May 23, 2022 — Make sure you’re in front of your TV at 8:30 p.m. on Monday night. Lund’s Fisheries will be featured on the Outdoor Channel’s latest episode of “The Fishmonger.”
“The Fishmonger” is hosted by Tommy Gomes, aka Tommy the Fishmonger. The upcoming episode, which will air on Monday, May 23 at 8:30 p.m., will find Gomes in Cape May, New Jersey. The episode will find him connecting with the team at Lund’s Fisheries to explore a large-scale operation.
May 16, 2022 — New Jersey offshore wind developer Orsted recently inked a deal to use all union labor for its projects along the East Coast.
Biden Administration officials helped broker the agreement between Orsted and North America’s Building Trades Unions, as part of its goal to generate 30 gigawatts of wind energy by 2030, while simultaneously developing green energy jobs.
Opposition by fishing industry
The group Ocean City Flooding opposes Orsted’s project off the coast of South Jersey and says the labor deal doesn’t take into account potential job losses in the fisheries industry.
“We support jobs for Americans, however, it should be noted that here in Cape May County Orsted has not committed to one job and in fact there will be a loss of jobs in the commercial fishing industry at the Cape May/Wildwood port,” said Suzanne Hornick, one of the group’s founders.
She says while the deal focuses on labor, other issues remain such as threats to marine life, migrating birds, the endangered Atlantic right whale, along with potential rate hikes and declining property values.
May 10, 2022 — The following was released by Lund’s Fisheries:
Lund’s Fisheries, Inc., operating in Cape May, New Jersey since 1954, is pleased to announce that the company’s Atlantic scup fishery has been certified as sustainable according to Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standards. MSC certification is one of the most rigorous and sought-after sustainability certifications in the world, and our scup trawl fishery now meets those high standards.
Scup is Lund’s fourth MSC-certified fishery, following the company’s certifications for Atlantic sea scallops, Loligo squid, and Illex squid. Lund’s has been a seafood industry leader on the Atlantic coast in certifying its fisheries as sustainable for U.S. and international markets and will continue to look for new opportunities to add products to the MSC certification process.
The company owns and operates 20 fishing vessels delivering seafood to its freezing and processing facility year-round. Other independent vessels, from North Carolina through Maine, land scup at the company’s plant, utilizing its 500 metric ton daily freezing capacity.
“Lund’s Fisheries is proud of our long-standing commitment to harvesting and processing some of the most sustainable seafood in the world, and the MSC certification of our scup fishery is just the latest example of that commitment,” said Wayne Reichle, President of Lund’s Fisheries. “In partnership with the MSC, consumers can continue to trust that our products meet the highest standards of responsible sourcing. This new certification will help us to present another locally harvested, sustainable fish to the public that they may not have heard of, seen, or eaten before.”
The certification comes after a year-long, comprehensive evaluation by independent third-party assessor SCS Global Services. The assessment ensures that the Atlantic scup trawl fishery meets the three MSC Principles, focusing on the status of the scup resource and the harvest strategy in place; the fisheries ecosystem impacts, including efforts to avoid interactions with endangered and protected species; and the governance and management system employed by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. MSC certification also ensures that Atlantic scup products can be traced back to where they were caught through required recordkeeping, from harvest to product sale.
The fishery’s strengths include a well-defined and proven governance system of national and state laws; a suite of strategic policy frameworks that are supportive of the MSC’s Principles; effective leadership within federal and state management and scientific organizations; a transparent and engaging consultation and decision-making process; and a proven federal-state record of effective collaboration and cooperation at all levels.
Atlantic scup, which is mainly fished in New England and Mid-Atlantic waters, is considered to be an “underutilized” species, meaning that the population is healthy, and that fishing levels are well below the sustainable limits set for the fishery.
“Demand for sustainable U.S. seafood is only growing, and we are pleased to receive this certification from the MSC, which has become the international leader in seafood sustainability,” said Jeff Kaelin, Lund’s Director of Sustainability and Government Relations. “This certification reflects the hard work done by our fishermen and our production team at our Cape May plant to successfully sell sustainably harvested products to our customers. It also represents tremendous support from our management partners at the Council and Commission in helping us to accumulate the technical information used in this process over the past year.”
April 11, 2022 — Several commercial fishermen claim survey boats hired by wind turbine developer Ørsted inadvertently cut their lines causing their lobster and conch traps to be lost in the ocean. At issue: being reimbursed from Ørsted for the lost gear and income
Lobster fisherman Joe Wagner, a second-generation fisherman of lobster, sea bass and conch, said last year he lost 157 lobster traps to Ørsted, which is partnering with PSEG on the Ocean Wind 1 project that aims to bring up to 99 massive wind turbines to an area 15 miles off the coast of Cape May and Atlantic counties.
“They only paid me for a handful of them because they say it wasn’t their boats,” he said.
Wagner said Ørsted made that claim based on tracking data of the survey boats. He said he caught the survey boats frequently turning off their tracking devices.
Last year his father lost 100 lobster pots to Ørsted survey boats, Wagner asserted, again with Ørsted claiming their boats were not to blame. The cost of lobster pots is $180 to $220 each with a possible two-year delay to receive all the replacements due to supply chain issues, he said.
He said Ørsted sends a weekly email to fishermen with a photo of their leased areas stating “our vessels might be in your area” but doesn’t give exact coordinates.
Read the full story at Ocean City Sentinel
March 10, 2022 — One of the world’s largest offshore wind developers, Denmark-based Ørsted, wants to bring 1,100 megawatts of electricity onshore from a wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean using a transmission line that would run through Ocean City, New Jersey.
That is not sitting well with some people in and around the small, but well-known Jersey Shore community, where many families across the Philadelphia region visit in the summer. Look no further than Kate Winslet’s detective from “Mare of Easttown” for proof of Ocean City’s popularity.
Still, it’s becoming increasingly likely that Ørsted’s Ocean Wind 1 project about 15-20 miles off Atlantic and Cape May counties will connect to the region’s power grid with an underground transmission line that comes onshore at an Ocean City beach. It would then run through the community to a decommissioned coal power plant in nearby Upper Township.
Read the full story at NBC Philadelphia
February 28, 2022 — The United States government netted a record $4.37 billion on Friday from the sale of six offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York and New Jersey, a major step in the Biden administration’s goal of ushering in a future powered by renewable energy.
The auction, of more than 488,000 acres in the Atlantic Ocean between Cape May, N.J., and Montauk Point, N.Y., was the Biden administration’s first offshore lease sale.
When turbines are built and start working, the auctioned acres are expected to generate up to 7,000 megawatts, enough to power nearly 2 million homes.
The Interior Department has said between that project and others currently under review, it hopes to see some 2,000 turbines churning from Massachusetts to North Carolina by the end of this decade.
January 14, 2022 — The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) highlighted a new project that will look to count a population of menhaden that could help inform not only a local New Jersey fishery but other fisheries in New England and the Mid-Atlantic region.
A team from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s (UMCES) Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries are on the verge of launching a winter population survey of menhaden, specifically off the coast of New Jersey, SCEMFIS said.
That area is home to a growing winter bait fishery but because there hasn’t been much work to survey the population that far north, there is not a strong enough count of how many fish are in that area.
The survey, which will launch from Cape May, New Jersey, will use sonar equipment to estimate the number of menhaden schooling in the area, and will collect additional information to estimate age, size, and weight, data that will be important for managing the fishery, per SCEMFIS.
November 9, 2021 — The proposed offshore wind project along New Jersey’s southern coast drew a mix of support and opposition from residents and officials during an open house in Ocean City on Saturday morning.
The Danish energy company, Ørsted, plans to construct 99 wind turbines about 15 miles off the coast from Atlantic City to Cape May. Ørsted expects the wind farm to be operational by 2024 and capable of powering half a million homes.
The wind project is part of New Jersey’s goal of achieving 7,500 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035 and 100 percent clean energy by 2050.
A panel of Ørsted representatives fielded questions on Saturday about the wind farm’s potential impact on Cape May County’s tourism and the commercial fishing industry during a nearly three-hour forum.
“We believe in coexistence with a wide range of industries. We think that we can all productively exist,” said Maddy Urbish, Ørsted’s head of Government Affairs & Policy for New Jersey. “When it comes to tourism, Ocean Wind, PSEG and Ørsted — we really want to be good community partners.” Urbish noted that in previous projects, Ørsted has not seen an impact on tourism.
Read the full story at Patch.com
October 15, 2021 — A planned offshore wind farm off New Jersey’s southern coast will be the topic of discussion during a town hall meeting on Nov. 6 at the Ocean City Music Pier.
Ørsted plans to construct 99 wind turbines about 15 miles off the coast from Atlantic City to Cape May. Ørsted expects the wind farm to be operational by 2024, and capable of powering half a million homes.
The wind farm has drawn opposition from several southern coastal communities, citing environmental concern for marine life and its impact on fishing and tourism industries.
Ørsted’s open house will update residents of Ocean City and other communities on the status of the offshore wind farm. Registration will begin at 9:30 a.m., with the program beginning at 10 a.m. and running until approximately 1 p.m.
March 16, 2021 — A proposed offshore wind farm continues to draw opposition from New Jersey’s southern coastal communities.
Ørsted’s proposed project aims to construct 99 wind turbines about 15 miles off the coast from Atlantic City to Cape May. The wind turbines are expected to produce enough energy to power half a million homes by 2024, according to Ørsted officials.