April 1, 2021 — Days after taking office, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping new executive order to conserve 30% of the nation’s total land area and 30% of all waters it controls by 2030.
MASSACHUSETTS: Vaccine site for seafood workers to open next weekend in New Bedford
April 1, 2021 — Meat processing plants have experienced some of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks of any workplace in the country. Officials feared the same would be true of the New Bedford’s fish houses.
Last spring, Mayor Jon Mitchell’s administration passed an emergency order that set strict safety protocols for seafood companies and other manufacturers, threatening fines of $300 per day against companies that fail to provide PPE and enforce social distancing.
And on Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the mayor and other public officials introduced plans for a new vaccine clinic targeting the workers who kept America’s most valuable fishing port operating during the pandemic.
“This center is about protecting our essential workers,” Warren said. “It is about treating our fishermen with respect. It is about treating our food workers with respect.”
MASSACHUSETTS: Sen. Warren returns to New Bedford, touting $3.9M for waterfront vaccines
April 1, 2021 — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren made her first visit to New Bedford in more than two years on Wednesday, touring a new federally funded vaccination center and expressing gratitude to essential workers in the food sector.
Warren joined Mayor Jon Mitchell to inspect a waterfront building that the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center is turning into a vaccination site designed to serve employees in the nearby fish processing plants. It will begin offering Johnson & Johnson doses on April 10.
“This center is about protecting our essential workers,” Warren said. “It is about treating our fishermen with respect. It is about treating our food workers with respect.”
The Community Health Center has received a $3.9 million grant under the newly enacted American Rescue Plan Act that will help cover the cost of the vaccination site. The building where the shots will be administered is on Hervey Tichon Avenue, and was recently given to the city by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which had been using it for the Superfund cleanup of New Bedford Harbor.
“This center is a way of saying thank you, and opening up vaccinations so they are here, for the people who have been here for the rest of America over the past year,” Warren said.
MAINE: Fishing gear removed from path of offshore wind project survey
April 1, 2021 — Maine Marine Patrol officials and local fishermen have made headway over the last week in clearing fishing gear from a 23-mile long path being surveyed for an offshore wind development project, state marine officials say.
The monthlong survey for the New England Aqua Ventus project began earlier this month, but the presence of fishing gear on the path was making it difficult for the vessel conducting a survey of the seafloor to do its work, according to a project spokesperson and Maine Department of Marine Resources officials.
Fishermen were asked to move their gear in advance of the survey, but given the contentious issue of wind development of the Gulf of Maine, some fishermen felt they shouldn’t have to move their traps for a project that they feel threatens their livelihood.
MASSACHUSETTS: Nearly 90 endangered right whales spotted off Cape Cod in single day in March; Boaters urged to slow down to avoid injuring endangered animal
March 31, 2021 — The federal government is urging boaters off the coast of Massachusetts to slow down to avoid injuring right whales, as dozens of the endangered mammals were spotted off Cape Cod in a single day earlier this month.
Eighty-nine North Atlantic right whales were sighted in Cape Cod Bay on March 21, the most documented in a single day in the 2021 season, according to the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS), a nonprofit dedicated to preserving marine mammals and ecosystems. That sightings included three mother-calf pairs, the organization noted.
The nonprofit began its day surveying the south of the bay from the air and found a large group of right whales offshore of Sandy Neck. All three mothers were seen feeding near the surface, maintaining contact with their calves nearby, the organization said.
Further north, more groups of right whales were discovered, one of whom, named Marlin, “appeared to be having the time of his life, tail-slapping at the surface,” according to the CCS.
Louisiana Congressman Garrett Graves Says CARES ACT Fisheries Funding A ‘Slap in The Face’
March 31, 2021 — An additional $255 million in fisheries assistance funding is being allocated through the CARES Act, but not everyone is happy about it. Louisiana Congressman Garrett Graves says that the funding his state will receive “makes no sense.”
During the first round of funding through the CARES Act Louisiana was allocated $14.7 million out of the $300 million put aside for fisheries. During this second round of funding the state will receive $12,477,165.
$12.3 million available for Louisiana fisheries assistance
March 31, 2021 — Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced Tuesday $12,339,916 in funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries to assist fisheries across Louisiana. The funding is provided by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and will support activities that have been authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
“Commercial fisheries support one of 70 jobs in Louisiana, and the pandemic hit them hard. Louisiana fishermen are resilient, and these funds will help get our fisheries back on their feet,” said Kennedy.
The funding will directly support coastal states and territories, including Louisiana, whose fisheries have suffered under the pandemic.
Maryland Rockfish Limits Set, Including July Closure
March 30, 2021 — After proposals and public comment, we now know what rockfish limits will look like in Maryland this season.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued striped bass harvest regulations for recreational anglers and charter boat clients for the summer and fall fishery, May 16–Dec. 10, 2021. This year will be a split season, closing Maryland waters to all striper fishing July 16–31. No private anglers or charter boat guests and crews may target striped bass, even catch-and-release, during those two weeks.
DNR designed this seasonal closure to avoid the period when water quality and high temperatures are most stressful and harmful to striped bass in the upper Bay, according to DNR’s own data. Virginia and D.C. also have seasonal closures: Virginia closes its striped bass season for the lower Chesapeake from June 15 to October 4, while the Potomac River is closed to all targeting of striped bass fishing from July 7 through August 20.
Outside of the Maryland summer closure period, private recreational anglers may keep one striped bass per day, with a minimum size of 19 inches. Charter boat clients may keep two stripers per day, with a minimum size of 19 inches, provided the boat’s captain participates in DNR’s daily electronic reporting system. During any chartered fishing trip, neither the captain nor mate may land or possess rockfish for personal consumption.
MASSACHUSETTS: Virtual Fisherpoets Round Robin from New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center
March 30, 2021 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:
New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center will host a virtual event, Women in the Workplace, Women on Deck: A Fisherpoets Round Robin, on Thursday, April 8th at 7:00pm. This event will be live-streamed to the Center’s Facebook page. These fisherpoets will share stories, poems, and music related to their experiences in the fishing industry and community. This event will be led by Moe Bowstern and will feature Tele Aadsen, Meezie Hermansen, Alana Kansaku-Sarmiento, Meghan Gervais, Billie Delaney, and Melanie Brown plus others to be announced. For more details on this event including performer bios, please visit the Center’s online calendar at fishingheritagecenter.org/programs/calendar.
This event takes place on the Fishing Heritage Center’s Facebook page as a Facebook Live event. Watch by visiting the Center’s Facebook page at 7:00pm EDT on Thursday, March 8th, facebook.com/NBFishingHeritageCenter.
Women in the Workplace, Women on Deck: A Fisherpoets Round Robin is supported by a Bridge Street Scholarship from Mass Humanities. This program is part of Women’s Work, the Center’s series about women’s roles in commercial fishing which is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Women’s Fisheries Network, Mass Cultural Council, and the New Bedford, Fairhaven, Dartmouth, Westport, and Mattapoisett Cultural Councils.
The program takes place on April’s AHA! Night and is free and open to the public.
By plane, boat and man basket, COVID-19 vaccines flow to Alaska’s Aleutian seafood workers
March 30, 2021 — Thousands of Alaska seafood workers are getting vaccinated for COVID-19 three months after outbreaks swept through Aleutian plants, shuttering some just as the lucrative Bering Sea fishing season began.
The effort is taking different forms, ranging from clinics in Sand Point to a one-day mass event in the Unalaska gym and aboard Dutch Harbor boats that vaccinated about 1,500 plant workers and deep-sea fishermen.
Probably the most only-in-Alaska method involved Eastern Aleutian Tribes community health aide Joe McMillan, who on Thursday clambered into a small man basket suspended in the air to swing aboard two large processing vessels and vaccinate more than a hundred people on each.
The doses now going into seafood worker arms are coming from a federal allocation provided to Eastern Aleutian Tribes rather than from state supplies of vaccine.
They came via a Biden administration plan to expand vaccine availability to community health centers in underserved communities. The Eastern Aleutian Tribes is one of just two tribal entities in Alaska participating in that program as of March 22.
The tribal health organization has probably given out 2,500 shots in the past week and 4,000 since January, according to CEO Paul Mueller, who described one chartered flight Wednesday to deliver food and vaccine that skipped from Nelson Lagoon to Cold Bay, False Pass, Sand Point, Dutch Harbor and King Cove.
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