Saving Seafood

Chesapeake Bay health worsened in 2018 for the first time in a decade, report says

January 9, 2019 — For the first time in a decade, the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay declined, dropping from a C- to a D+ in an annual State of the Bay report issued Monday.

Culprits in the decline include increased runoff from rainstorms in 2018 that were rendered more intense by a changing climate and continued failure in some jurisdictions to curb nutrient and sediment loads.

This is especially true in Pennsylvania, which consistently fails to meet most of its bay cleanup commitments, and where the chronically polluted Susquehanna River delivers half the bay’s freshwater.

“Simply put, the bay suffered a massive assault in 2018,” Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told reporters. “The bay’s sustained improvement was reversed in 2018, exposing just how fragile the recovery is.”

Adding to the assault, Baker said, are plans by the Trump administration to roll back clean water and clean air regulations that will directly impact the watershed.

Trump plans to overturn an Obama-era rule and reduce federal oversight for vast sections of the nation’s waterways and wetlands, and also ease federal restrictions for coal-fired power plant emissions. About a third of the nitrogen that reaches the bay comes from airborne sources, said Baker, some from as far away as the Midwest.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

New England States Fear Increased Mercury Contamination As EPA Considers Weakening Rules

December 18, 2018 — Scientists are speaking out about what they say have been “remarkable improvements” in curbing mercury emissions under Obama-era regulations that are now under threat by the Trump administration.

Mercury is a toxic chemical most commonly associated with coal-burning power plants. Because they are downwind from coal-burning states, Maine and the rest of New England have traditionally had higher-than-average rates of mercury contamination, and scientists say a proposal to weaken emission rules could impede progress.

The coal industry considers the 2011 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, known as MATS, the most expensive air pollution regulation ever implemented and responsible for the closure of dozens of coal plants around the country. Acting Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler is a former coal lobbyist, and now the EPA is proposing to weaken MATS by heavily weighing costs to the industry.

The EPA maintains that the Obama administration was indifferent toward that side of the equation. But scientists say the agency is downplaying the health and environmental benefits of the rule across the country.

“The reductions in emissions of mercury in the U.S. since 2006 have decreased about 85 percent,” says Dr. Charlie Driscoll, a professor at Syracuse University who spoke to reporters in a teleconference on Monday.

Most of the emissions Driscoll’s referring to came from coal-fired power plants, and he says much of the reason for their reduction can be attributed to the MATS rules.

“We’ve seen decreases in mercury in air, in atmospheric deposition, in water, in soil and we’ve seen declines in both freshwater fisheries in the U.S. in mercury as well as marine fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean,” he says.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that is especially harmful to children and developing fetuses, which is why the Maine Bureau of Health has a freshwater fish consumption advisory for pregnant women, nursing mothers and kids under 8.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Opponents Say Seismic Tests Could Lead To Atlantic Oil Drilling, Harming Right Whales

December 3, 2018 — The Trump administration has approved a first step toward offshore oil and gas drilling on the Atlantic coast.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued permits Friday for five private companies to conduct offshore seismic tests from New Jersey to Florida.

The tests fire acoustic pulses into the sea floor in search of oil and gas deposits.

Such tests haven’t occurred in the Atlantic as part of hydrocarbon exploration since around the 1980s, according to federal officials, though academic seismic tests have happened more recently.

These permits, which were denied under the Obama administration in 2017, will allow the companies to disturb protected marine mammals during their surveys.

Read the full story at New England Public Radio

Feds beat fishermen: Court dismisses challenge to Atlantic monument

October 10, 2018 — A federal judge upheld the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument last week, dismissing a lawsuit from commercial fishing groups that challenged presidential authority to establish the monument.

The national monument, created by former President Barack Obama, was authorized under the Antiquities Act. Representatives from the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association argued that the act does not include authorization to protect bodies of water and that the monument in question, an area of nearly 5,000 square miles, was too large.

But U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument complied with the law and sided with the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the suit.

“In all, plaintiffs offer no factual allegations explaining why the entire monument, including not just the seamounts and canyons but also their ecosystems, is too large,” wrote Boasberg in his decision.

He also clarified that the Antiquities Act histories grant that waterways, as well as land, can be protected under the act.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Federal court rules against fishermen in Northeast Canyons monument lawsuit

October 10, 2018 — A federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by commercial fishing groups that challenged the creation of a marine national monument in 2016.

The organizations, which included the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, claimed the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama did not have the authority to establish the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

The monument is the first national marine monument established in the Atlantic Ocean. Because of the designation, commercial fishing – except for certain red crab and lobster fishing – is prohibited in the 5,000-square-mile area. The crab and lobster fishing will continue until their permits expire.

While the administration of current U.S. President Donald Trump has been considering reopening it and other marine monuments for commercial fishing, it did seek the dismissal of the lawsuit, claiming the Antiquities Act gave presidents the right to establish and define such monuments.

“This is not a joke, jobs will be lost and thousands of people’s lives will be impacted through a back-door process that did not require formal federal review,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in a Facebook post.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Fishing Groups Lose Legal Battle Over Marine Monument

October 9, 2018 — The national monument that former President Barack Obama established in the Atlantic Ocean survived a court challenge Friday, with a federal judge finding that the majesty of even underwater lands is worthy of protection.

Appropriating words that President Teddy Roosevelt once used to praise the Yosemite Valley, the Canyon of Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg noted that the Canyons and Seamounts of the Northwestern Atlantic Ocean are a “region of great abundance and diversity as well as stark geographic relief.”

“Dating back 100 million years — much older than Yosemite and Yellowstone — they are home to ‘vulnerable ecological communities’ and ‘vibrant ecosystems,’” Boasberg’s 35-page opinion continues. “And, as was true of the hallowed grounds on which Roosevelt waxed poetic, ‘much remains to be discovered about these unique, isolated environments.’”

When Obama created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in 2016, he relied on a 1906 law passed in Roosevelt’s administration.

A year later, the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association and four other groups filed suit to unravel the 5,000-square-mile designation: They claimed that high seas do not qualify as the small “parcels of land” discussed in the Antiquities Act.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

MASSACHUSETTS: Tedeschi says Keating underperforms for fishing industry

October 9, 2018 — Republican Peter Tedeschi, the convenience store magnate and Republican candidate for congress in the Massachusetts 9th District, staged a small rally on the waterfront next to the fishing family sculpture Saturday and took aim at incumbent William Keating for what Tedeschi says are deficiencies in Democrat Keating’s job performance.

About 20 supporters either arrived with him on a district-wide tour, or came out locally to hear him.

He told The Standard-Times in an interview that mirrored his prepared comments, “I don’t believe that the fishermen down here and the fishing industry are getting adequate support from our current congressman. And that manifests itself in several ways.”

One, Tedeschi said, was that Keating had an opportunity to support the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. It’s an important act that basically dictates quotas, geographic fishing, what species fishermen are going to catch, and how much they’re going to be able to catch.

“Right now it’s sort of based on an arbitrary 10 year period,” he said. “We want to have it based on data. … So we had an opportunity to support that and he voted against it,” Tedeschi said. “If you’re going to support the fishing industry he should have supported reauthorization and he voted against it.”

He also took aim at the Monuments Act. The Monuments Act essentially put 5,000 square miles of fertile fishing areas off-limits.

“President Obama signed that into law unilaterally without a hearing, period. I would like to see that repealed so our commercial fishermen can start fishing in those regions, ” he said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Trump’s pick to head White House science office gets good reviews

August 2, 2018 — The long wait for a White House science adviser is over. President Donald Trump announced today that he intends to nominate meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier, a university administrator and former vice-chair of the governing board of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), to be director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The OSTP director traditionally, but not always, also holds the title of the president’s science adviser.

The move caps a search process of record-setting length—nearly 560 days, double the longest time taken by any other modern president to name an OSTP director. Many in the research community had lamented the delay. But the wait may have been worth it: Droegemeier, a respected veteran of the Washington, D.C., policymaking scene, is getting positive reviews from science and university groups.

“He’s a very good pick. … He has experience speaking science to power,” says environmental policy expert John Holdren, who served as science adviser under former President Barack Obama and is now at Harvard University. “I expect he’ll be energetic in defending the R&D budget and climate change research in particular.”

Maria Zuber, a planetary geophysicist and vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, agrees that Droegemeier will stand up for climate science. “He always has. I see no reason why he wouldn’t now.” But she says his style is not confrontational. “He’s a good old boy. He wears cowboy boots. … He’s a personable guy.” She adds that “he’s got solid conservative credentials,” noting that his web page is emblazoned with “God Bless America!!!”

“He is an excellent choice,” says Tobin Smith, vice president for policy at the Association of American Universities in Washington, D.C. “He has a strong understanding of issues of concern to research universities.”

“Kelvin is a solid scientist, excellent with people, and with deep experience with large bureaucracies,” says Cliff Mass, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “A moderate voice that won’t politicize the science.”

Droegemeier, who has served on the faculty of The University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman for 33 years and been the school’s vice president for research since 2009, has long been rumored to be in the running for the OSTP job, which entails advising the president on technical issues and overseeing coordination of federal science policy. He is no stranger to Washington, D.C.; then-President George W. Bush named him to the National Science Board, which oversees NSF, in 2004, and Obama reappointed him in 2011. He served as the board’s vice-chair from 2014 to 2017.

Read the full story at Science Magazine

 

Trump administration backs Obama in national monument clash

July 27, 2018 –A dispute over acts of Congress in 1906 and 1937 has put the Trump administration in court — and into the unusual position of supporting a proclamation by former President Barack Obama.

Contrary to President Donald Trump’s numerous efforts to shred Obama’s legacy, U.S. Justice Department lawyers are in Obama’s corner as they defend his expansion of a national monument in Oregon.

That puts the Trump administration in direct opposition with timber interests that Trump vowed to defend in a May 2016 campaign speech in Eugene, 110 miles (180 kilometers) south of Portland.

However, that opposition may be temporary in a case full of ironic twists that centers on a unique habitat where three mountain ranges converge. It is home to more than 200 bird species, the imperiled Oregon spotted frog, deer, elk and many kinds of fish, including the endangered Lost River sucker.

A federal judge is being asked to consider limits of power among all three government branches. For the Trump administration, the case is about protecting the power of the president of the United States, even if it was Obama who exercised his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 that allows a president to declare a national monument.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Sioux City Journal

Trump’s plan for the oceans? More business, less protection

June 26, 2018 — Sea levels are rising, fish are chasing warmer waters north, $300 billion worth of goods are coming into or departing from American ports every year. It’s a dynamic time for coastal communities.

But with the stroke of a pen last week, President Donald Trump put the brakes on a comprehensive plan — years in the making — to balance the environmental, recreational and economic interests competing for the future of the oceans surrounding the U.S.

The Trump Administration is presenting a new executive order as a fundamental adjustment away from unnecessary levels of bureaucracy and toward an ocean policy that puts national security, job creation and corporate aspirations above all else.

The shift has been warmly received by fishermen and other business groups. Conservationists, however, are anxious that attitudes about ocean use will regress.

It’s quite a change of direction from the two terms under President Barack Obama.

Commercial fishermen have been strong critics of the previous policy and were happy to see it sink.

John Connelly, president of the seafood industry’s National Fisheries Institute, said in a statement that the Obama plan “excluded the perspective of the men and women who work the water.”

The National Ocean Policy created “additional levels of bureaucracy and uncertainty that threatened to reduce the overall productivity of our industry by forcing small business owners to divert limited resources away from their operations in order to deal with this unnecessary and ambiguous regulatory maze,” said Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, which is based in Bass River.

Garden State Seafood Association executive director Greg DiDomenico told the Press that “it’s safe to say we are encouraged” by Trump’s attitude toward ocean policy.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press