Saving Seafood

Council Actions

Meeting Materials for the August 18th meeting of the ASMFC Northern Shrimp Section Now Available

August 10, 2022 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission

Meeting materials for the August 18th meeting of the Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section are now available athttp://www.asmfc.org/files/Meetings/NorthernShrimpSection_Aug2022/NorthenShrimpSectionMtgMaterials_Aug2022.pdf. This in-person only meeting will take place at The Westin Portland Harborview, 157 High Street, Portland, Maine from 9:00 AM-1:00 PM. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the possibility of the Commission relinquishing management authority of the Northern Shrimp Fishery Management Plan. The Section will also review a sensitivity analysis that explores the potential scientific effects of eliminating the northern shrimp summer survey and will discuss management implications. The details of the meeting can also be found at http://www.asmfc.org/calendar/8/2022/Northern-Shrimp-Section-Meeting/1989.

The Section will provide the public the opportunity to bring matters of concern to the Section’s attention at the start of the meeting. Depending upon the number of commenters, the Section Chair will decide how to allocate the available time on the agenda to the number of people who want to speak.

FiTI lays out case against a global fisheries transparency index

August 9, 2022 — The Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) has laid out a case against ranking fisheries transparency efforts in a global fisheries transparency index.

FiTI is a global multi-stakeholder partnership focused on increasing transparency and collaboration in marine fisheries management. It is working with governments of coastal nations around the world to produce country reports that provide a deep dive into the state of the country’s seafood sector. The first report was published in April 2021 by the Seychelles, followed by Mauritania’s report in May 2021, and subsequent reports have since been published covering Senegal, Cabo Verde, Madagascar, São Tomé and Príncipe, Ecuador, Bangladesh, and Mexico.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Bringing sea otters back to Oregon faces ideological challenges

August 9, 2022 — If asked to choose between the environment and commercial interests, most environmentalists would naturally side with the former. But the reality is more complicated, particularly when Indigenous tribes — long left out of the conversation on how the federal government navigates issues concerning natural resources and commercial interests — are brought to the table.

In the case of mitigating climate change by reintroducing sea otters to habitats where they once thrived, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife is faced with such a dilemma. Particularly so because bringing sea otters to the Northern California and Oregon coasts sounds promising to everyone except those who are already living near the endangered species.

Known by some local tribes as the Elekha, sea otters are a small marine mammal of the family Mustelidae, characterized by their furry, weasel appearance and their hallmark tendency to float on their back while using a rock to open hard-shelled invertebrates. The animal is objectively cute, with its furry white face that pops over the top of the ocean to stare out like a teddy bear with tiny eyes and an extra wide nose.

The southern and northern sea otters, Enhydra lutris, are distinct by geography and marginally by their DNA, as fur traders nearly hunted the animal to extinction during the 18th and 19th centuries. Southern sea otters live in small pockets along the Southern California coastline while northern sea otters live from northern Washington state to southeastern Alaska — the latter a direct result of preservation and reintroduction.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

Rising fuel prices might attract fishermen to fuel efficient multi-hull vessels

August 9, 2022 — With boats in fisheries like New England lobster and Bristol Bay salmon getting progressively wider, and fuel getting more expensive, some boat designers believe it’s only a matter of time before fishermen embrace multi-hull vessels. While the ferry and wind farm industries have been taking advantage of the speed, stability, and fuel efficiency of catamarans for years, multihulls have been a hard sell with commercial fishermen.

“You know how it is with fishermen,” says Marathon, Florida boat designer Walter Schurtenberger. “They stick with what they know.”

Schurtenberger has designed a 65-foot catamaran for the spiny lobster fishery but has not had anyone build it — yet.

“I had two brothers from up the Keys who were very interested,” he says, but he thinks they dissolved their partnership and neither could fund the project on his own.

“The initial design is for a 38-footer,” says Tom Duym of the MCCF. “They built a 22-foot version that they’re going to test.” According to Duym, Maine lobstermen who have looked at the boat have been skeptical about its stability.

“They’re wondering how it will handle in a cross sea or on the stern quarter,” says Duym. “They think it won’t handle so good.”

Professor Doug Reed at the Maine Maritime Academy has been modeling the design and extrapolating how the boat will handle at its full size.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS : Shellfish areas remain closed in New Bedford as city works to fix old sewage system

August 9, 2022 — When there is heavy rainfall — and sometimes when it’s dry — openings along New Bedford’s shoreline function as relief valves for the city’s old and overloaded sewer system, spewing into nearby waters a mixture of stormwater and untreated sewage from homes and businesses.

Some of these receiving waters contain beds where people recreationally or commercially harvest little necks, cherry stones and chowders — all types of quahogs.  But when the openings release enough effluent, those areas must temporarily close due to possible contamination.

The state department overseeing fisheries determined in 2020 that New Bedford’s closures due to releases into Clarks Cove and the outer harbor were no longer predictable or manageable, with some overflows going unreported by the city.

As a result, “conditionally approved” areas for shellfishing in those waters have been continuously closed since late 2019 to 2020. More than two years later, a staff member with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) has expressed concern that these shellfishing areas in waters shared by New Bedford, Fairhaven and Dartmouth will be permanently closed due to the sewage releases.

“I am concerned that due to these issues FDA will require both areas be downgraded and reclassified to Prohibited,” wrote the state’s shellfish program manager Jeff Kennedy in a May memo to DMF Director Daniel McKiernan.

The city is engaged in a multi-year improvement plan, under a decree from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and laid out a plan to spend more than $260 million through at least 2036 to upgrade the system. As this work moves along, the city is still grappling with remediating problems created by old, costly-to-fix systems.

According to the EPA, sewage discharges are a “major problem” in the country and cause some bodies of water to remain unsafe for swimming and fishing, with the problem being “especially acute” in New England, where more than 100 communities are affected.

These openings, called combined sewer overflows (CSOs), have decreased in number since the 1990s, and consequently, the city through sewer separation efforts has reduced the amount of sewage outfall from an estimated 3.1 billion gallons in 1990 to about 183 million gallons in 2016, according to a city report.

It was further reduced to 181.9 million gallons from July 2020 through June 2021, according to a city spokesperson.

While the city’s work to improve the system has resulted in thousands of acres of previously closed shellfish areas opening, the affected areas currently closed are about 4,000 acres.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Red Grouper harvest to close in federal waters on August 30

August 9, 2022 — Recreational harvest of red grouper in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) will close at 12:01 am, local time, on August 30, 2022, and will remain closed until the 2023 fishing year begins on January 1, 2023.

Landings information received from the Southeast Fisheries Science Center and Southeast Regional Office indicate the 2022 recreational annual catch target (ACT) of 1,840,000 pounds gutted weight (lb gw) is projected to be met on August 29, 2022.

In accordance with the regulations, NOAA Fisheries must close harvest when the recreational ACT has been met or is projected to be met. Therefore, this closure will begin on August 30, 2022. This closure is needed to prevent overfishing of red grouper (annual catch rate is too high).

Read the full article at KATC

VIRGINIA: Regulators OK Dominion’s planned wind farm off Virginia Beach’s coast

August 8, 2022 — State regulators on Friday approved an application from Dominion Energy Virginia to build an enormous offshore wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach and recover the cost from ratepayers.

No parties to the monthslong proceeding had opposed the approval of the project, which will help the utility boost the proportion of its generation that comes from renewable resources. But many had raised concerns about affordability and possible risks to the utility’s captive ratepayers.

In its Friday order, the State Corporation Commission noted that the 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project will likely be the single largest project in Dominion’s history and said that because of its size, complexity and location, it faces an array of challenges. The commission included in its order three “consumer protections,” including a performance standard.

The commission’s order also approved facilities that will connect the wind farm to the existing transmission system.

Read the full article at 13 News Now

Atlantic menhaden not overharvested, fisheries commission concludes

August 8, 2022 — An updated menhaden population assessment that takes into account the ecological role of the species as a popular food for other fish deems the coastwide stock to be in good shape.

The latest assessment, presented to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Aug. 3, incorporates data collected through last year. It concluded that “overfishing is not occurring, and the stock is not considered overfished.”

Menhaden are a small fish but have long stoked big controversies, especially in the Chesapeake Bay, where conservation groups contend commercial harvests leave too few of the “forage” fish in the water to support striped bass and other fish.

That concern spurred the ASMFC, an organization made up of fishery managers from East Coast states and federal agencies, to make adjustments to their assessment methodologies two years ago to better account for the role of menhaden in the food chain.

But even with the new methodology, the latest assessment concluded the overall stock was healthy — a finding immediately touted by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition, a group representing commercial harvesters.

“Using these stricter standards that incorporate the forage needs of predators, the new assessment has found that the menhaden fishery is sustainable, and that menhaden fishing does not negatively affect predator populations,” it said in a statement.

Some conservation groups contend the assessment evaluates the menhaden stock coastwide and does not necessarily reflect what is happening in the Bay, where much of the harvest takes place.

Read the full article at Bay Journal

VIRGINIA: SCC backs millions in rate increases for Dominion’s offshore wind project

August 8, 2022 — Virginia’s State Corporation Commission has approved Dominion Energy’s application to recover costs for its proposed massive Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project — but the $9.8 billion wind farm comes with a significant cost to electric utility ratepayers.

The commission approved a revenue requirement of $78 million for the rate year of Sept. 1, 2022, to Aug. 1, 2023, to be recovered through higher rates for customers in a new clause attached to their monthly bills.

Over the next 35 years, the SCC estimates that a Dominion residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month will see an increase of $4.72 a month, with a peak monthly billing hike of $14.22 in 2027.

The wind farm, planned 27 miles off the Atlantic coast from Virginia Beach, is the largest energy project ever undertaken in Virginia and would be the largest wind project in the country, as well as one of the biggest in the world.

The commission was constrained by the General Assembly from rejecting the project, which the legislature declared two years ago to be in the public interest. But the constitutionally independent regulatory body ordered Dominion to abide by a performance guarantee to protect consumers from additional costs if the farm of 176 wind turbines doesn’t perform as the company predicts.

Read the full article at Richmond Times

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘Wicked Tuna’ captain sets sights on selling you tuna

August 8, 2022 — Fans of “Wicked Tuna” often ask Capt. Dave Marciano of Beverly how they might get a taste of the giant bluefin tunas he and his fellow boat captains reel out of the Gulf of Maine on the popular National Geographic reality TV show.

“People have said this to me a hundred times, ‘Where can we get some of the fish that we see you catch on the show?’ I bet I have been asked that a thousand times. and I can’t send them anywhere to get a piece of the fish,” besides a few local restaurants, he said, or maybe a sushi buyer looking for tuna with a high fat for the Asian market.

“We’ve put this name in the households,” Marciano said. “We’ve put the idea of this product in people’s heads. Right now we just can’t send it to them. Well, that’s about to change.”

Starting Sept. 1, Marciano, whose Angelica Fisheries offers fishing charters aboard the fishing vessels Hard Merchandise and Falcon from Gloucester, is casting out his reality show fame to hook customers as he starts a new business called Angelica Seafoods.

The business plans to offer premium fresh seafood products from Gloucester and New England.

Read the full article at Gloucester Times