Saving Seafood

The Winds Of War Swirl Around Off-Shore Turbines

March 24, 2017 — As a concept, ocean-based wind-energy harvesting is gaining momentum on Long Island – but don’t expect completely smooth sailing for the increasingly popular alternative-generation movement.

Although wind farms are rising around the globe and contributing ever-larger percentages of the electricity flowing through international energy grids, the “green” projects often face stiff opposition –  ironically, from environmentalists, and often from commercial fishermen who say the ocean-based platforms disrupt natural breeding grounds and threaten their livelihoods.

Long Island anglers, for instance, are paying close attention to a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, aimed at stopping wind-farm developments off the New York and New Jersey coasts.

Despite the rough seas, Stony Brook University’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center is jumping in with both feet. The AERTC is hooking the imminent launch of its Advanced Energy Center Symposium Series – a collection of next-generation energy discussions and workshops uniting industry experts, government officials and assorted stakeholders – on a day-long May 5 event focused on offshore wind, slated to be held at the Montauk Yacht Club.

While offshore wind interests have made progress on Long Island – including LIPA’s January approval of what would (at least temporarily) be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm, to be located 30 miles off Montauk by Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind – the AERTC is clearly wading into disputed waters.

The May 5 conference is akin to Montauk being swallowed into “the belly of the beast,” according to Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, who said placing wind turbines in the middle of “traditional, historically productive fishing grounds” is a “recipe for disaster.”

Read the full story at Innovateli

Commercial fishing representative discusses new South Fork Wind Farm with Richard Rose on CBS New York

January 31st, 2016 — On January 25th, the Long Island Power Authority approved the South Fork Wind Farm, a new wind development off the coast of Long Island. On January 30th, Bonnie Brady, the executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, sat down with Richard Rose on CBS New York to discuss the adverse impact the new project would have on local fish and fishermen.

Located 30 miles southeast of Montauk, New York, the South Fork Wind Farm will cost $740 million to construct the wind farm that will stretch over a 15 square mile area. In the interview Ms. Brady noted that the project would come at the expense of the many nearby fisheries, including the “most healthy stock of cod in the Northeast,” fluke, scallops, monkfish, and over 30 other different species of fish.  

Specifically, Ms. Brady cited the threat to local fish stocks from a construction process known as “pile driving,” which emits a loud sound that injures, and can kill, nearby fish and marine mammals. In addition, the process plows six feet beneath the ocean floor, dispersing sediment and killing larvae as a result of a large increase in pressure.

“Pile driving kills anything with a swim bladder within three-quarters of a mile. When you puncture a swim bladder, you don’t float, you sink,” Ms. Brady said. “If you’re at the bottom of the ocean because you’re a ground fish to begin with you’re not going to be coming up.”

Ms. Brady continued that these fishing areas would be very difficult for local fishermen to replace.

“Fishermen go to the areas where fish are, specifically based on temperature and bait. And as a result, during certain times of the year they move offshore and onshore,” Ms. Brady clarified in the interview.

Ms. Brady also took issue with the lack of consultation with the commercial fishing industry before approval of the wind farm. She explained that wind farm proponents failed to reach out to the commercial fishing industry to assess areas of economic importance or high environmental sensitivity that should be excluded from the wind farm area.

As fishing vessels often have difficulty navigating the wind turbine array, a return to the area can be problematic.

“The reality is we as fishermen depend upon the fish, not only for this generation but for generations in the future,” Brady said. “We, more than anyone else, know what goes on underneath the waterline because we are the ones who follow the fish and catch them in providing food for the nation.”

Watch the full interview at CBS New York

U.S. House Makes Strong Statement Against Marine Monument

July 14, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

WASHINGTON (NCFC) — The U.S. House of Representatives made a strong statement against the declaration of marine monuments last night, passing an amendment offered by Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-New York) to bar funding for the designation of any National Marine Monuments by the President.  The amendment to H.R. 5538, the Fiscal Year 2017 Interior and Environment Appropriations bill, passed the House by a vote of 225-202. Congressman Zeldin represents a coastal district and the fishing hub of eastern Long Island, N.Y.

Yesterday, National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) members the Garden State Seafood Association (NJ), the Red Crab Harvesters Association (MA), the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, and Blue Water Fisheries Inc. (NY) asked fellow NCFC members to reach out to their representatives to support the amendment. The Montauk Tilefish Association (NY) and the Monkfish Defense Fund joined them in calling for support for the amendment.

Mr. Zeldin explained that he offered the amendment to keep commercial fishermen from losing access to important fishing areas through Marine Monument Designations. Opposition to the amendment was led by Congresswoman Niki Tsongas (D-Massachusetts) and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).

“As we heard at a field hearing in Riverhead, New York, unilateral marine monument designations override the current public process of established fisheries management and threatens the livelihood of the U.S. fishing industry,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah).

“Congressman Zeldin’s amendment brings us one step closer to protecting local economies while safeguarding local input in management decisions,” Chairman Bishop continued. “Many Presidents—but not all—have used the Antiquities Act, but they use it sparingly. Only a few Administrations, including this one, have abused the Act. President Obama has a long history of abusing the Antiquities Act, locking up land and water with the stroke of a pen.”

“We applaud Congressman Zeldin for his leadership on protecting fishermen both in his district here on Long Island, and across America,” said Bonnie Brady of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.

Marine Monuments are large areas of ocean where commercial fishing would be banned without consulting the local community, fishermen, or regional fishery managers. Mr. Zeldin’s amendment mandates that, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to declare a national monument under section 320301 of title 54, United States Code, in the exclusive economic zone of the United States established by Proclamation Numbered 5030, dated March 10, 1983.”

The bill now goes to the U.S. Senate. Any differences between the House and Senate bills must be worked out between the two bodies, and a final bill is expected to be passed by both chambers before Sept. 30. Should the amendment survive the conference process, it will complicate the Obama Administration’s ability to act. While it would not stop a declaration, it would not allow funds to be spent to implement a declaration.

In 2014, President Obama declared a 407,000 square mile National Marine Monument in the Pacific Ocean where commercial fishing was banned and recreational fishing was severely limited.

Now important fishing areas in the Northwest Atlantic, on the West Coast, and in Alaska, where fishermen have worked for centuries, are under consideration for Monument designations with little public input and no transparency.

In a letter to House colleagues, Mr. Zeldin stated that there is an emerging national consensus that “any efforts to create marine protected areas in the EEZ must be done through the transparent and consultative process laid out by the landmark Magnuson-Stevens fishery conservation law. No one is more invested in protecting America’s waters from overfishing than the hardworking families who rely upon fishing for their livelihoods.”

Fishing Group Opposes A Marine Preserve

May 13, 2016 — The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association has joined the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission in the latter group’s motion to oppose the designation of an offshore marine monument in the Northeast Atlantic, which environmental groups support.

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, released a statement on Friday in support of the fishery commission’s resolution. The resolution “allows for the protection of deep-sea corals, while at the same time protecting commercial fishing jobs,” she said. “It prevents the further contraction of our fisheries as we try to reclaim domestic markets from the onslaught of imported fish and shrimp, which too often is harvested by forced and involuntary laborers working in inhumane conditions.”

Read the full story at the East Hampton Star

NEW YORK: Question Science Behind Fish Quotas

December 10, 2015 — Mid-Atlantic fishermen and their advocates told four members of Congress on Monday that inaccurate stock assessments needlessly limit their catch and endanger their livelihood as the House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources held an oversight hearing in Riverhead.

Bonnie Brady of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and Captain Joe McBride of the Montauk Boatmen and Captains Association were among those providing testimony to Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District and three members of the natural resources committee. Witnesses also included representatives of fishing and seafood trade associations and a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages fish species in federal waters.

At issue in the field hearing, called Restoring Atlantic Fisheries and Protecting the Regional Seafood Economy, were the science and data collection used in management of fish stocks.

Along party lines, the committee members either defended or disparaged NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Services’ stewardship and stock assessments, from which quotas are determined. They disagreed on assessments of striped bass and fluke, for which the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council have recommended 2016 harvest reductions of 25 and 29 percent respectively.

Read the full story from The East Hampton Star

Overregulation threatens local fishing economies, Congressmen say

December 8, 2015 — A U.S. House of Representatives committee held a rare field hearing in Riverhead yesterday, the first time in recent memory such a committee has formally met on the East End.

A three-member panel of the House Committee on Natural Resources convened the hearing to discuss the federal policies that currently regulate the region’s fishing grounds, probing the policies’ basis in science, fishery conditions and economic impacts on the local economy with testimony and questioning  of several invited witnesses.

The committee members who conducted the hearing, hosted by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), heard testimony for two hours yesterday at the Suffolk County Community College Culinary Arts Institute on East Main Street.

They also discussed alternatives to what some on the four-member panel characterized as oppressive regulation that could potentially damage the region’s fishing industry.

“In my part of the world, there’s a saying that if you have no farms, you have no food,” said committee chairman Rob Bishop, a Republican congressman from Utah. “The same can be said that if you have no boating access, you have no fish.”

Bishop claimed that federal agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have “ignored state and local laws, input and science” in their regulatory decisions.

Read the full story from Riverhead Local