Saving Seafood

Law

Southeast trollers remain hooked in web of Washington lawsuit that could halt summer season

June 1, 2023 — The king salmon troll fishery in Southeast Alaska remains tangled in a net of legal proceedings that threatens the livelihood of this summer’s season. The season is scheduled to begin July 1.

The U.S. District Court of Western Washington ruled May 3 the Southeast king salmon summer and winter troll fisheries have been operating in violation of the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act by causing irreversible harm to an endangered population of orcas, called southern resident killer whales. The whales travel through Washington’s Puget Sound area due to lack of prey, specifically wild king salmon that are caught by the fishery.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit originally filed in 2019 by a Seattle-based environmental group, Wild Fish Conservancy, and the decision only affects the king salmon troll fishery in Southeast Alaska.

Read the full article at Juneau Empire

No relief for beleaguered Southeast Alaska trollers as judge rejects request to keep fishery open

June 1, 2023 — Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said the state would appeal the denial immediately, but the clock is ticking before the scheduled July 1 start to the king salmon fishery

A federal judge has rejected a request to allow a staple Southeast Alaska king salmon fishery to proceed this summer while an appeal challenging its court-imposed closure plays out.

Richard Jones, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington state, denied the request by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration to set aside his own ruling from earlier this month. The ruling, aimed at protecting endangered orca whales, has the effect of closing this summer’s troll season for Chinook salmon in Southeast Alaska — a hook-and-line fishery that employs some 1,500 skippers and crew.

Jones, in a five-page order Friday, said he would not “stay,” or set aside, his earlier decision while the state’s underlying appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals plays out. In Friday’s order, Jones said the state’s arguments against his earlier ruling — arguments that stressed the financial impacts of a closure on fishermen and the region’s economy — are unlikely to win on appeal, which is a necessary finding for Jones to put the closure on hold.

Read the full article at KIFW

Lawsuit claiming to save whales by delaying Vineyard Wind project dismissed. Now what?

May 31, 2023 — A lawsuit filed with hopes of stopping construction of Vineyard Wind 1, expected to begin installing turbines soon in waters about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, was recently dismissed from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Brought to court in August 2021 by Nantucket Residents Against Turbines – which also goes by ACKRATS – the suit was filed primarily out of concern for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, as well as other marine animals and the marine ecosystem, in the offshore wind development area designated in federal waters on the outer continental shelf. The Nantucket residents also cited concern about impacts on Nantucket’s historic landmark status.

Touted as the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, Vineyard Wind, under development by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, is on track to generate 800-megawatts of electricity annually, powering more than 400,000 homes, starting later this year. Plans call for 62 General Electric Haliade-X turbines, spaced 1 nautical mile apart.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

Judge keeps Alaska chinook fishery closure in place, state scrambles to save summer season

May 31, 2023 — A federal judge has rejected a motion from the U.S. state of Alaska, the Alaska Trollers Association, and NOAA Fisheries to stay his order earlier this month that will effectively close the winter and summer commercial chinook troll fishery in Southeast Alaska.

The groups are now looking to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for relief as they race against the clock to ensure the commercial fishery can open on July 1.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

DOJ will appeal court order forcing troll fishery closure

May 30, 2023 — The United States Department of Justice will appeal a federal court order forcing the closure of the commercial king salmon troll fishery in Southeast Alaska.

In early May, Washington US District Court Judge Richard Jones upheld an earlier recommendation that the Southeast summer and winter king fisheries were catching too much of the food source of a dwindling population of Southern Resident Killer Whales in Puget Sound in violation of the Endangered Species Act. Judge Jones’s order required the fishery closures and required the National Marine Fisheries Service to vacate and rewrite the rules that allow for the fisheries to happen.

The DOJ’s notice to appeal was submitted on May 23, on behalf of the Department of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The defendant intervenors in the case, the Alaska Trollers Association and the State of Alaska filed motions earlier this month calling for a “partial stay” of the order, pending an appeal to allow the fisheries to proceed. The state argued that the court order had failed to account for the economic cultural and social harm to the troll fleet and Southeast Alaska.

Read the full article at KCAW

US Supreme Court deals blow to EPA’s reach under Clean Water Act

May 30, 2023 — The United States Supreme Court rolled back the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act, ruling that the law only applies to wetlands that are indistinguishable from “waters of the United States.”

Environmental groups have condemned the court’s decision as a limitation on the ability of communities to protect waterways and the fish that live in them, but others argue that it’s a necessary curtailment of federal overreach and state bodies can better balance environmental protections and local needs.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Will a Supreme Court decision in fisheries case tie the hands of all government regulators?

May 23, 2023 — Fishing for Atlantic herring may seem worlds away from restrictions on power plant emissions or responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. But a case before the U.S. Supreme Court could affect all those activities and more by altering how federal agencies apply scientific expertise in carrying out their regulatory duties.

On 1 May the high court agreed to hear a case brought by four family-owned herring businesses. They argue that the National Marine Fisheries Service has no authority to require them to pay for onboard observers who would monitor their catch to help the agency protect declining fish stocks.

But legal scholars and environmentalists say much more than fishing is at stake in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. When the high court rules, most likely in the spring of 2024, it may also take a step back from a long-standing legal doctrine, called the Chevron deference, used to determine whether government agencies have exceeded their authority. The doctrine has been applied for nearly 40 years to everything the government does, including regulations affecting businesses, schools, and the general population.

Read the full article at Science.org

Judge rejects lawsuit by Nantucket residents to block wind turbines, protect right whales

May 19, 2023 — A federal judge has rejected a lawsuit brought by Nantucket residents who argued that the planned construction of dozens of wind turbines off the affluent resort island threatens the survival of endangered Northern Atlantic right whales.

Nantucket Residents Against Turbines said Vineyard Wind’s proposed project of some 62 turbines in waters 14 miles (22 kilometers) south of the island is in a crucial area for foraging and nursing for the dwindling species, which researchers estimate to number about 340.

In a ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani found the group failed to show that either the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management or the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act or the National Environmental Policy Act in issuing a 2021 biological opinion or final environmental impact statement for the wind energy project.

Read the full article at the Gloucester Times

Appeals court ruling on 24/7 GPS-monitoring of charter boats could play role in Supreme Court Chevron battle

May 16, 2023 — An appeals court ruling in favor of Gulf of Mexico charter boats earlier this year could play a big role as the U.S. Supreme Court determines the limits of NOAA Fisheries’ rulemaking authority.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will take up a challenge to federal regulations brought by New Jersey fishermen, who sued the government to stop a 2020 New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) rule that would force them to pay for at-sea monitors out of pocket. Fishermen argued that the financial burden of paying for monitors was crippling for their business

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

R.I. fishermen file lawsuit notice over South Fork Wind Farm

May 14, 2023 — A group of Rhode Island fishermen are preparing to sue state and federal agencies and a private wind developer over the construction of a 12-turbine offshore wind farm southeast of Block Island.

Marisa Desautel, an attorney representing the Fisherman’s Advisory Board and individual local fishermen, sent legal notice on Wednesday of her clients’ intentions to sue the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Orsted Offshore North America and the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council.

The notice, which was shared with Rhode Island Current, alleges that construction work for the 132-megawatt South Fork Wind Farm has not followed the agreed-upon plans, therefore violating federal law governing offshore development. Preliminary work laying the cables that will eventually connect the turbines to the mainland electric grid on Long Island, east of Montauk, started last fall. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

Local fishermen say that Orsted, which is co-developing the project with Eversource Energy LLC, illegally expanded the no-fishing and no-travel zone in Rhode Island Sound around the area where it was laying cables last month. The approved construction and operations plan for the project calls for a 500-meter buffer on either side of the cables, but on April 20, fishermen in the area were told, allegedly by an Orsted vessel, that they needed to stay 1.5 miles away from either side of the cable.

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current