Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: A fishy tale

August 9, 2018 — Where else to look for a fish tale about politics than Shad Plank, eh?

Consider, then a casual comment from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s menhaden board discussion this week.

You know, one of Rhode Island’s commissioners mused, as the board wrapped up discussion about whether or not to start down the road of shutting down Virginia’s menhaden fishery, Atlantic herring could come into play here.

Well, if that isn’t enough to make you sit up in your seat. It did for Shad Plank, anyway.

Here’s why. The commission groups 15 states from Maine to Florida to manage onshore fisheries (within three miles of the shore), making sure nobody’s taking too many fishies from sea.

Some species do better than others, and sometimes they do better in some parts of the coast than others. And while nobody on the commission wants to drive any species into oblivion, many find it hard not to think about their fishermen — commercial and recreational — and their desire to harvest the sea’s bounty.

Last year, the commission cut its cap on the catch of menhaden from Chesapeake Bay by more than 40 percent. Not complying with this cap — and the General Assembly declined to enact it into law — could lead the commission to say we’re out of compliance and then ask the federal government to do something about it.

Read the full story at the Daily Press

 

VIRGINIA: Menhaden landings pacing below disputed cap

August 8, 2018 — Chesapeake Bay landings of menhaden are coming in at a pace well below a controversial cap imposed by an interstate fisheries commission, Virginia Marine Resources Commissioner Steven Bowman said.

As of the end of June, landings for the so-called reduction fishery came in at 24,000 metric tons, Bowman told the management board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) this week.

He said that meant landings this year would almost certainly come in below the 51,000-ton cap the interstate commission imposed last year — a cut of more than 40 percent that the General Assembly balked at adopting.

Bowman, joined by Maryland’s director of fisheries, asked the board to hold off declaring that Virginia was not in compliance with the cap because the General Assembly had not written the 51,000-ton limit into state law.

That finding, if adopted by the commission and accepted by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, could shut down the menhaden fishery, which employs about 300 people working on Omega Protein’s fishing boats and its processing plant in Reedville, on the Northern Neck. While the cap applies only to menhaden caught by the big “purse seine” vessels Omega operates to catch fish to be processed for oil and fish meal, board members said a finding of noncompliance could shut down the bait fishery, in which smaller operators use a different technique to catch fish used by crabbers and in commercial fin-fisheries

Instead, Bowman and Blazer proposed that the commission find Virginia out of compliance if landings this year actually exceeded 51,000 tons.

That effort failed, but the board decided to delay until February acting on an alternative declaring Virginia out of compliance.

Omega spokesman Ben Landry said he believed the menhaden board’s decision to delay acting reflected commissioners’ new-found concern, underlined by NOAA’s Lynch, about the scientific basis for the cap.

“We have no intention of blowing past the 51,000,” he said. “But it’s an artificial number … our concern is flexibility; if there are storms out in the ocean, we’d like to be able to come into the bay.”

Read the full story at the Daily Press

Are Chesapeake Bay dolphins eating all the fish?

July 18, 2018 — Rockfish are a Chesapeake Bay delicacy pursued heavily by commercial and recreational fishermen alike.

But many say it’s been a poor year on the Bay and now a growing number are beginning to question whether an apparently increasing population of dolphins in the Bay might be to blame.

Researchers who have been tracking dolphins in increasing numbers said they don’t have any answers.

“We don’t have information to confirm one way or the other if there is any impact,” say Greg Bortz, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Many commercial watermen said dolphins are chasing and eating valuable game species like rockfish, but there are many other environmental factors that are impacting the health of the Bay this season.

“We’ve had a lot of weather that isn’t normal,” said commercial fisherman Andy Mattes III, who noted heavy rains this spring and high temperatures this summer.

Mattes said low oxygen in much of the bay cause by polluted runoff is a major problem. He said blaming dolphins is too simplistic.

Read the full story at WUSA 9

After July Fourth crab feasts, an uncertain season for Maryland seafood industry

July 6, 2018 — Most summer mornings, Bunky Chance leaves his dock on Grace Creek before sunrise, in the hope of catching the crabs as they begin stirring for breakfast.

But on this steamy, still day, it’s too hot for many Chesapeake Bay crabs to bother grabbing at the chunks of clams Chance dangles in the Choptank River as bait. He’s back from his crabbing spots by 1 p.m.

It’s unfortunate timing, because the picnic-table delicacy is rarely as valuable as it becomes this week, when demand surges to supply crab feasts from Baltimore to Ocean City.

That’s especially worrisome this season, as uncertainty hangs over the next four months. Many Eastern Shore seafood processing businesses have been hamstrung, if not shut down, by a shortage of visas for the foreign guest workers on whom they have come to rely. Demand for steamed crabs typically starts to fall off after this week, and by late summer and early fall, those crab-picking businesses are some of the only buyers watermen can find for their harvest.

Watermen are used to slow periods, challenging weather conditions, and even shortages of the workers who pick the crabs. But the visa shortage has the entire Chesapeake seafood industry apprehensive that this season could present challenges more severe than they have yet seen.

Read the full story at the Baltimore Sun

Bill to make North Carolina ‘Napa Valley’ of US oyster industry also good for Cooke

June 25, 2018 — The following is excerpted from a story originally published in Undercurrent News: 

Many North Carolina fishermen are petitioning in support of the Support Shellfish Industry Act. One group, Citizens for a Level Playing Field, have created a petition in support of the Act.

A vote by the North Carolina General Assembly — potentially as early as Monday — could make it easier for Cooke Seafood USA and others to harvest more oysters in the US coastal state. But it’s coming down to the wire, as the state’s legislature is expected to end its session either this week or next.

The Support Shellfish Industry Act (HB 361) would raise the cap for oyster permits in the Pamlico Sound – the US’ second largest estuary, covering over 3,000 square miles of open water behind North Carolina’s touristy Outer Banks — from a combined 50 acres to 200 acres, allowing for larger scale operations. It’s a change being sought by the Wanchese Fish Company, a Suffolk, Virginia-based harvester and processor acquired by the Canadian Cooke family in 2015, among others.

The measure, which was originally introduced in late May as Senate Bill 738 by Republican state senators Bill Cook, Harry Brown and Norman Sanderson, passed the North Carolina upper chamber on June 15 by a 28-9 vote, but still requires approval by the state’s Republican-dominated House of Representatives.

“With our acres of pristine waters, and a large and growing interest in cultivated oysters, the potential for the industry in the state is huge,” the three lawmakers said in a press release when introducing the original bill. “Our goal is for North Carolina to become the ‘Napa Valley’ of oysters and to become a $100 million dollar industry in 10 years.”

The North Carolina lawmakers might have picked a different area to represent dominance in the US wine industry. Despite its reputation, Napa Valley produces just 4% of the grapes used in California.

Regardless, Jay Styron, president and owner of the Carolina Mariculture Company, an oyster grower in Cedar Island, North Carolina, would settle right now for his state just getting on a playing field that’s level with the oyster industries in Virginia and Maryland, two states on the Chesapeake Bay (the US’s largest estuary), with lease caps that allow operations of up to 2,000 total acres.

Other states, like Louisiana and Washington, allow similarly high oyster growing caps, he said in a letter to the editor published Friday by Undercurrent News.

Styron told Undercurrent he isn’t interested in expanding beyond the 6.5-acre floating-cage oyster and clam farm he owns in the adjacent Core Sound, but is arguing for the change on behalf of other oyster growers in his role as the president of the North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Jay Styron: North Carolina law needed to open up shellfish opportunity

June 22, 2018 — The following is a letter to the editor of Undercurrent News from Jay Styron, owner and president of the Carolina Mariculture Company, in Cedar Island, North Carolina:

If North Carolina wants to be a major player in the shellfish industry, it needs to make it easier for oyster farmers to lease space and raise their products. The Support Shellfish Industry Act, currently being debated in the state’s General Assembly, is a major step in the right direction.

The bill expands North Carolina’s shellfish leasing program, making it easier for local businesses to acquire leases and ensuring that our state’s working watermen are the ones operating the farms. Most importantly, it expands the area that can be leased for oysters in Pamlico Sound. Currently, businesses are capped to leasing only 50 acres in the sound. The bill raises that cap to 200 acres total, while keeping individual sites to 50 contiguous acres.

The bill ensures that this expansion is done in a responsible and cautious way. Before the additional acreage can be approved, the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries will be required to first study and identify suitable lease areas. The bill does not change this cap for other parts of the state, which will remain at 50 acres.

Allowing larger leases in Pamlico Sound, part of the nation’s largest single-state estuary, will help North Carolina keep up with other coastal shellfish-producing states. In the Chesapeake Bay, both Virginia and Maryland have lease caps of 2,000 total acres. Other states, like Louisiana and Washington, allow for similarly high caps. While this legislation won’t immediately raise North Carolina to the same level as these states, it represents a significant step towards closing the gap.

The bill makes other improvements to the state’s aquaculture industry beyond expanding leasing areas. It opens new areas for shellfish nurseries and hatcheries to operate, which will help clean the surrounding waters, and creates a new, in-state source of seed to make it easier to populate new shellfish beds. It also creates new administrative procedures for the DMF to quickly mitigate conflicts arising from leasing decisions. These provisions will all allow shellfish cultivation in North Carolina to grow and diversify.

Improving our shellfish leasing program will help North Carolina regain its competitive edge regionally, particularly with respect to Virginia. In recent years, Virginia has moved aggressively to expand its fresh wild-caught and farm-raised oyster harvest, now producing about $35.8 million in oyster production annually. By contrast, North Carolina lags well behind at $3.9 million annually. This disparity is even more alarming considering just 13 years ago North Carolina’s shellfish industry was worth four times as much as Virginia’s.

The Support Shellfish Industry Act will lead to greater economic development, providing much needed jobs for North Carolina oyster farmers. Importantly, the legislation keeps requirements that leaseholders have a business registered in North Carolina and a commercial fishing license – which only state residents can get – safeguarding North Carolina jobs. Leased areas will still be public waters owned by the state, and leases can be canceled at any time should issues arise. Strict regulations on lease sales will also remain in place, including hearings where members of the public can make their voices heard.

The benefits of the bill extend to the environment. Oysters are among the most sustainable forms of food production available, filtering the water around them and improving fish habitat. According to a recent study, led by University of Washington professor Ray Hilborn, farmed shellfish are among the least carbon-intensive sources of food, and have among the smallest environmental impact.

North Carolina’s shellfish industry has the potential to provide great economic benefits to our state’s coastal communities, but only if we tap into its full potential in places like Pamlico Sound. That requires passing the Support Shellfish Industry Act, which will help us regain an equal footing with our neighbors, instead of keeping us in their shadow.

Read the letter here.

 

Government policy could leave Maryland crab houses shuttered for the summer

June 20, 2018 — Hoopers Island sits in a remote section of the Chesapeake Bay, but at this time of year, this end of the road community is bustling — crabs are running out and a steady parade of watermen are arriving at Harry Phillip’s dock to unload bushel after bushel of blue crab.

But as of Tuesday afternoon, the watermen and the man who buys their crabs say their livelihood is being threatened by a new government policy on migrant worker visas.

“There’s something wrong with the system,” said Phillips, who owns Russel Hall Seafood.

With record low unemployment in the U.S. and demand for migrant workers way up, the government instituted a lottery system for worker visas.

After going through two rounds of lotteries, Phillips hasn’t been granted a single worker visa.

A few of the crab houses did get their workers and will be in business, but most did not and are facing a lost summer.

Read the full story at WJLA

Healthy fisheries and aquatic grasses fuel Chesapeake Bay recovery

June 19, 2018 — Booming aquatic grasses and bellwether fisheries are driving sustained progress in Chesapeake Bay health, which experts say is finally showing “significant” overall improvement.

The 2017 Chesapeake Bay Report Card issued by Virginia and Maryland rates the estuary a C for the third straight year as recovery holds steady or improves in five of seven indicators, the James River nails a B- for the first time and the fisheries index scores its first-ever A+.

Experts call their assessment “important evidence that the positive trend in ecosystem health is real” and that cleanup efforts across the watershed are working.

“It is the first time that the … scores are significantly trending in the right direction,” said Bill Dennison at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in a statement Friday. “We have seen individual regions improving before, but not the entire Chesapeake Bay.”

The UMCES compiled the report card along with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and other governmental agencies and academic groups both in this state and Maryland. This is the 12th year of its release.

The fisheries index is comprised of the average score for blue crab, striped bass and bay anchovy indicators. These species are considered ecologically, economically and socially important to the bay.

Last year’s fisheries index was 90 percent. This year, it rose to 95 percent, the highest ever recorded for the annual reports — the average of 100 percent for striped bass and blue crab, and 84 percent for bay anchovy.

Read the full story at the Daily Press

 

MARYLAND: Feds give qualified OK to dredge oyster shells from Man O’ War Shoal

June 19, 2018 — After years of scrutiny, federal regulators have given a qualified green light to a controversial Maryland plan to dredge old oyster shells from an ancient reef near Baltimore — a project intended to enhance oyster habitat elsewhere in the Chesapeake Bay, but also to help the sagging commercial fishery.

The Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a provisional permit on May 17 to the state Department of Natural Resources to take up to 5 million bushels of shells from Man O’ War Shoal just outside the mouth of the Patapsco River and use the shell to replenish or rebuild oyster reefs at other Bay locations.

The Corps’ conditional approval comes after nearly three years of effort by the DNR to address questions and concerns raised about the project, which is opposed by environmentalists, recreational anglers and even some watermen.

But now, having won the federal go-ahead, state officials appear in no hurry to act on it. They haven’t even informed those in favor of dredging the shoals about the Corps’ decision.

Man O’ War Shoal harbors up to 100 million bushels of shells in its 446-acre footprint, according to a 1988 survey. Though productive long ago, it has relatively few live oysters now, despite repeated efforts to reseed it.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

The Chesapeake Bay hasn’t been this healthy in 33 years, scientists say

June 18, 2018 — For the first time in the 33 years that scientists have assessed the health of the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary showed improvement in every region, a likely sign that a massive federal cleanup plan is working.

The bay’s most important species — blue crabs and striped bass, which support commercial and recreational fisheries, and anchovies, the foundation of its food chain — earned top scores in a report card released Friday. Bright green underwater grasses — which help protect young fish before they venture into the Atlantic Ocean — are now thriving, even in some places where such vegetation had disappeared.

In sharp contrast to the days when the bay was so beleaguered that every meaningful species experienced sharp population declines, officials and scientists from the District, Maryland and Virginia announced Friday that it is in the midst of a full and remarkable recovery. As if to underscore the progress, their backdrop along the District’s southwest waterfront was a brilliantly sunny morning and a picturesque view of the Anacostia River, which feeds into the Chesapeake.

The news comes at a time when hundreds of bottle-nosed dolphins have been seen frolicking in the bay, including a large pod off Maryland’s Ragged Point last month. On Tuesday, two great white sharks were hooked by scientists in Virginia. The number of fish-hunting osprey is also on the rise.

The bay’s overall grade is a C, because some areas, such as the Patuxent, Patapsco and York rivers, are bouncing back from near-failure. The category of water clarity faltered, falling to an F from last year’s D. But the James River area and the lower stem of the bay closer to the Atlantic both earned grades of at least B-, their highest ever, and shored up the overall score.

Read the full story at the Washington Post