Law Archives - Saving Seafood

RI organizations file lawsuits against CT offshore wind projects

November 28, 2023 — Two Rhode Island heritage organizations have filed lawsuits over two offshore wind projects they say will spoil their “viewsheds.”

The Preservation Society of Newport and The Southeast Lighthouse Foundation say the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) ignored the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Greg Werkheiser is a partner with the law firm Cultural Heritage Partners. He said they are not against clean energy, just the way it’s being done.

Read the full article at WSHU

Cape May County continuing federal offshore wind suit despite Ørsted backout

November 27, 2023 — Cape May County will continue challenging permitting for offshore wind development in New Jersey despite one company abandoning its plans to build wind turbines along the coast.

Michael Donohue, who represents the county in offshore wind matters, said the decision to not rescind its lawsuit was made because Ørsted has said in statements another company could take on the leases for the projects.

“It is clear that Ørsted has abandoned the development of Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2, but it is also clear that they believe that they can sell their lease and their state and federal permits,” said Donohue. “For Ørsted to break every promise it made to multiple New Jersey communities, to break all the promises it made to trade unions in South Jersey, to break all of its contractual obligations with New Jersey agencies and then believe that it is entitled to profit from its lease and permits is the height of arrogance. The County of Cape May intends to challenge this proposition in federal and state court moving forward in connection with the litigation already underway.”

Read the full article at The Press of Atlantic City

Lawyers for Rhode Island fishermen file Supreme Court brief

November 23, 2023 — A conservative legal foundation filed its opening papers in a U.S. Supreme Court case on behalf of Rhode Island fishermen, challenging a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rule requiring herring fishermen to pay for at-sea government monitors on their fishing boats.

Lawyers with the New Civil Liberties Alliance worked with Point Judith, R.I., fishermen who operate companies Relentless, Inc., Huntress, Inc., and Seafreeze Fleet, LLC to develop the case, now dubbed Relentless v. Department of Commerce. The high court is scheduled to hearing oral arguments Jan. 17.

The Relentless case is proceeding in tandem with a similar case that another activist group, the Cause for Action Institute, is bringing to the Supreme Court on behalf of Loper Bright Enterprises and other Cape May, N.J. herring fishermen.

The cases challenge a 2020 rule imposed by NOAA that required vessel operators to pay for observers on their vessels at sea, at a cost that owners say can exceed $700 daily and sometimes exceed the money they make from landing low-priced herring.

NOAA waived the rule earlier this year as it ran short of money to administer the program. But fishermen want to make sure the observer requirement is not renewed, and conservative advocacy groups see their cause as a chance to overturn a long-standing precedent called the “Chevron deference.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Debate over Pebble mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region moves to dueling Supreme Court briefs

November 16, 2023 — The company trying to build a huge copper and gold mine in the salmon-rich Bristol Bay will keep fighting for the project, despite a decision by the federal government to keep the proposed development site off-limits to large-scale metals mining.

John Shively, chief executive officer of the Pebble Limited Partnership, made that vow in a presentation at the Alaska Miners Association annual convention in Anchorage.

He said the Pebble mine had the potential to transform the economy and improve lives in the rural Bristol Bay region, just as he said the Red Dog Mine, one of the world’s biggest zinc producers, has done in Northwest Alaska.

“That’s why we’re still fighting this. The resources are there. We’re still here. We’re not going anywhere,” he told the convention audience in his presentation on Thursday.

The company’s fight is backed by the administration of Gov. Mike Dunleavy. At his direction, the state in July filed a lawsuit directly to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to overturn a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency that bars permitting for any Pebble-type mine in key areas of the Bristol Bay watershed.

Dunleavy, in brief remarks earlier this week at the miners’ convention, expressed pride in his support of the controversial project.

“I was told if I supported Pebble, I would never win another election. Well, I don’t know. I’m here. I’m still here,” he said on Tuesday, drawing applause from the audience. The Republican governor was handily reelected last November.

The EPA decision invoked a rarely used provision in the Clean Water Act to preclude any wetlands permit for the project. The agency determined that the Pebble mine posed an unacceptable risk to the Bristol Bay watershed, essential to a region with the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs and with major fisheries and wildlife populations that depend on that salmon.

To help reverse that decision, the Pebble Limited Partnership and its owner, Vancouver-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., in September filed an amicus brief in support of the state’s Supreme Court effort. Filing supportive briefs, too, were the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and numerous Alaska and national resource-development groups.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

New England lobstermen threaten to sue feds over planned Massachusetts fishing closure

November 10, 2023 — New England lobstermen are threatening to sue a federal agency planning to make fishing on Massachusetts waters even more challenging from February until May, when they already face restrictions on where they are allowed to tend to their livelihood.

NOAA Fisheries is looking to permanently add a wedge between state and federal waters to an existing closure that stretches roughly 9,000 square miles off the Massachusetts coast, a measure feds have put in place to preserve the North Atlantic right whale.

An emergency rule prohibited trap and pot fishery buoy lines on the wedge during the past two years, but the feds are looking to make the zone permanent and have the backing of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

The proposed permanent expansion to the Massachusetts Restricted Area has caught lobstermen by surprise.

Dustin Delano, chief operating officer of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, took exception to the “recklessness” of the proposal after an amendment was included in this year’s $1.7 trillion federal spending bill that looked to delay protections for the North Atlantic right whale by six years.

Read the full article at Boston Herald

Commercial fishing groups sue 13 US tire makers over rubber preservative that’s deadly to salmon

November 9, 2023 — The 13 largest U.S. tire manufacturers are facing a lawsuit from a pair of California commercial fishing organizations that could force the companies to stop using a chemical added to almost every tire because it kills migrating salmon.

Also found in footwear, synthetic turf and playground equipment, the rubber preservative 6PPD has been used in tires for 60 years. As tires wear, tiny particles of rubber are left behind on roads and parking lots, breaking down into a byproduct, 6PPD-quinone, that is deadly to salmon, steelhead trout and other aquatic wildlife when rains wash it into rivers.

“This is the biggest environmental disaster that the world doesn’t quite know about yet,” said Elizabeth Forsyth, an attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice, which is representing the fishing groups. “It’s causing devastating impacts to threatened and endangered species.”

The Institute for Fisheries Resources and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Wednesday against Goodyear, Bridgestone, Continental and others.

In an emailed statement, Bridgestone spokesman Steve Kinkade said the company would not comment on the lawsuit, but that it “remains committed to safety, quality and the environment and continues to invest in researching alternative and sustainably sourced materials in our products.”

Read the full article at ABC News

New England lobstermen say they’ll likely sue if NOAA expands fishing restrictions

November 8, 2023 — The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) has promised it will challenge NOAA in court if the administration finalizes an expansion to the Massachusetts Restricted Area (MRA) – a region of the ocean off the coast of the Northeast U.S. that prohibits lobster fishing.

NOAA is proposing modifications to the MRA that will add the temporary “wedge” closure area to the permanent closures, which last from 1 February to 30 April. The “wedge” is an area of approximately 200 square miles in between two of the existing closures that remain open to fishing.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Seasonal Resident Files Vineyard Wind Appeal

November 7, 2023 — A seasonal Edgartown resident is challenging a federal court’s ruling on his lawsuit that tried to halt Vineyard Wind, the offshore wind energy development in construction south of the Island.

Thomas Melone, who owns a home on the Vineyard and is the president of a solar energy company, filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the National Marine Fisheries Service, claiming several agencies were violating the Endangered Species Act when they approved the 62 turbines. That case was dismissed by U.S. District Court judge Indira Talwani in August.

On Monday, Mr. Melone filed a brief with the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming the National Marine Fisheries Service did not meet all of the federal requirements when it approved Vineyard Wind, and that some of its interpretations of statutes are “unreasonable.” In his brief, he also contended the U.S. District Court erroneously allowed Vineyard Wind to be involved in his lawsuit.

Read the full article at the Vineyard Gazzette

Conservationists to sue NOAA Fisheries after killer whale deaths in Alaska

November 2, 2023 — The Center for Biological Diversity is planning to sue NOAA Fisheries following the revelation that nine killer whales have been killed during commercial fishing operations in the Bering Sea so far this year.

In October 2023, NOAA Fisheries announced that ten killer whales had been taken as bycatch by groundfish trawlers operating off the coast of Alaska. Only one of the whales survived the encounters.

Read the fool article at SeafoodSource

A Small Fish and an Uncollected Fee Add Up to Big-Government Challenge at the Supreme Court

November 1, 2023 — Conservatives who have spent decades asking the Supreme Court to rein in the US government’s regulation of businesses are now betting on a case involving fishermen challenging a $710 fee they’ve never had to pay.

The case could undercut the power of federal regulators on major issues including air pollution and securities fraud. It also exemplifies the way many of the high court’s biggest fights are born these days — driven less by the practical aims of the litigants than by the ideological vision of the interest groups behind the suits.

The fight concerns a federal requirement that some herring boats host government-approved observers aboard their vessels and cover an estimated $710 daily cost. The fisherman say that would be an onerous burden on their family-owned businesses — so onerous they are suing even though the fee is on hold and might never kick in.

“We have not had to pay. We’re just nervous about this hanging over our head,” said Bill Bright in an interview in Cape May, New Jersey, where he runs his two-vessel fishing business. “So we feel that we need to solve this problem now.”

The real stakes lie in the broader legal issue, one that anti-regulatory groups have eagerly sought to get before the Supreme Court and its conservative supermajority. The justices are considering overturning a 1984 ruling known as Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, under which judges typically defer to regulators on the meaning of ambiguous statutes – including those that set out how much power the agency has.

Democratic administrations have relied heavily on the so-called Chevron doctrine, using it to justify rules governing energy, the environment and the workplace. In the herring case, a federal appeals court invoked Chevron in upholding the National Marine Fisheries Service’s payment demand even though Congress didn’t explicitly authorize the rule.

Those pressing the lawsuits say they readily work with the Fisheries Service toward the common goal of a robust herring stock but draw the line at having to pay for monitors.

“We welcome observers on board our fishing vessels, but we shouldn’t have to pay for that,” said Wayne Reichle, president of Lund’s Fisheries Inc., which owns vessels as well as five processing facilities on the East and West Coasts. “That’s something that the government should have to pay for.”

Read the full article at at YahooNews!