Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: As shutdown’s effects worsen, locals say ‘It’s wrong’

January 18, 2019 — On the Outer Cape there are 23 U.S. Coast Guard members, at least eight Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees and around 60 Cape Cod National Seashore workers not receiving paychecks due to the partial shutdown of the federal government.

And it’s not just federal employees who are missing their paychecks. Contract workers, like those who are rebuilding Herring Cove’s north parking lot in Provincetown, are also affected.

“It’s wrong,” said Arthur “Butch” Lisenby, the Provincetown Municipal Airport manager, of the TSA employees who, because they are deemed “essential,” are now working without compensation. “They are trying to do their jobs and not getting paid. That’s not fair. They have a nice attitude. I’m kind of surprised. I don’t know if I could do the same thing. They are doing their job and dealing with it the best they can.”

The TSA employees themselves were not allowed to speak to the press, according to an employee at the Provincetown airport.

Read the full story at Wicked Local Wellfleet

 

Massachusetts: Fed’s offshore oil plan raises local concerns

January 12, 2018 — The possibility of having an offshore oil rig a handful of miles from Cape beaches is drawing concern from elected officials and preservation groups.

The Trump administration at the turn of the new year released its draft proposal that would enable energy companies to lease large swaths of ocean and drill for oil and gas in federal waters off both coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Federal waters typically begin three miles from shore.

“Reckless does not begin to describe the Trump Administration’s decision to expand offshore oil and gas drilling coast-to-coast. This unprecedented move ignores concerns expressed by military leaders and the deep and widespread bipartisan opposition voiced by municipal and state representatives,” Rep. William Keating (D-Ninth Congressional District) said in a Jan. 5 statement.

“Allowing this drilling threatens the safety of our waterfront communities, the health of our oceans, and the future of our climate – not to mention the havoc it could wreak on the local economies of coastal communities, like those across New England, who count on fresh fish and clean beaches for their seafood and tourism industries,” he added.

The five-year plan is detailed in a document titled “2019-2024 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program, and is online at boem.gov.

The proposal, a few hundred pages long and broken into geographic territories, shows Massachusetts in the northern Atlantic section. The draft proposes two leases in the north Atlantic.

Read the full story at the Wellfleet Wicked Local

 

MASSACHUSETTS: South African scientist, Cape Cod officials talk shark spotting strategies

January 25, 2016 — This past summer, it seemed as though Atlantic great white sharks, once thought to be elusive and rarely seen, were suddenly everywhere.

Popular beaches were closed to swimming as great whites moved north in the waning days of summer away from what is thought of as their stomping ground — the relatively remote and unpopulated Monomoy islands — and into the heart of tourist country.

Earlier this month, beach managers, town officials and Cape Cod National Seashore representatives met for the first time in more than a year to consider ways to protect the millions who will come to Cape beaches this summer. It is the first in a series of similar monthly meetings this winter.

“What it told me is we’re on the right track. Education is big,” Orleans Natural Resources Director Nate Sears said about a presentation by South African shark scientist Alison Kock at the Jan. 12 workshop hosted by the Seashore.

Kock’s visit was paid for by the nonprofit Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, the main fundraiser for shark research by Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries scientists Greg Skomal and John Chisholm. Kock is the research manager for Cape Town’s Shark Spotters Program, which employs locals to scan beaches with binoculars from high vantage points and warn beach officials of sharks. Along with the Save Our Seas foundation, the group sponsors shark research and conservation while attempting to keep beachgoers safe.

“I am very impressed by the proactive stance being taken on the Cape,” Kock wrote in an email from South Africa after her visit. Nothing happened in Cape Town until after a series of fatal attacks on swimmers and surfers a decade ago, she said. Kock praised the signs and brochures that have been in place on Cape beaches for two years.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

Judge bars boat from dredging for clams

November 19, 2015 — PROVINCETOWN — A judge has temporarily barred a Gloucester fishing vessel from dredging for clams off Herring Cove while a dispute about who governs such dredging in that area makes its way through court.

Barnstable Superior Court Judge Raymond Veary issued a temporary restraining order Nov. 3, after the Provincetown harbormaster’s staff followed the 70-foot Tom Slaughter as it dredged for surf clams the previous two days, Harbormaster Rex McKinsey said.

The Slaughter is one of three clam draggers whose owners are in court in separate actions fighting cease-and-desist orders issued by the Provincetown Conservation Commission to keep them from dredging up to 40 feet offshore without a permit.

Veary’s temporary order was to last until Friday, but according to Monte Rome, owner of the Tom Slaughter, it has been extended to Jan. 5 at his request.

Provincetown officials want to stop hydraulic dredging, a process that involves shooting water at 50 to 100 pounds of pressure into the sand to release the clams, because it disturbs the ocean floor and damages the habitat for fish, clams and other marine life, McKinsey said.

In 2007, the Conservation Commission passed a regulation banning hydraulic dredging in that area without a permit.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times