June 26, 2012 – Based on final groundfish sector enrollment for Fishing Year 2012, NOAA has adjusted the sector and the common pool allocations accordingly.
Fears Accompany Fishermen in Japanese Disaster Region
June 25, 2012 – The catch from six small fishing boats, the first to resume commercial fishing in the waters off Fukushima since last year’s nuclear catastrophe, went on sale at local supermarkets on Monday, raising hopes and concerns in a region struggling to return to something like normal.
For now, the catch is limited to octopus and whelk, a type of sea snail, because those species are thought to trap fewer radioactive particles in their bodies. Still, local residents said it was a milestone for a vital source of food and employment in the region.
“The past year has been long and hard, but the thing is, I never once gave up on being a fisherman,” Toru Takahashi, 57, said before sailing early Saturday from Matsukawa, about 30 miles north of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. But the fishermen’s hope to resume working the waters they fished for decades is causing unease all around. Experts say the effects of the disaster on the ocean are still not fully understood.
Hours before the boats set out, the central government hastily banned Fukushima’s fishermen from selling 36 types of fish other than octopus and whelk. Until then, there had been no explicit ban on fishing near Fukushima, because the region’s fishermen had voluntarily suspended work after the tsunami and nuclear disaster. In return, they have received about $125 million from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power.
“We are not opposed to fishermen in Fukushima starting to fish again, if they can show that what they are catching does not contain high levels of radiation,” said Yasunobu Matsui, a government food safety official. “We just don’t want them to make a mistake and catch the wrong kind.”
Read the full story at the New York Times.
Former rep. lands seat on fisheries council
June 25, 2012 — DARTMOUTH — Former 18-year state Rep. John F. Quinn was named by the U.S. Commerce Department on Monday to a seat on the New England Fisheries Management Council.
Quinn, an attorney who has represented many clients in various roles in the fishing industry — including appearances at council meetings — said he believes he has the perfect set of skills for the job of managing fish stocks in the Northeast.
Since leaving the Legislature in 2010 and making a losing bid to replace Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, Quinn has been a lecturer at the UMass Law School and director of the UMass Center for Graduate Civic Engagement. He said it's a perfect fit with the management council: "There's no better public policy than local fishing."
Quinn's actions as an attorney representing a fishing boat owner whose catch was being seized in 1990 became an issue in the sheriff's race.
Quinn was notified of a $15,000 federal fine, but on review the fine was later reduced to $6 and the matter was dismissed.
Quinn's explanation was that he was doing what he was being paid to do: aggressively represent his client.
The state Board of Bar Overseers reviewed the case and took no action.
Rodney Avila, who is vacating the seat Quinn will occupy, said "I knew it a month ago" by the tone of questions and by the support he had that Quinn would get the job.
Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association statement on appointments to the New England Fishery Management Council
June 25, 2012 – The following was released by the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association:
Today the Commerce Department announced the most recent appointments to the New England Fishery Management Council, the decision-making body that oversees the development of federal fishery regulations for New England.
Maine’s small-boat, community-based fishermen will have a new voice representing them. Vincent Balzano, a third generation fisherman out of Portland Maine, has been appointed to replace Port Clyde fisherman and business operator Glen Libby.
“Glen has been an important advocate for the fishermen of Maine both on and off the Council and has been instrumental in ensuring the survival of the Maine inshore fleet,” said Ben Martens, Executive Director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, which Glen Libby helped establish in 2006. “We were happy to see NOAA’s Fisheries Service and the Commerce Department recognize the importance Maine inshore fishermen in the decision-making process. We are very excited to continue to work with Vincent and the other Maine representatives on the Council to develop common sense regulations to protect Maine’s iconic fishing fleet.”
“Being on the New England Fishery Management Council has been an incredible experience and I am honored that I was allowed to have that opportunity,” Said Glen Libby. “The Council has a lot of very important decisions to make in the near future and I’m happy that the small boats of Maine will continue to have a voice in these decisions. Vincent (Balzano) has worked hard to help build the Port Clyde Community Groundfish Sector and I’m excited to see what he can do at the Council.”
Mr. Libby continued by saying “I’m also looking forward to spending more time focusing on Port Clyde Fresh Catch and participating in the regulatory process from the other side of the table.” Port Clyde Fresh Catch is small-scale fishermen led processing facility focused on direct marketing of local, sustainable seafood.
Vincent Balzano, a longtime advocate for the Maine fleet, has been an active participant in the Council process for years serving on Advisory Panels for Groundfish, Habitat, and Whiting. He has also served as the Advisory Panel Chair for North Atlantic Shrimp at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. In response to the appointment, Mr. Blazano stated: “I’d just like to thank Glen for the years he spent on the Council and all the hard work he did for the Maine fleet. I’d also like to thank Governor Paul LePage for appointing me for this position. I know we have a lot of work to do and I hope to bring new energy and ideas to the process.”
Also appointed to the Council from Maine was Terry Alexander, a fisherman out of Portland, who is replacing James Odlin.
Can London fulfill sustainability commitments?
June 25, 2012 – When the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) unveiled its London 2012 Food Vision in December 2009, it made the commitment that all fish served at official events would be “demonstrably sustainable.” It was the first pledge of this nature ever to be made by a major international sporting event and one that presented U.K. seafood suppliers with a billion-dollar conundrum: With an estimated 14 million meals projected to be served during the games across 40 locations, where was all the sustainable fish going to come from?
At that time, officials hadn’t defined what was meant by “demonstrably sustainable” and seafood was just one food category on a list of many. Those suppliers that were looking to steal a march on their rivals only had a “Benchmark Standard” to go by that stated all fish must be sustainable according to the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).
Back in 2009, many felt the initial policy descriptions were too vague and open to misinterpretation. Fortunately, greater clarity and purchasing confidence came via Sustain — the alliance for better food and farming; along with Good Catch, which provides practical information on sustainable seafood for chefs, caterers and restaurateurs; and the MCS with its traffic light rating system, whereby “fish to eat” are rated 1 (light green) and 2 (pale green) and “fish to avoid” are rated 5 (red).
Laky Zervudachi, sustainability director for fresh fish supplier Direct Seafoods, explains it’s now clear to everyone that the policy requires all wild fish supplied to the Games to be rated MCS 1 or 2 or alternatively MSC certified. There’s “a little more leeway and opportunity” with farmed fish in that species with an MCS 3 (yellow) rating can be used, but LOCOG has specified that it’s expecting best practices within that level, he says.
Japan sells first fish caught since nuclear crisis
June 25, 2012 — TOKYO—The first seafood caught off Japan's Fukushima coastline since last year's nuclear disaster went on sale Monday, but the offerings were limited to octopus and marine snails because of persisting fears about radiation.
Octopus and whelk, a kind of marine snail, were chosen for the initial shipments because testing for radioactive cesium consistently measured no detectable amounts, according to the Fukushima Prefectural (state) fishing cooperative. They were caught Friday and boiled so they last longer while being tested for radiation before they could be sold Monday.
Flounder, sea bass and other fish from Fukushima can't be sold yet because of contamination. It was unclear when they will be approved for sale as they measure above the limit in radiation set by the government. The government is testing for radioactive iodine as well, but its half-life is shorter than cesium and thus is less worrisome.
"It was crisp when I bit into it, and it tasted so good," said Yasuhiro Yoshida, who oversees the seafood section at York Benimaru supermarket in Soma, which sold out of about 30 kilograms (65 pounds) of the snails and 40 kilograms (90 pounds) of the octopus that had been shipped to the store.
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami last year left the coastlines of northeastern Japan devastated, and displaced tens of thousands of people. Entire towns were contaminated by the radiation leaking from Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where three reactors went into meltdowns.
"I was filled with both uncertainty and hope today, but I was so happy when I found out the local supermarket had sold out by 3 p.m.," said Hirofumi Konno, an official in charge of sales at the fishing cooperative in Soma city in coastal Fukushima.
Read the full story by the Associated Press on the Bostom Globe
Yellowtail flounder move offers temporary reprieve to groundfishermen
June 25, 2012 — "It's great that groundfishermen and scallopers are collaborating on a solution that will keep both of them fishing," said Laura Foley Ramsden, a council member and co-owner of Foley Fish in New Bedford. From her perspective as a fish processor the quota increase is good news, she said.
"Yellowtail is one of the flounders we sell on a regular basis and it's a great eating fish. It's definitely an important resource for us," she said.
However, this decision represents a short term solution, Foley Ramsden said.
"We need to do a better job of assessing the health of the stocks. Right now the trawl surveys are not using the right gear and we need to put money aside to do a survey specifically targeting yellowtail."
A local fisheries scientist Friday described the transfer of a large amount of yellowtail flounder quota from the scallop fleet to groundfishermen as essentially a makeup call.
Steve Cadrin of UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology and a member of the New England Fishery Management Council's science and statistical committee explained that the problem was that yellowtail allocation for scallopers was based on a 2010 stock assessment.
"The 2011 assessment was much more pessimistic and the 2012 catch limits were based on that. But the council didn't revise the estimates for the scallop fleet," he said.
In the wake of the council's transfer of yellowtail allotment from scallopers to groundfishermen, now the numbers are more appropriate, Cadrin said.
Cadrin also cautioned that the transfer is only an interim solution. "The 2012 yellowtail stock assessment is due out next week and if the reports now circulating are correct, it is even more bleak than the 2011 assessment," he said.
The National Marine Fisheries Service now has to formally endorse the council decision. The exact timing has yet to be determined, according to Maggie Mooney-Seus, a communications officer with NOAA Fisheries Service.
The Environmental Defense said it was not ready to comment on the decision at press time on Friday and the Nature Conservancy did not respond to a request from The Standard-Times for comment.
Blooming horrible: Nutrient pollution is a growing problem all along the Mississippi
June 23, 2012 – SOUTH-EAST of New Orleans, where the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico, the North American land mass does not end so much as gently give up. Land subsides to welts of green poking up through the water, and the river grows wider and flatter until it meets the ocean, where a solid line divides the Mississippi’s brown water from the gulf’s blue.
On its long journey south the water has scooped up nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, mainly from the fields of the Midwest. So much so that agriculture’s gift to the gulf is a “dead zone”. The excess nutrients cause algae to bloom, consuming all the available oxygen in the sea, making it hostile to other forms of marine life. Creatures that can swim away, such as shrimp and fish, do so; those that cannot, die. In the four decades since the dead zone was discovered it has grown steadily. Today it covers 6,700 square miles, an area larger than Connecticut.
This ecological disaster area imperils the region’s commercial and recreational fisheries, worth around $2.8 billion a year. One study suggests yearly shrimp-fishery losses of nearly 13%. The dead zone drives shrimp farther out to sea, making it costlier and more time-consuming to catch them. It also makes them smaller.
Nancy Rabalais, who heads the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and has mapped the dead zone each year for nearly three decades, claims that the amount of nitrates flowing into the Gulf of Mexico has increased by up to 300% over that time. Most of this comes from agriculture in the “I”-states (Illinois, Iowa and Indiana) and some from the city of Chicago.
It would be a mistake, though, to think that the problem is confined to the Gulf. The effects of nutrient pollution are increasingly apparent throughout the Mississippi River basin. Environmentalists say that half the streams in the upper Mississippi have too much nitrogen and a quarter have too much phosphorus. This nutrient enrichment damages aquatic life there too, and degrades drinking water. It also causes blooms of toxic algae that have closed beaches, made people ill and killed fish and pets. Nasty green lakes have also damaged tourism, property values and fisheries.
For years green groups have been trying to persuade the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set a limit for the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus allowed in the states whose rivers feed the Mississippi. Little has happened. So in March members of the Mississippi River Collaborative, an environmental group, filed a lawsuit designed to force all those involved to think about ways to solve the problem.
Read the full story at the Economist.
NOAA chief cites management ‘failure’ in NWS financial scandal
A financial scandal that has left the National Weather Service short $36 million this year resulted from a “failure of management and oversight” by top leaders and “significant deficiencies” in how the service and its parent agencies manage their finances.
The assessment Thursday by the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the weather service, seemed only to frustrate House Republicans as they pressed for details about improper accounting methods the service used to balance its books.
At a hearing on Capitol Hill, House appropriators said they will hold off approving NOAA’s request to move $36 million from long-term projects to keep operating through September until Administrator Jane Lubchenco answers 65 more questions.
“We want to reassure the employees” that lawmakers will likely authorize the request to avoid furloughing staff members, said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who leads the panel that oversees NOAA’s budget.
But Wolf said lawmakers want to “send a message to other agencies” that moving millions of dollars between accounts without asking permission from Congress is a serious and potentially illegal abuse of authority. “It’s important to follow the law,” he said.
Senate appropriators this week gave NOAA a green light on the request, called a reprogramming.
Lubchenco said the money would be shifted out of a weather radio upgrade program into the salary account for local forecasters and other staff members.
She gave lawmakers some new details about the weather service’s longstanding practice of reallocating money without congressional approval. Three employees were involved in charging millions of dollars to a fund intended for technology improvements to pay salaries. The practice dated to 2006.
These capital programs had been overfunded and the salary account underfunded, Lubchenco said. She could not say why weather service officials went around Congress.
“I wish I knew why,” she said after the hearing.
Major Actions Taken by the New England Fishery Management Council June 19-21, 2012, Portland, Maine
June 22, 2012 – The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC):
Atlantic Herring The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) took several actions this week that will significantly affect two major fisheries operating out of ports in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions. Atlantic herring fishermen saw new rules approved that would institute a comprehensive monitoring program including 100 percent observer coverage on the full-time fleet of 46 vessels. The Council excluded smaller vessels that catch only small amounts of herring, choosing instead to focus on those boats that land about 97 percent of the herring quota.
Also supported in the herring package were measures to encourage avoidance of depleted river herring species that can swim with Atlantic herring and are incidentally taken as bycatch. The two-phase avoidance approach is based on a pilot program developed in cooperation with the fishing industry, represented by the Sustainable Fisheries Coalition, working in partnership with Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and UMASS Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology. Bycatch limits or caps were approved for consideration in a subsequent herring action.
Recent statistics indicate that about 143,666,000 pounds of Atlantic herring were sold by federally permitted dealers generating about $17.9 million for the boats. This represents a 22 percent decrease in revenues from the 2009 fishing year, primarily because the Council approved fishery specifications for 2010-2012 which lowered the herring catch limits for 2010-2012 to ensure sustainability.
The U.S. Atlantic herring fishery occurs over the Mid-Atlantic shelf region from Cape Hatteras to Maine, including an active fishery in the inshore Gulf of Maine and seasonally on Georges Bank. The Atlantic herring resource is healthy and is classified as “not overfished.” If the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency which acts on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce and is responsible for final approval of federal fishery rules, approves the Council’s actions, most of the new measures will be in place by early 2013.
Groundfish and Sea Scallops The Council moved ahead to propose proactive measures yesterday to address the very low quota of Georges Bank yellowtail flounder that will be available to groundfish fishermen in 2012. The allowable catch has and will continue to severely constrain New England boats that harvest cod, haddock, flounders and other bottom-dwelling species.
A clear majority of the 18-member Council voted to request that NMFS take action to re-apportion the amount of Georges Bank yellowtail allocated to the scallop fishery by reducing it to 156.9 metric tons or to about 346,185 pounds while increasing the groundfish fisheries’ allocation to 368.3 metric tons or 811,440 pounds. In addition, the Council asked the agency to approve a one-time measure through an emergency action that would allow the scallop fishery to continue its operations next year without any additional restrictions unless it exceeded its original yellowtail allocation of 307.5 metric tons (approximately 674,730 pounds).