Saving Seafood

$13M settlement proposed for Buzzards Bay oil spill

October 20, 2017 — BOSTON — More than 14 years after a barge spilled 98,000 gallons of oil into Buzzards Bay, state and federal officials have announced a proposed settlement that would require the transportation company in charge of the vessel to pay more than $13 million for the damage done to migratory birds and their habitats.

In April 2003, a Bouchard Transportation Co. barge traveling to the power plant on the Cape Cod Canal in Sandwich struck rocks south of Westport. The crash ruptured the barge’s hull and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into the bay, damaging salt marshes, beaches, and hundreds of birds such as loons, sea ducks, terns and shorebirds.

The settlement proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island was filed in U.S. District Court, where it must be approved before being finalized.

If the settlement is approved, it would bring the total amount of money paid to resolve claims filed by the Natural Resource Damages Trustee Council, a group composed of several state and federal agencies, up to $19 million. Bouchard previously paid $6 million for claims on shoreline resources, piping plovers, and other damage recovery efforts.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Black sea bass poachers on Buzzards Bay return with the season

May 28, 2017 — Harbormaster and shellfish employees waded knee-deep in the Wareham River last weekend, fetching dead, floating fish and dropping them into black plastic trash bags.

Each fish would serve as evidence. An angler had spied Environmental Police seizing 225 black sea bass from another boat and dumped his own illegal catch to avoid arrest.

On the same sunny Sunday, beach-goers snapped cellphone pictures of boats that buzzed to the shoreline to drop off coolers, which Wareham Harbormaster Garry Buckminster believes were filled with illegal fish. The boats then motored back offshore to catch more.

“It’s really a wild west in some of these areas,” Buckminster said.

Black sea bass season had officially begun.

Hundreds of anglers converged on Wareham, Mattapoisett and other SouthCoast communities to take advantage of the pristine fishing conditions and haul sea bass from close-to-shore shallow waters. Most began the recreational season bagging the limit of five per person. But others hauled in 30 times that much, likely with their eyes on the black market, where black sea bass can sell for $5 a pound.

“As long as you have people buying the stuff, people are going to poach it,” Maj. Pat Moran of the Environmental Police said.

Smugglers stow the bass in hidden compartments within their boats, using false bottoms, plastic bags and beer coolers to collect their catch. Then it’s a rush to shore and out of town before they’re spotted by environmental police.

“They’ve really got their racket put together,” Buckminster said. “They’d going to do whatever they can. They’ve got a plan in place and they’re trying to make it happen.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Hearing Set for Southern New England Lobster Plan

March 24, 2017 — Interstate fishing managers will hold a public hearing Thursday night in Buzzards Bay on a plan to try and save Southern New England Lobsters. The stock has dwindled as water temperatures have warmed, leading the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to develop a number of proposals to improve the fishery’s health.

The plan includes changing the legal harvesting size limit, reducing the number of traps allowed in the water and implementing new seasonal closures. A public hearing on the matter begins at 6 p.m. at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CapeCod.com 

MASSACHUSETTS: Toxic algae outbreak halts shellfishing in Buzzards Bay, Mount Hope Bay

October 11, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The state’s Division of Marine Fisheries has banned shellfishing in the west side of Buzzards Bay and in Mount Hope Bay because of a breakout of toxic algae late last week.

The ban affects all SouthCoast towns and cities. “As a result of the closure, digging, harvesting, collecting and/or attempting to dig, harvest or collect shellfish, and the possession of shellfish, is prohibited in Bourne, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Falmouth, Gosnold, Marion, Mattapoisett, New Bedford, Swansea and Westport,” the state said in a press release.

The trouble concerns a toxic kind of phytoplankton termed Pseudo-Nitzschia.

This algae can produce domoic acid, a biotoxin that concentrates in filter-feeding shellfish.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Season Opens for Dwindling Scallops in Buzzards Bay

October 5th, 2016 — The calendar has turned to October and that marks the opening of the recreational bay scallop harvest season in Buzzards Bay.

The bay scallop population in Buzzards Bay has suffered in part to nitrogen pollution – falling from 70,000 bushels harvested in the 1970s and 80s to just 1,500 bushels today, According to the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

Bay scallops live along eelgrass beds which grow underwater in shallow harbors, coves and tidal rivers. The scallops depend on the eelgrass during reproduction as small juvenile bay scallops attach to the blades before dropping off when they grow large enough.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com 

MASSACHUSETTS: 6 SouthCoast towns getting federal funds for habitat protection, restoration

August 5, 2016 — BOSTON  — A total of $210,924 in federal grant funding is being awarded to help towns in the Buzzards Bay watershed protect important habitat and drinking water resources and provide passage for migratory fish species, the Baker-Polito Administration said in a news release.

The grants are being matched by $114,447 in municipal and private contributions and will focus on permanently protecting or restoring habitat, as well as promoting passive recreation.

“These forward-thinking local projects will ensure the Commonwealth’s native species are being preserved and our drinking water resources are protected,” said Gov. Charlie Baker in a statement. “With this round of grants, our administration continues to focus on assisting Massachusetts land protection and conservation projects like these in Buzzards Bay.”

The grants are being awarded by the Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program through the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management with funding from the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

The following seven grants were awarded to six towns:

Acushnet: $35,000 to work with the Buzzards Bay Coalition to protect a 9-acre property along the Acushnet River. The property contains field, forest and forested wetlands and is designated habitat for rare species. Protection of this property will advance the town’s long-term vision of a “greenbelt,” a corridor of connected conservation and recreation land along the Acushnet River.

Fairhaven: $35,000 to work with the Coalition to protect 61.5 acres in East Fairhaven that is part of a larger conservation effort. The property is designated as habitat for rare species and contains significant salt marsh, forested freshwater wetlands and frontage on a perennial stream.

Marion: $10,924 to remove an obstruction to fish passage on Borden Brook, which runs through Grassi Bog. Borden Brook is an existing American eel run and has the potential to support other fish species, including alewife. The town will remove an existing culvert and replace it with a larger culvert that will mimic natural stream channel conditions and provide unimpeded fish passage.

Mattapoisett & Rochester: $35,000 each to work with the Buzzards Bay Coalition, to protect 164-acres of land straddling the Rochester-Mattapoisett town boundary. The properties lie within a drinking water recharge area, are designated as habitat for rare species, contain extensive wetlands, have frontage on Branch Brook and abut existing protected lands owned by the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game and the Mattapoisett Water Department.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Coast Guard responds to grounded fishing vessel off Woods Hole

July 19, 2016 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — The Coast Guard responded to a grounded fishing vessel in Woods Hole Pass near Woods Hole on Monday.

At approximately 11:45 a.m., Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England received a VHF-FM Channel 16 radio call from the 67-foot stern trawler fishing vessel, Hope & Sydney, that they were hard aground in Woods Hole Pass. 

Minutes after receiving the call, a 45-foot Coast Guard rescue boat from Station Woods Hole was launched and members of the Buzzards Bay Marine Task Force were notified.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MASS. STATE REP. BILL STRAUS: Baker has the right to change board’s makeup

June 9, 2016 — To the editor:

On May 24, your paper published an article regarding the action of the Baker administration in replacing seven of the nine members of the state’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission.

All seven members whom Gov. Baker replaced were serving as hold overs whose statutory terms had long expired; five of them had begun on the panel as appointees of Republican governors going back to 1991.

I believe the new appointees reflect a diverse experience in fisheries and no one quoted in your article could credibly assert that the new members aren’t qualified for this panel.

Read the full letter at the Gloucester Times

Fisherman nabbed in Wareham with more than 200 sea bass over limit

June 1, 2016 — WAREHAM, Mass. — A Woburn resident was issued a criminal summons and had his boat, trailer and fishing gear seized by the state Sunday after environmental police found 209 sea bass over the legal limit in his boat in Wareham, said Major Patrick Moran of the Massachusetts Environmental Police.

That catch also included 122 undersized sea bass, Moran said. The legal possession limit of black sea bass for this vessel would have been 10 fish 15 inches or larger, Moran said.

Environmental police received a call from the Wareham harbormaster at about 4:30 p.m. to report a potential violation at Tempest Knob Boat Ramp, Moran said. When environmental police arrived, the boat in question, a 23-foot Striper, was being hauled out of the water by a truck with a trailer, he said.

Environmental police searched the boat and found eight coolers on the deck, Moran said. The boat had been fishing in Buzzards Bay.

With the assistance of the Wareham harbormaster environmental police sorted the sea bass from the scup, measured and counted all of the fish.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Push on to move science center to fishing hub of New Bedford

April 5, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The federal government is considering renovating one of the oldest and most influential marine science centers in the country, prompting some to lobby for the facility to relocate across the bay to New Bedford, the nation’s commercial fishing hub.

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center has been in the Falmouth village of Woods Hole since 1871. The current home was built in the 1960s and is surrounded by younger scientific organizations.

New Bedford is about 15 miles northwest of Woods Hole across Buzzards Bay but about 40 miles when traveling by land.

The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is considering a renovation plan for the science center, which is aging, crowded and short on laboratory space. A consortium of local and state officials from the New Bedford area is lobbying for the center to move to the historic city, which is the country’s top ranking fishing port in dollar value.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Boston Herald