Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: Biden Puts Spotlight On Waters Off Long Island For Wind Power Future

April 1, 2021 — President Joe Biden’s administration this week declared all of the waters between the south shore of Long Island and the New Jersey coast — including a swath of water less than 20 miles south of the Shinnecock Canal — a priority area for the development of offshore wind.

It’s the foundation of an already accelerating rush to establish a new multibillion-dollar industry, create tens of thousands of jobs and set the United States on a course away from reliance on fossil fuel energy.

To do so, the White House threw its weight behind accelerating the pace of planning and development of offshore wind farms in the waters south of Long Island, which potentially could see thousands of turbines, each nearly 800 feet tall, sprout from the sea in the coming decade.

The call for an even faster pace of growth than is already underway also could mean that regions seen as suitable for wind farm development directly south of Southampton and East Hampton will get closer consideration.

While the administration’s announcement made no actual reference to specific areas of the sea where wind turbines should be built, it did say that the Department of the Interior will advance the creation of new leases of ocean floor for the development of wind farms. The goal will be to have 16 projects approved and ready for construction by 2025.

The regions of ocean directly south of the East End are particularly sensitive for fishermen, according to Bonnie Brady, a commercial fishing advocate from Montauk, since they are critical grounds for the small boats that sail out of Shinnecock Inlet and Montauk to harvest sea scallops, fluke and squid.

Placing wind turbines in Fairways North, she said, would pose a navigational hazard and would drastically change the habitat of the ocean in the area, which is currently a sandy ocean plain, to one of hardened structure, which could upset the ecological balance that fishermen rely on.

Commercial fishermen have been the most strident opponents of offshore wind farm development and met this week’s announcement from the White House with renewed exasperation at the breakneck speed with which offshore wind development is apparently going to be introduced to the ocean off the Northeast coastline.

“Here we have the administration that holds science so near and dear just throwing science right out,” Ms. Brady said. “They are throwing up $4 billion to create this future industry, but they are not funding the science that should be the basis of all this and has to be done before build all these turbines. They could screw it all up, and then they’ll just say, ‘We didn’t know’ — but it’s the fishermen who will be hung out to dry.”

Read the full story at The Southampton Press

Offshore Wind Plans Will Drive Up Electricity Prices And Require ‘Massive Industrialization Of The Oceans’

February 8, 2021 — The regatta for setting the loftiest targets for offshore wind energy development has set sail.

Today, South Korea announced plans for 8.2 gigawatts of offshore wind. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently called for 40 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity to be built in UK waters by 2030. If achieved, it would be one of the biggest British maritime deployments since the Battle of Trafalgar. Meanwhile, the European Union has targeted some than 300 gigawatts of offshore capacity by 2050.

Joe Biden’s climate advisors are calling for the immediate approval of a slew of pending offshore wind projects. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo is calling for 9 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity to be built by 2035. Other East Coast governors are also floating multi-gigawatt offshore plans. In all, according to a report issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management last June “approximately 22 gigawatts of Atlantic offshore wind development are reasonably foreseeable along the East Coast.”

Here’s some advice: Take all of these offshore plans with a large grain of sea salt.

One of the leases will put dozens of wind turbines smack on top of one of the best scallop and squid fisheries on the Eastern Seaboard. Numerous groups, including the Fisheries Survival Fund, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, as well as the Bonackers, a small group of fisherman whose roots on Long Island go back centuries, are adamantly opposed to the wind projects slated for the region. On Friday morning, Bonnie Brady, the executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, and a board member of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, told me that the long-term environmental impact of the proposed projects isn’t well understood. “We know these giant machines change wind patterns and they could change marine migration patterns. Let’s do the science before we destroy the ocean and our ocean food supply.”

Read the full story at Forbes

New York’s commercial fishing sector appreciates aid, but worries about continued challenges for restaurants

December 10, 2020 — New York is now taking applications from commercial fishermen and other fishing businesses seeking relief from losses they suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And while fishermen are thankful for the assistance, an industry leader said more needs to be done, including helping restaurants.

The funding, a total of $6.7 million, comes to the state through the CARES Act passed in March. That COVID relief package included a total of $300 million in direct aid to commercial fishermen, with the Department of Commerce determining how much each state, tribal nation and territory received.

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, told The center Square the pandemic created a perfect storm for the seafood industry, and the federal aid will help in an “unusual” year.

“Fishermen are essential workers,” Brady said. “No one wants a handout. These guys just want to be able to work, but in this case, they were able to work, but … the markets for fish were so depressed that your choices were go in and get paid at 1970s prices or don’t go in. But then you don’t have an income.”

A couple of items that would really help the industry recover would be for restaurants to rebound and for the return of fish processing in the state.

Read the full story at The Center Square

Making Waves: Offshore Wind and Commercial Fishing

November 17, 2020 — Join NF editors Kirk Moore and Jessica Hathaway for a discussion on the future of offshore wind power with panelists Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance in Washington, D.C.; Mike Conroy, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations in San Francisco; and Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association; Montauk, N.Y.

Ask questions for the panel in our Member Forum — details below the video.

We will be talking about the latest developments with proposed wind energy projects off the East Coast — and how soon those proposals will come to the West Coast. Topics include the upcoming federal environmental impact statement on the cumulative impacts of Vineyard Wind and other East Coast projects; the status of wind energy planning off the West Coast; the state of relations and communications between fishermen and the wind industry; and fishermen’s concerns with safety and adequate vessel traffic lanes between turbines.

Bonnie Brady: “It’s really important for fishermen to lock arms and work together before they get run over by these things on their historic fishing grounds.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

She’s got the scoop: Bonnie Brady of Montauk, New York

October 2, 2020 — “I picked up the chalk,” says Bonnie Brady. “That was the end of my life.” Twenty years later, Brady, 57, recalls the meeting that changed the course of her life and put a scrappy journalist on her path as a doggedly determined advocate for fishermen and ocean habitat.

“I had never really paid attention to the fishing thing,” Brady adds. She came to fishing through marriage after landing in Montauk, N.Y., an iconic Long Island fishing town.

Like many community fisheries advocates, she recalls that time of her life via council proceedings: “It was around 2000, Amendment 13” to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan.

“Dave was out fishing, and he said, ‘Can you go to this meeting and find out what happens?’” Brady adds that once she got to the fishermen’s forum hosted by the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the room was awash with a range of complaints from a crowd of fishermen. She stood up, grabbed the chalk and started to ask questions. “If you were to list the top five problems, what are they? I put myself in the middle. Being a reporter, I wanted to see what the main points were. It was obvious these guys had real issues. I had never paid attention to any of that before I met Dave.”

Brady married Montauk fisherman Dave Aripotch in 1998. “He’s a trawler — fluke, scup, black sea bass, squid, whiting. He used to groundfish, but he leases his quota now,” Brady says. “He started going offshore gillnetting when he was 15. He would sneak off unbeknownst to his parents. He would take off for a couple of weeks!”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Feds delay restart of onboard fisheries monitoring on commercial boats

June 1, 2020 — Federal fisheries regulators on Tuesday delayed a plan to restart a program requiring commercial fishermen to take observers on fishing trips starting Monday, following widespread criticism of the move.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, citing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, said it would restart the program Aug. 1.

Even while setting the Aug. 1 date, “we recognize that this public health crisis continues to evolve and changing conditions may warrant re-evaluating these plans,” NOAA said in a statement.

“Should our plans regarding redeploying observers and at-sea monitors change, we will announce any changes as soon as practicable,” the agency said.

Representatives for local fishermen said the restart should be pushed back further.

“Come back to us when there’s a vaccine” or effective COVID-19 treatment, said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, based in Montauk.

Read the full story at Newsday

NEW YORK: Fishermen Finding Windows Of Opportunity, Necessity Opened By Coronavirus

May 28, 2020 — In the early days of the coronavirus shut-downs, commercial fishermen were among those gut-punched by the impacts of an economy screeched to a halt.

Fishermen were told they could keep working, and the fish they sought were plentiful, but the value of fish at markets reeling from the forced closures of tens of thousands of restaurants and people fleeing into their homes was minimal.

But fishermen say that as the pandemic has settled into the habits of humans across the world, where one window of opportunity has closed, others have opened and helped the industry keep itself … well, afloat.

They have been buoyed by a steep drop in the amount of seafood being imported to the U.S. from other countries — the practice itself a plague that many fishermen said the country needs to rid it self of — and a populace that has still eagerly sought out seafood to eat while in quarantine.

With restaurants either closed or doing a fraction of their usual business, fishermen have relied more on selling to retail seafood markets, or at retail farmers markets, selling fish off the back of their boats or pickups and, in some cases, door-to-door deliveries, to peddle their catch.

Read the full story at the Sag Harbor Express

Long Island fishing industry takes a hit during pandemic

May 13, 2020 — On Tuesday morning, commercial fishing boats sat idle in the water at the Montauk town dock—an uncommon sight, especially this time of year. But lately, it’s become the new normal.

Bonnie Brady, the executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said that the majority of East End commercial fishermen, who are essential food production workers, are reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve lost a tremendous amount of sales since many restaurants closed.

“When the restaurants closed, we lost the market with which we sold our fish,” Brady said. “We need to find ways to create markets, to create processing on the fly, long-term create mobile fish markets—anything and everything until we get our present system back in order.”

Pot fisherman Jim Auteri, who catches lobster, was hoping for a banner season.

Read the full story at Fox 5

NEW YORK: Fishermen See Market Dry Out

March 27, 2020 — Unable to sell a 1,000-pound catch of fluke last week, Capt. Chuck Morici of the dragger Act 1 spent three days filleting the fish at Montauk commercial dock and offering it for free straight from his boat. On Saturday morning, he gave it away from the back of his pickup truck in downtown Montauk, a big handwritten sign announcing, “Free Fish.”

In a normal year, the religious period of Lent, when many people give up eating meat, tends to drive up seafood demand and prices. But the global COVID-19 pandemic has thrown normal to the wind.

In addition to the closure of most domestic restaurants, foreign markets such as Spain and Italy, which before the pandemic were historically large buyers of squid landed on the East End, for example, have stopped all imports. As a result, many fish buyers have implored fishermen to stay ashore.

Prices have fallen dramatically, said Bonnie Brady of Montauk, the executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association. “Everyone is frustrated that the buyers are not buying fish, but at the same time the restaurant market has dried up, and New York has always been beholden to the fresh fish market because we haven’t had processing to help us.”

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

NEW YORK: Bonnie Brady: A Diversity of Experience

October 25, 2019 — “What you see is what you get,” is how Bonnie Brady, a longtime Montauk resident and EH Fusion Party candidate for East Hampton Town Board, described herself in an interview with Star staff this week. “I’d like to think of myself as a fair, honest person, someone who would work their butt off” for constituents.

As executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Ms. Brady has long been a proponent of that industry’s interests, which in recent years means she is also a vocal opponent of the proposed South Fork Wind Farm, which fishermen fear will disrupt or destroy their livelihood.

But Ms. Brady’s résumé illustrates a diversity of experience that may have few equals among East Hampton candidates past and present. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina and worked as a reporter for The Star in the early 1990s. Living in Washington, D.C., she worked for then-Senator Bill Bradley, a Democrat from New Jersey. While living in the nation’s capital, she applied to the Peace Corps, and in 1991 went to Cameroon, in West Africa, where she coordinated primary health care for pre- and postnatal women and their infant children.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star