Saving Seafood

Offshore wind still looks to get a foothold in California

December 9, 2019 — There may be a literal energy windfall off the coast of California but it is still unclear whether the federal government will give approval to specific sites and how long it will take before tall turbines are bobbing on the Pacific, sending electricity to customers across the Golden State.

Wind energy’s boosters are eager to see proposed projects get the go-ahead.

“Let’s get a couple of these rolling, get some floating offshore turbines out there and build this over time, which is exactly what you’re seeing on the East Coast,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association.

For now, the state, local and federal governments are working with military brass to negotiate a possible agreement that could see a way clear for a pair of sites off the coast of Central California but a compromise thus far has proved elusive.

Read the full story at The San Diego Union-Tribune

December 10: NOAA, partners to announce findings from 2019 Arctic Report Card

December 5, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA and its partners will release the latest scientific observations of climate change in the Arctic, a sensitive part of the world that impacts other parts of the planet, at a news conference on Tue., Dec. 10, at 11:00 a.m. PT, during the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco, CA.

A panel of scientists, led by retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, Ph.D., deputy NOAA administrator, will provide this year’s report on sea ice, snow cover, air temperature, ocean temperature, the Greenland ice sheet, vegetation and ecosystem changes. The Arctic Report Card, updated annually since 2006, demonstrates the importance of long-term observing programs to effectively measure significant changes in the Arctic.

The news conference will also be streamed live on the AGU press events webpage. Reporters can watch the press event in real time and ask questions via an online chat. For more information and instructions, click on the “Webstreaming” button in the Fall Meeting Media Center.

WHAT:
Arctic Report Card 2019 news conference

WHEN:
Tuesday, Dec. 10, 11:00-11:45 a.m. PT

WHERE:
AGU Press Conference Room
Moscone Center South
Third floor, Room 310-312
747 Howard Street,
San Francisco, CA 94103

WHO:
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, deputy NOAA administrator
Matthew Druckenmiller, National Snow and Ice Data Center
Donald Perovich, Research Scientist, Dartmouth College
Mellisa Johnson, Executive Director, Bering Sea Elders

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

NOAA’s Arctic Report Card website will be updated with 2019 findings, photographs, graphics, videos, and other information at the start of the news conference.

New regulations to expand protections for seafloor habitats, reopen fishing grounds off US West Coast

December 5, 2019 — New regulations for essential fish habitat off the West Coast of the United States that go into effect in 2020 will extend protections for deep-sea habitats and corals while reopening fishing grounds where fish populations have rebounded.

The new rules were finalized by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (known as NOAA Fisheries) last month, and will go into effect on January 1, 2020. The updated regulations were recommended to NOAA by the Pacific Fishery Management Council and enjoy broad support from the fishing industry and environmentalists alike. The changes will be implemented via an amendment to the Fishery Management Plan for groundfish off the US West Coast.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is responsible for minimizing impacts of human activities on essential fish habitat (EFH), which are habitats deemed vital to maintaining sustainable fisheries. In 2005, the Council established area closures in groundfish habitat that limited the use of bottom trawling and other types of fishing gear that come into contact with the ocean floor.

According to NOAA Fisheries, groundfish fisheries contribute $569 million to household incomes in West Coast communities, from the state of Washington down to Southern California. About 3,000 square miles that had been closed to bottom trawling for groundfish will be reopened when the changes take effect, including 2,000 square miles of a Rockfish Conservation Area off the coasts of California and Oregon that have been off-limits to bottom trawling since 2002.

Read the full story at Mongabay

Fishing groups sue federal agencies over latest water plan for California

December 4, 2019 — The fracas over California’s scarce water supplies will tumble into a San Francisco courtroom after a lawsuit was filed this week claiming the federal government’s plan to loosen previous restrictions on water deliveries to farmers is a blueprint for wiping out fish.

Environmental and fishing groups sued the the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Monday for allegedly failing to protect chinook salmon, steelhead trout and delta smelt.

They believe the voluminous government proposal, known as a biological opinion, sacrifices protections for the imperiled fish without adequate justification so that Central Valley farmers and Southern California cities can have more water.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, charges that the government’s plan to boost agricultural deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is an arbitrary and capricious failure to uphold the Endangered Species Act.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

Bumble Bee’s Chris Lischewski convicted of fixing prices of canned tuna

December 4, 2019 — Christopher Lischewski, the former president and CEO of Bumble Bee Foods, was convicted on 3 December, 2019, of helping to orchestrate a price-fixing conspiracy between Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist, the so-called “Big Three” players in the U.S. canned tuna sector.

Lischewski was found guilty of one count of price-fixing by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of USD 1 million (EUR 900,000). His sentencing has been set for 8 April, 2020. Lischewski’s conviction may also open him up as a target of civil lawsuits filed by parties who overpaid for canned tuna as a result of the price-fixing, according to Eric Snyder, chairman of the bankruptcy practice at Wilk Auslander, a New York City-based law firm.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New Crab Pot Could Help Reduce Whale Entanglements

December 2, 2019 — Oregon’s Dungeness crab season is coming up, but there’s a problem looming over this fishery.

The ropes and buoys that allow crabbers to collect their crab pots from the seafloor can injure and even kill whales when they swim into them.

Last year, 46 whale entanglements were reported off the West Coast, and crab gear was responsible for about a third of them.

According to Derek Orner, a bycatch reduction program coordinator with the National Marine Fisheries Service, this a growing problem in the spiny lobster and Dungeness crab fisheries.

“Were seeing increases in whale entanglements with a number of species that are listed under the National Marine Mammal Protection Act, in particular with humpback whales, gray whales, and blue whales,” he said.

His agency recently announced grants for several ropeless fishing gear projects, including a new kind of crab pot developed by Coastal Monitoring Associates of California.

Bart Chadwick, the company’s president, said when crabbers drop their pots in the ocean, the ropes and buoys can remain in the water column for days.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

CALIFORNIA: The secret Richmond lab where Bay Area crab season annually learns its fate

November 29, 2019 — Each year, the fate of Northern California’s Dungeness crab season is in the hands of a few scientists in a quiet East Bay lab examining a small container of tan goo.

At the California Department of Public Health lab in Richmond, the goo is viscera, or the internal organs of a Dungeness crab, and the scientists study it to determine whether a neurotoxin called domoic acid is present.

While the commercial Dungeness crab season is on hold for an entirely different reason — a lawsuit over whale entanglements that postponed the season until Dec. 15 — three of the last four commercial Dungeness crab seasons were delayed after domoic acid, which is poisonous to humans, was found in local crustaceans. The neurotoxin can become present in crabs when algal blooms caused by rising ocean temperatures linger in local fishing waters during crab season. And with California crab fishermen capable of grossing $95 million a year during an uninterrupted season, domoic acid has resulted in tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Read the full story at the San Fransisco Chronicle

Bumble Bee tuna has filed for bankruptcy

November 27, 2019 — Something fishy is going on.

Bumble Bee Foods, LLC — renowned as for its Bumble Bee canned tuna products — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, years following a Department of Justice investigation which found evidence of a massive price-fixing scheme by the San Diego-based company.

Taiwanese fish supply chain company FCF Co. plans to put in a $925 million bid for the assets in a deal to be completed within 90 days, CNN reported.

“It’s been a challenging time for our company but today’s actions allow us to move forward with minimal disruption to our day-to-day operations,” Bubble Bee president and CEO Jan Tharp said in a statement.

A staple of American kitchen for over a century, the Bumble Bee brand has been in troubled waters over the past few years.

Read the full story at The Daily News

Most Recent Amendment to the Groundfish Fishery Management Plan a Rare Source of Agreement

November 27, 2019 — On November 19, 2019, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued Amendment 28 to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (Amendment 28). The Pacific Groundfish fishery is one of the most diverse fisheries that NMFS regulates and also one of the most litigated. The fishery includes over 90 bottom-dwelling fish such as rockfish, cod, and flounder. This amendment closes a large amount of new areas to bottom trawling, and re-opens certain other more limited areas. These changes will also protect sensitive deep-water habitat and deep-sea corals from bottom fishing.

Amendment 28, which was developed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council over a five-year period, contains three major provisions:

  1. Defines new areas as Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) conservation areas for both groundfish and non-groundfish species, such as California habitat, in which bottom trawling is restricted.
  2. Opens certain areas previously closed to bottom trawling.
  3. Defines a new deep-water area closed to all bottom-contacting fishing to protect deepwater habitats.

In making changes to Groundfish EFH, NMFS closes over 12,000 square miles of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and opens over 200 square miles to bottom trawling. These closures are intended to protect certain ocean floor types, such as submarine canyons and deep sea corals. While the rule closes EFH areas up and down the Pacific Coast, the largest area to be closed is off the coast of Southern California, surrounding the Channel Islands. In the final rule, NMFS claims that the areas that are reopened have lower sensitivity than those that are being closed and will recover faster. Most of these lower sensitivity areas are off the coast of Central California. NMFS also claims that the closures will have a “minimal” impact on fishing communities because very little groundfish landings actually occurred in the closed areas.

Read the full story at The National Law Review

Marin Voice: Huffman’s interest in fisheries act is commendable

November 26, 2019 — A once-in-a-decade opportunity for everyone to weigh in on the management of our fisheries has been put into motion.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act is the primary federal law that governs all management of marine fisheries in federal waters of the United States. The act governs both commercial and recreational fishing sectors. First enacted by bi-partisan legislation in 1976, it has been reauthorized and amended by Congress in 1996 and 2006. The intent was to update and reauthorize the MSA every 10 years. Obviously, a reauthorization in 2016 did not occur and the MSA has remained essentially unchanged since 2006.

U.S. Representative Jared Huffman has set a goal to have the MSA reauthorized in the spring of 2020. To that end, he is holding a series of roundtable meetings throughout the country to gather input from all stakeholders as to how they feel the MSA can be updated and improved. I attended, as an audience member, the roundtable that was held in San Francisco on Oct. 7.

Congressman Huffman presided over a panel of 11 people who represented organizations concerned with commercial and recreational fishing. Congressman Huffman set the tone by stating that he was there to listen and gather information and opinions from all parties. He also stressed that he will try to garner bi-partisan support for the reauthorization process. He took extensive notes and asked questions for clarification. No conclusions or rebuttals were offered. It was truly an information-gathering atmosphere.

Read the full story at The Marin Independent Journal