October 27, 2022 — Last week, Representative Mary Sattler Peltola sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro asking them to consider appropriating disaster relief funding for those impacted by this year’s total shut down of crab harvests.
NEW JERSEY: No deal on offshore power grid
October 27, 2022 — A state agency held off, at least for now, approving projects aimed at bringing power from offshore wind farms to land, but it did allow for $1 billion to upgrade the existing power grid.
The Board of Public Utilities balked at the more expensive projects needed to begin building what is essentially a backbone transmission system off the coast to deliver power ashore. Instead, it opted to wait until federal financial incentives are available to defray the costs to utility customers.
A law signed by President Joe Biden this summer provides lucrative tax credits to operators of offshore wind farms, but those credits are not available to most transmission projects. Several developers had sought approval from the state to build offshore transmission lines from the wind farms to the grid.
Many clean-energy advocates contend a backbone offshore wind transmission system is the most cost-effective and least environmentally disruptive way of connecting offshore power to the customers who need it. By midcentury, offshore wind farms are supposed to provide 27% of the state’s electricity. No offshore wind farm is operating in New Jersey.
Russian seafood firms finding workarounds to Western sanctions
October 27, 2022 — Despite facing a slew of international sanctions, Russian seafood exports increased year-over-year first seven months of 2022 in both value and volume.
However, a slowing of its seafood trade in recent months could be a warning sign trouble lies ahead.
During the first half of 2022, Russia sold 1.1 million metric tons (MT) of seafood in overseas markets, up 18 percent compared to the corresponding period of 2021. In sum, Russia’s exports were worth USD 2.9 billion (EUR 3.16 billion), an increase of 21 percent, the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries said.
Ketchikan’s tribe asks federal board to expand subsistence hunting and fishing opportunities
October 26, 2022 — Access to traditional foods has long been a priority for Ketchikan’s federally recognized tribe. But for decades, Ketchikan residents have been barred from taking part in federal subsistence hunts and fisheries.
Now, Ketchikan Indian Community is pushing to change that. It hinges on one big question: is Ketchikan a rural community?
Trixie Bennett, the president of Ketchikan’s tribe, said the push to designate Ketchikan as a rural community is a major step toward the tribe’s goal of food sovereignty.
“Our food is our way of life,” Bennett said. “Our food is the medicine, our culture is the medicine.”
If Ketchikan were classified as rural, all residents — Native and non-Native — would be federally qualified subsistence hunters. That means they’d be able to hunt and fish on federal lands and harvest subsistence species, like ooligan from the Unuk River. And wildlife officials would be required to prioritize the needs of Ketchikan’s subsistence users over commercial and sport fishermen.
“We want this better access to our healthier foods around here and not just for us, but for everyone on the island,” Bennett said.
Canada’s fisheries minister no longer proposing salmon net-pen bans in BC
October 26, 2022 — Salmon farmers in British Columbia, Canada appear to no longer be facing the imminent end of net-pen farming in the entire region following several tours of the region by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard (DFO) Minister Joyce Murray.
The tours were part of a long-term plan by the Canadian government and Murray to phase out salmon farming in the region. In late 2020, the Canadian government announced that some salmon farms in B.C., specially located in the Discovery Islands, would be phased out in just 18 months, a decision that communities and salmon farmers in the region said they were “blindsided” by.
ALASKA: Governor requests fishery disaster determination for snow, red king crab
October 26, 2022 — Gov. Mike Dunleavy has requested that the United States Department of Commerce expedite a disaster declaration for the 2022-2023 Bristol Bay red king crab and Bering Sea snow crab fisheries.
Dunleavy asked via a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo for the declaration in accordance with Section 312(a) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and Section 308(b) of the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act. Dunleavy also asked Raimondo to expedite a disaster determination for the 2021-2022 Bristol Bay red king crab fishery season.
District Court Hears Challenge to Federal Grouper Allocations
October 25, 2022 — The following was released by the Gulf Coast Seafood Alliance:
Last week, the District Court for the District of Columbia heard a lawsuit challenging the legality of a federal reallocation of the red grouper quota in the Gulf of Mexico. The suit alleges that NOAA showed unlawful favoritism when it decided to raise grouper quotas for recreational fishermen at the expense of commercial fishermen, and that the result will harm the red grouper stock.
The Gulf Coast Seafood Alliance (GCSA) supports the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, Southern Offshore Fishing Association, and A.P. Bell Fish Company, who filed the suit, in their continuing efforts to challenge an unfair and unlawful decision by NOAA. GCSA members Dewey Destin and David Krebs attended the hearing, held at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.
Earlier this year, NOAA decided on a drastic reallocation of red grouper quota, as part of Amendment 53 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico. The Amendment reduces the overall red grouper quota, while increasing the recreational share of the quota from 24 percent to 40.7 percent, and decreasing the commercial share from 76 percent to 59.3 percent.
The lawsuit challenges the allocation on the basis that it “unlawfully benefit[s] the recreational fishing sector, harm[s] the commercial fishing sector and seafood consumers, and jeopardize[s] conservation.” It also alleges that the Amendment violates the conservation provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the federal law governing U.S. fishery management.
As part of its efforts to support the lawsuit, GCSA produced and filed commentsoutlining the flaws in the Amendment and the reallocation decision, including an insufficient analysis of the economic impacts of the decision. According to GCSA’s analysis, the reallocation also violates several sections of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The decision also relies on deeply flawed data about recreational fishing, specifically the Fishing Effort Survey (FES). Starting in the late 1970s, NOAA collected data on recreational fishing through phone surveys. The agency has since switched over to the FES, which is a mail-based survey. To reconcile the two different methods of data collection, NOAA tried to develop a calibration model that would re-estimate the data collected during the phone survey. However, the estimates produced by the model produced anomalies that do not align with data produced by Florida vessels. It is these flawed estimates that NOAA used to set allocations with Amendment 53. But, as GCSA’s analysis notes, there appears to be insufficient information to determine that historical catch was different from the previous estimates, and therefore there is no basis for reallocation.
GCSA is hopeful that the District Court will see that NOAA made an unlawful decision based on a flawed process. Fisheries management needs to follow the law, and not benefit one sector at the expense of the stock and others that depend on it.
Alaska Gov. Dunleavy urges EPA to stop veto of Pebble mine
October 26, 2022 — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to put the brakes on its effort to stop the giant Pebble copper and gold project.
In May, the federal agency proposed halting the proposed mine under a provision of the Clean Water Act it has used sparingly. It says the mine would be among the world’s largest open-pit copper mines and threatens the Bristol Bay region’s valuable wild salmon fishery and people who rely on it.
The agency is expected to decide by Dec. 2 whether it will move ahead with its proposal.
In his Sept. 6, three-page letter to Casey Sixkiller, administrator of the EPA region that includes Alaska, Dunleavy said the proposed veto of the project is “deeply concerning” and would undermine Alaska’s legal decision-making authority in resource development.
The letter, accompanied by the state’s 53-page comment to the agency, was obtained through a routine records request by the Daily News for the governor’s monthly correspondence.
Dunleavy said the EPA proposal, if finalized, would make preemptive decisions about which resources Alaska can develop and how it can develop them. It chooses fisheries over mining, while disregarding Alaska’s ability to protect its fishery resources, the governor said in the letter.
“Whether, and how, Alaska develops Bristol Bay’s mineral resources or its fishery resources — or both, responsibly — is Alaska’s decision to make, considering the input of all stakeholders and working through the standard permitting process,” Dunleavy said in the letter. “EPA would instead choke off further discussion, usurping for itself this important decision affecting so many Alaskans.”
ALASKA: AFN delegates push for measures to decrease salmon bycatch
October 26, 2o22 — Two resolutions brought before the Alaska Federation of Natives during this year’s annual convention called for efforts to reduce salmon bycatch for fish that return to the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Debate over both resolutions was contentious and revealed a regional rift among tribes.
One resolution calls on Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game to support measures that decrease salmon bycatch by commercial trawlers in a region along the Aleutian Island chain known as Area M. A second resolution requests the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council address bycatch amounts in the same region.
“I really have to take a step back here and talk about how sad I am that we have to fight so hard here to be heard to try to protect our salmon,” said Brian Ridley. Ridley is the chairman of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, an Interior region tribal organization that brought both resolutions to the floor of this year’s annual Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage.
“I know this is a controversial issue,” Ridley told a crowd of hundreds, after the resolutions were introduced on the floor Saturday. “There’s a lot of people that didn’t want to have this discussion here, but if we don’t have it here and we don’t get the support of AFN, the problem is, we’re gonna be out of the fish on the Yukon and Kuskokwim and we’re gonna be talking endangered species.”
U.S. agencies propose to protect whales while building wind power
October 26, 2022 — Federal agencies have put out a new plan to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whales, as the government promotes aggressive development of offshore wind energy projects.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and National Marine Fisheries Service released their joint strategy Oct. 21 “to protect and promote the recovery of North Atlantic right whales while responsibly developing offshore wind energy.”
The announcement initiated a 45-day public review and comment period on the draft strategy. Comments on the guidance can be submitted online via regulations.gov from October 21 to December 4, under Docket Number BOEM-2022-0066.
The plan comes out amid turmoil in the commercial fishing industry over NMFS plans for gear and area restrictions in the Northeast lobster fishery to reduce the danger of entanglement with whales. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is challenging the plans in federal appeals court, as NMFS looks toward potential restrictions on other East Coast fisheries that use fixed gear like fish pots and gill nets.
Meanwhile opponents of offshore wind projects have set their sights on the right whales’ predicament as a strategy to use for challenging wind developers and federal agencies in court. Activists and lawyers organized by the Heartland Institute, a frequent critic of renewable energy programs, say right whales could be key to a challenge of Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.
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