawsuits followed including a complaint filed by Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit advocacy group, in the District of Alaska. The group challenged the agency’s withdrawal decision as a violation of the Clean Water Act and the implementing regulations.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Pebble: Appeals Court revives case challenging EPA’s removal of watershed protection

June 18, 2021 — A panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a lawsuit aimed at blocking construction of the Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska.

The lawsuit, filed by environmental groups, tribes and other mine opponents, challenged a 2019 Environmental Protection Agency decision to remove protection for the Bristol Bay watershed.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason ruled last year courts could not review the decision because the Clean Water Act did not specify what legal standard applied. The appeals panel agreed the law did not include that standard — but said EPA’s regulations do.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Appeals court hears Chris Lischewski’s claim of judicial error

June 17, 2021 — Former Bumble Bee Foods President and CEO Chris Lischewski formally appealed his conviction for leading a tuna price-fixing conspiracy in front of a three-judge panel on Wednesday, 16 June.

Lischewski’s appeal is centered around an argument that District Court Judge Edward M. Chen, who oversaw the case, gave incorrect instructions to the jury. In Wednesday’s hearing, Lischewski’s lawyer, John D. Cline, called the jury instructions given by Chen erroneous and confusing, which could have made the difference in what he called a “very close case.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source