November 9, 2026 — The following was released by the Ocean Harvesters:
A new video puts faces and voices to the families who could pay the price if the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) imposes additional restrictions on Chesapeake Bay menhaden fishing.
At a September 19 public hearing in Heathsville, Virginia, fishermen, union members, educators, health care workers and other Northern Neck residents told regulators what is at stake: paychecks, health insurance, children’s education and the future of a community built around the water.
“If these jobs are lost, the impact does not stop at the dock. It reaches the kitchen table,” said Merthia Haynie of the Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Neck.
Darawn Kenner, a fourth-generation fisherman and chief shop steward for United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400, described what a menhaden fishing job has meant to his family. It helped him put one daughter through medical school and another through a master’s program in social work.
Kenner warned that proposed restrictions could cost nearly 100 union members their jobs. “These jobs are vital to this community,” he told regulators.
For families in a rural community where good jobs with benefits are difficult to replace, the loss of a paycheck can mean much more than a temporary setback. It can mean losing health coverage, falling behind on a mortgage, putting a child’s education at risk or leaving the place generations of a family have called home.
“I’ve spent years taking care of patients without adequate health insurance, and I know what happens,” said Tamara Hall, a nurse practitioner. “Losing a job is frightening. Losing health insurance that comes with it can be life changing.”
The menhaden fishery has supported Northern Neck families for generations, including a heavily unionized workforce with deep roots in the region’s African American community. Its economic reach extends beyond the docks and processing plant to local businesses, schools and the families who depend on them.
Cassidy Lewis-Bergert, senior human resources manager for Ocean Harvesters, told the hearing that the company’s Reedville operations directly employ 250 people and provide employees with health insurance and other benefits. Those employees, she said, live in the community, raise their families there and spend their earnings locally.
The consequences are personal for fishermen such as Curtis Haynes, an Omega Protein employee who has worked 21 seasons in the fishery.
“We need Omega to keep us employed, to keep us feeding our families,” Haynes said.
The NAACP Virginia State Conference has also called for protecting menhaden workers and their families. In an October 20 letter to Gov. Abigail Spanberger, President Rev. Cozy Bailey urged Virginia to maintain the existing Chesapeake Bay harvest cap and fishing season flexibility while the state-funded research is completed. Bailey emphasized that these jobs provide African American workers and union families with wages, health insurance, retirement benefits and the ability to remain in communities where their families have lived and worked for generations. Comparable jobs, he warned, cannot simply be assumed to exist if those jobs disappear.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has warned that African American workers, union families and rural communities could be disproportionately affected by additional restrictions. In a letter to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the civil rights organization urged decision-makers to consider the workers and families whose lives are at stake, along with sound science, environmental stewardship and economic justice.
UFCW Local 400 has called on lawmakers and the ASMFC to refrain from imposing further Chesapeake Bay menhaden restrictions until ongoing research establishes their necessity. The union says working families must have a voice in decisions affecting their livelihoods and that conservation and workers’ rights belong together.
The ASMFC’s latest assessment found that Atlantic menhaden are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. The commission has already reduced the coastwide catch limit by 20 percent. Now, under Draft Addendum II, it is considering options that include reducing the Chesapeake Bay reduction fishery cap by as much as 50 percent and imposing seasonal quota periods.
Before imposing another restriction that could cost workers their jobs and damage an entire community, regulators should complete the Chesapeake Bay research and demonstrate that the measures are necessary and will achieve their intended result.
As Haynie told the commission, the consequences will be felt far beyond the dock. They will be felt at kitchen tables throughout the Northern Neck.
About Ocean Harvesters
Ocean Harvesters owns and operates a fleet of more than 30 fishing vessels in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of America. The company’s purse-seine fishing operation is exclusively engaged in the harvest of menhaden, a small, nutrient-dense fish used to produce fish meal, fish oil, and fish solubles. Both its Atlantic and Gulf Menhaden fisheries are certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. Committed to responsible fishing operations, Ocean Harvesters is proud to be heir to a fishing legacy that extends nearly 150 years.