State and Local Archives - Page 13 of 940

MARYLAND: Harris hosts offshore wind summit

October 3, 2025 — The Eastern Shore’s congressman said he believes the Trump White House likely will be working to halt a proposed wind farm off the coast of Ocean City after reevaluating its permits.

Federal officials came to Ocean City last week for a rare face-to-face meeting with local leaders and commercial watermen to discuss long-running concerns about the proposed US Wind offshore project.

Congressman Andy Harris (R-1st) hosted the meeting at Sunset Grille in West Ocean City, where a representative from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration met with stakeholders.

“I think they were very happy to hear that the officials from NOAA were cognizant of their concerns, and I think the officials who were there agreed with them that the offshore wind project likely would do permanent damage to the commercial fishery,” he said.

Read the full article at OC Today-Dispatch

MISSISSIPPI: Mississippi Sound Coalition asks US Congress to take up legislation addressing challenges to the river basin

October 3, 2025 — The Mississippi Sound Coalition has drafted a 33-page piece of legislation to overhaul management of the Mississippi River basin, and it’s now asking the state’s representation in Congress to take up the bill.

The group said the legislation is necessary in order to address some of the larger challenges facing the river basin, which stretches across 31 states. Issues like the annual Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” and floodwater control affect multiple states, requiring a more holistic approach, they claim.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Shutdown threatens Alaska fisheries council decisions

October 2, 2025 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), responsible for overseeing federal fisheries off Alaska, is navigating turbulent waters marked by both budget uncertainty and the government shutdown. NPFMC is one of the eight regional councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976.

After months of delays due to the Trump administration’s cuts to NOAA, the council finally secured its 2025 operational funding this summer. However, as Yereth Rosen reported for Alaska Beacon on September 30, a federal government shutdown now threatens to derail the science-based decision-making that the fisheries depend on.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Two Economic Reports Highlight Pollock Industry’s Impact in Alaska

October 2, 2025 — A pair of new studies validate the economic importance of the Alaska pollock industry. The Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance (APFA) paid for two studies prepared independently by Northern Economics and the McKinley Research Group.

Both studies found significant economic impacts from pollock fishing and processing and contributions to Community Development Quota (CDQ) groups. The studies put the value of the fishery at the billions of dollars, including thousands of jobs in the seafood sector and the transportation and other support industries.

Read the full article at Alaska Business

CONNECTICUT: New law looks to bring invasive species out of Long Island Sound and onto your dinner plate

October 2, 2025 — A number of new laws take effect today, including one that helps cut down on invasive species in Long Island Sound.

The goal is to help get invasive species out of Long Island Sound and onto your dinner plate.

James Beard Award Winner David Standridge runs two restaurants in Mystic, The Shipwright’s Daughter and Mystic Fish Camp.

Standridge uses hundreds of pounds of green crab, an invasive species, in his menu items. There are thousands of green crabs in Long Island Sound that live in shallow, rocky water close to land.

Read the full article at WFSB

NEW JERSEY: NJ Commercial Fishermen Can Apply For Compensation From Empire Wind Farm, Being Built Off Long Branch

October 1, 2025 — If you are a New Jersey commercial fisherman, or a shoreside business for commercial fishing, you can be compensated for any negative outcomes of the construction and operation of Empire Wind.

Empire Wind is the first wind farm to be built off New Jersey; it is being built 19 miles off Long Branch. Currently, they are about halfway done with construction, the company says. Empire Wind is owned by the Kingdom of Norway, a majority shareholder in Norwegian renewable energy company Equinor.

“Empire Wind is continuing to work with the fishing community to avoid and mitigate any project impacts,” said Empire Wind. “A fisheries compensation program has been established to provide compensation to commercial and charter/for hire fishermen along with shoreside businesses that have been economically impacted by construction and operations activities.”

Read the full article at The Patch

ALASKA: Alaska’s Bristol Bay sockeye run and harvest increased this year, with fish sizes a bit bigger

September 30, 2025 — The commercial salmon harvest in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, site of the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs, held a mixture of good news and bad news this year.

The run of sockeye salmon, also known as red salmon, exceeded preseason expectations and totaled 56.7 million fish, the seventh highest since 2005, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported in its preliminary summary of the summer harvest. The commercial sockeye harvest was also bigger than expected, totaling 41.2 million fish. That was 18% above the preseason forecast and 23% higher than the recent 20-year average.

The total amount of money paid to fishers delivering their catches totaled $215.3 million, about 7% above the 20-year average of $200.7 million, the department said in its summary.

The bad news is that while Bristol Bay sockeye salmon continued what has been a streak of huge runs — and while sockeye dominate the commercial harvest — other salmon species there continued to falter. Bristol Bay’s harvest of chinook, also known as king salmon, hit a 20-year low this year, totaling only 6,148 fish, compared to the most recent 20-year average of 33,469 chinook, the department reported.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: Ex-vessel value of 2025 Bristol Bay salmon harvest rated at $215.3 M

September 30, 2025 — Bristol Bay sockeye salmon harvests of 41.5 million fish for 2025 exceeded the forecast by 18 percent, and with catches of Chinook, chum, and coho salmon, put the season’s exvessel harvest value at $215.3 million.

That total was 7 percent above the 20-year average of $200.7 million, and those prices may not include incentives for icing, bleeding, floating, or production bonuses, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said in the annual Bristol Bay season summary released on Sept. 25.

Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association officials, who are already planning their 2026 marketing campaign, said that the average weight of the drift gillnet caught red salmon was 5.1 pounds.

The overall nationwide demand for all Alaska salmon has been upbeat.

Read the full article at the the National Fisherman

Storm warnings for Carolina shrimpers

September 30, 2025 — On the Outer Banks, everybody’s cell phones are buzzing with mandatory evacuation orders, but Hurricane Erin has turned northeast, and not a lot of people are on the move. In Pamlico Sound, it’s business as usual as Gregory Brooks steers his 40-foot shrimp boat, the Rebait, alongside the dock at Newman’s Seafood in Swan Quarter, North Carolina.

He’s got a nice load of mixed shrimp aboard, brown and white, or green tail as they’re called. “Right now, the season’s changing,” Brooks says. “From the brown to the white.” He and his uncle, Tommy Brooks, have been out for less than 24 hours and they’ve landed more than 30 baskets.

“They had 2,200 pounds,” says Michelle Newman, manager of Newman’s Seafood. “That’s not bad for the time they were out.” According to Newman, her family’s packing house has about five or six boats that come in every week. There are about 15 packing houses here in Hyde County,” she says. “Others have more boats. Only the smaller ones can get up in here.”

When a boat comes into Newmans, the crew comes down from the village of Swan Quarter to snap the heads off the shrimp. “It’s money for them to buy school clothes for their kids and things,” says Newman.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Maine’s longer, hotter summers are reshaping our natural world

September 29, 2025 — When she looks at the Narraguagus River, Valerie Ouellet sees what others can’t: a thermal mosaic that explains why it’s one of the last places in America where wild Atlantic salmon come to spawn.

This 55-mile-long waterway in Downeast Maine is a hodgepodge of cold-water pockets hidden within the warmer river where adult salmon can find refuge from the state’s increasingly hot summers.

Atlantic salmon do their best growing and spawning in 68-degree water. Any higher and they stop eating; they lay fewer, smaller eggs. At 73 degrees, they swim erratically. If they don’t find cold water created by shade trees, spring-fed tributaries or groundwater seepage, some will die.

Ouellet is an ecologist with the Atlantic Salmon Federation and is part of a state and federal research team that has spent two years documenting the river’s temperature and flow to explore how close, how big and how cold these spots must be for salmon to survive.

Read the full article at Maine Public