May 19, 2023 — Thursday, Representative Peltola applauded the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Fisheries division announcement of an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, which would allow revisions to the division’s Guidelines for National Standards, specifically sections (NS) 4 (allocations), 8 (communities), and 9 (bycatch).
NEW JERSEY: Wind project scope ‘staggering’
May 18, 2023 — It wasn’t “until the whales and the dolphins started washing up that people’s attention was able to focus” on the offshore wind farms, according to Cindy Zipf, and when people looked beyond the whales, they realized what is happening is “staggering.”
“I don’t think ever in the history of mankind have we proposed to industrialize an ecosystem this fast and at this magnitude,” she said.
Zipf is executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a coalition of groups dedicated to protecting the ocean.
She said the group is not against offshore wind farms but ardently believes there should be a pilot project to determine their impact on the ocean, marine species and industries that thrive on the ocean rather than a headlong rush to place turbines up and down the coast not just off New Jersey, but from South Carolina to Massachusetts.
The project closest to fruition here is Ocean Wind 1 by the Danish company Ørsted. Ocean Wind 1 plans 98 massive wind turbines 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic and Cape May counties with transmission cables that would run through Ocean City to Beesleys Point in Upper Township, where they would connect to the power grid.
NEW JERSEY: Snooki, Tucker Carlson and the battle for offshore wind in New Jersey
May 18, 2023 — On a recent drive to the Statehouse here, New Jersey’s top utility regulator turned on 101.5 FM, a conservative talk radio station, and got an earful about the offshore wind farms the state has staked its energy future on.
The morning show host was going off about a surge in whale deaths and an unfounded link between the dead whales and wind energy.
“All I do on the way down is yell at the radio,” said Joseph Fiordaliso, the president of the state Board of Public Utilities.
It isn’t just radio conspiracy theories, though. Mainstream Republicans and leading conservatives like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson — not to mention reality star Snooki — have been attacking Gov. Phil Murphy’s offshore wind plans as whales wash ashore. It’s a problem not just for the Democratic governor, who’s pinning his climate change agenda on coastal wind farms, but also for President Joe Biden.
Murphy is hoping New Jersey will be the nation’s leading producer of wind energy by 2040, so a stumble here could blow a hole in the side of the Biden administration’s clean energy goals.
Read the full article at Politico
Maine May Pay Lobster Fishers to Test New Gear as Whale Protection Rules Loom
May 18, 2023 — Lawmakers in Maine are getting behind a drive to pay lobster fishers to comply with potential new fishing regulations.
Lobster and crab fishermen face the prospect of tough new rules designed to protect vanishing North Atlantic right whales. The rules would require harvesters to use new kinds of gear, and change when and where they can fish.
ALASKA: ‘A’ season pollock quota back on par after decrease last season
May 17, 2023 — Bering Sea pollock fishermen have almost met their “A” season quota.
Since the fishery opened in late January, nearly 100 vessels have caught about 1.2 billion pounds of Alaska pollock. That leaves about 43 million pounds still available to catch.
“It’s definitely a lot of fish,” said Krista Milani, a fisheries resources management specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Unalaska. “Sometimes when you think about the amount of pollock that they’re able to sustain in the Bering Sea, it’s kind of mind-blowing how much pollock is actually there.”
Milani said this “A” season quota is back on par with recent years, after a decrease last season.
NEW JERSEY: NJ holds off vote on emergency striped bass ruling, regulations remain the same for now
May 16, 2023 — Thursday came and went and New Jersey’s Marine Fisheries Council did not vote on the striped bass emergency ruling on the 28 to 31 inch striped bass.
Instead, the council made a motion to have its Striped Bass Advisory Committee meet in June and review the data and the mandate passed down by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that requires all member states to approve the measure or be found out of compliance which could result in a moratorium being places on the fisher, here. States have until July 2 to come into compliance.
For now, fishermen in New Jersey waters can continue to keep one striped bass between 28 and 38 inches.
There were some strong words spoken by the public at the council meeting as New Jersey grapples with the decision. Some such as Eddie Yates, a charter boat captain and United Boatman member, said the ruling will only lead to more discards as fishermen will throw back more fish as they try to land a keeper.
ALASKA: USDA to buy almost $120M of Alaska sockeye, Pacific groundfish, with nudge from congressional delegation
May 15, 2023 — Bristol Bay fishermen harvested a record-breaking 60 million sockeye last summer, flooding the market with a surplus of salmon.
Early this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed to help with the glut by purchasing $119.5 million of canned and fileted Alaska sockeye and Pacific groundfish. It’s a win for the state’s marketing branch, which had some help from Alaska’s congressional delegation. But the purchase won’t totally clear out the storehouses and shelves.
“As far as, you know, fixing the problem of such a giant harvest from last year, it’s not going to fix anything,” said Bruce Schactler, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s global food aid director. “But it’s certainly going to help in a big way — in a really big way.”
Schactler said ASMI asked the USDA to buy Alaska seafood for their food assistance programs last fall, when they knew there would be surplus.
“It kind of got stalled, for whatever reason,” he said. “So we asked the three members of our congressional delegation to provide some encouragement to hurry this along. And that was clearly successful.”
CALIFORNIA: Catch is up but prices are down with Dungeness crab season facing limits in Northern California
May 15, 2023 — The Dungeness crab season in the north of the U.S. state of California will face additional limits on 15 May in response to whale sightings in local waters.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife already closed most of the state’s waters to Dungeness crab fishing on 15 April to prevent interactions with migrating humpback whales. Now, fishers in zones 1 and 2 – stretching between the state’s boarder with Oregon and Point Arena, California – will face a 30-fathom constraint, according to the CDFW.
RHODE ISLAND: Revolution Wind offshore wind project clears CRMC hurdle. What’s next for the project?
May 11, 2023 — A large offshore wind farm aimed at helping Rhode Island meet its climate goals cleared a major hurdle late Tuesday night when state coastal regulators approved a key certification for the 704-megawatt project.
The vote by the Coastal Resources Management Council moved Revolution Wind one step closer to becoming the third utility-scale offshore wind farm to be cleared for construction in America. Onshore cable work for the 65-turbine project proposed by Danish offshore wind company Ørsted and New England electric supplier Eversource could begin as soon as this summer, when a record of decision is expected from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
ALASKA: Could this be the beginning of the end for the Southeast Alaska troll fishery?
May 11, 2023 — The State of Alaska and the Alaska Trollers Association (ATA) filed an appeal on Wednesday to undo a ruling in a U.S. Ninth Circuit court that could shut down the whole Southeast Alaskan king salmon troll fishery this summer.
The state and ATA are co-defendants in the case of Wild Fish Conservancy v. Scott Rumsey et al. The chief defendant is the National Marine Fisheries Service.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Jones upheld a December 13, 2022 decision by a federal magistrate to require federal fisheries biologists and managers to redo the biological opinion that allows for the take of king salmon by the Southeast Alaska troll fleet.
This ruling is the latest in a lawsuit by the Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy alleging that the NMFS incidental take statement disproportionately restricts the number of Chinook salmon allowed to return to their native waters as prey for the endangered killer whales that spend part of the year in Puget Sound.
Judge Jones wrote in the two-page ruling, “the 2019 Southeast Alaska Biological Opinion is remanded to the NMFS to remedy the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act violations previously found by this court in December.”
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 180
- 181
- 182
- 183
- 184
- …
- 954
- Next Page »