Saving Seafood

Massachusetts: Bay State fishing advocates oppose offshore drilling

February 26, 2018 — Frustrated by the Trump administration’s plans to potentially open areas off the Massachusetts coast to oil drilling, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey convened groups with sometimes divergent interests to collectively oppose the plan on Monday.

The oil industry’s use of controlled explosions to explore the seafloor kills and disrupts the ocean life, from plankton to the endangered right whale, said Scott Kraus, vice president and senior science adviser at the New England Aquarium. If the industry builds oil wells in the offshore fishing areas, that would put the area’s fishing industry at risk, said Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken at an event held at the aquarium.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Defenders of US Sea Grant ‘optimistic’ Congress will reject Trump cuts

February 26, 2018 — WASHINGTON — Bob Rheault, executive director of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, expects a warm welcome from all of the members of Congress he sees when he visits here this week to argue for preservation of the US Sea Grant program among other things.

That was how he was received when he made a similar trip to Capitol Hill roughly a year ago, after President Donald Trump first advocated for zeroing out the funds, he said.

“As we walked around the Hill, all of the East Coast state congressmen we visited pointed out to us that Congress decides the budget, not the president,” he said, adding: “I feel optimistic.”

The White House again has put the Sea Grant program on the chopping block, advocating for the elimination of its $72 million in federal funds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fiscal 2019 budget along with a number of other science measures, including especially those related to climate change.

In all, the Trump administration wants to cut 20% from NOAA’s $5.7 billion budget, leaving it with $4.6 bn in fiscal 2019, which starts on Oct. 1, 2018.

So Rheault — along with 16 of his colleagues from the East Coast shellfish community and some friends from the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association — will again be asking lawmakers to spare the program. Together they’ll log 40 meetings with agency and congressional offices as part of what is commonly referred to in Washington as a “fly-in.”

The program’s champions will get another chance to visit with members of Congress when James Hurley, the Sea Grant Association president, leads a group of university Sea Grant leaders to the Hill in conjunction with SGA’s March 7-8 meeting in Washington. Hurley is also head of the program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Trump’s offshore drilling proposal has a cost besides potential oil spills

February 23, 2018 — The Trump administration’s effort to open almost all of the U.S. outer continental shelf to drilling has rattled coastal communities fearful of oil-drenched beaches like those they saw after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

There’s another cost, though, of high-volume offshore oil and natural gas leasing borne by the public, even if nothing is spilled. A new analysis Thursday says that the federal government — and therefore U.S. taxpayers —  isn’t getting its money’s worth from oil and gas companies pumping publicly owned fossil fuels from the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico.

By law, the government is supposed to get “fair market value” for leasing offshore tracts of oil and gas. But the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a government watchdog group, found that companies rarely compete for leases.

As a result, the federal government got less than 3 percent per acre in its most recent lease sales, in August of last year, than it did before 1983, a new POGO analysis found. The findings suggest that for years the government has gotten short-changed when it comes to oil and gas lease sales. As the Trump administration tries to expand offshore drilling, the problem may only get worse.

Here’s the rub: That marked decline isn’t really the result because of President Trump’s policies. It stems all the way back to the Reagan administration.

Read the full analysis at the Washington Post

 

 

The Trump Administration Just Got Sued Over an “Unusual Mortality Event” in the Ocean

February 23, 2018 — On January 22, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration got word of a juvenile, North Atlantic right whale carcass floating off the coast of Virginia. Later identified as whale #3893, the 39-foot, 10-year-old female was towed to shore, where researchers examined her partially-decomposed remains. A few days later, preliminary necropsy findings indicated that the whale died of “chronic entanglement,” meaning it was caught in rope or line, according to a report from NOAA.

It was the first right whale to die in 2018, but it comes on the heels of the deaths of 17 right whales in the North Atlantic in 2017—a record setting number that is more than all right whale mortalities in the five previous years combined. NOAA researchers are calling the trend an “unusual mortality event”—a particularly concerning phenomenon, as North Atlantic right whales are an endangered species. There are only about 450 left in the wild, according to NOAA, and at the current rate, scientists predict the species could be functionally extinct in fewer than 25 years.

NOAA hasn’t determined the cause of the “unusual mortality event,” but some are looking right at Washington, and at NOAA itself. A new lawsuit, filed January 18 in US District Court in Washington, D.C., argues specifically that the Trump administration is at least partly responsible for failing to adequately address this epidemic.

Between 2010 and 2016, 85 percent of diagnosed whale deaths were the result of entanglement, typically in commercial fishing gear. The plaintiffs—the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Humane Society—allege that President Trump’s Department of Commerce, of which NOAA is a branch, is in violation of the 1973 Endangered Species Act and the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act over their management of the North Atlantic lobster fishery, which “frequently entangles right whales,” according to the suit. Under the Endangered Species Act, the plaintiffs point out, any action, direct or indirect, by a federal agency must not be “likely to jeopardize” any endangered or threatened species.

Read the full story at Mother Jones

 

Trump’s plans to expand offshore drilling face headwind on Atlantic coast

February 22, 2018 — WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s bid to open Atlantic waters to offshore drilling has sparked bipartisan opposition in the states with the largest oil and gas reserves off their coasts, presenting unexpected obstacles to the long-held designs of the energy industry.

In recent years, political leaders in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina had supported oil and gas drilling off their coasts, envisioning high-paying jobs and increased tax revenues. But new governors in the three states – two Democrats and a Republican – have all reversed the positions of their predecessors, fearing the potential impact on beaches, fisheries and tourism industries.

“This last election we’ve seen a significant shift at the leadership level,” said David Holt, president of the Consumer Energy Alliance, a trade group representing large energy users and producers. “If you look at the last 10 years, the majority of the governors and the public had been supportive.”

For oil executives in Houston, an international center of the offshore oil and gas sector, the Atlantic coast is a new frontier that could potentially mean significant profits in the decades ahead. Most of the world’s biggest oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell, have a major presence here, employing thousands of people, as do firms specializing in offshore drilling and services, including TechnipFMC, National Oilwell Varco, McDermott International and Transocean.

But the recent shift in political and public sentiment represents a very real threat to their plans.

The oil and gas industry has sought access to U.S. Atlantic waters for years, hoping to find rich oil and gas fields similar to those off the coasts of Nigeria and Ghana. In Trump – who proclaims “energy dominance” almost as frequently as “Make America great again” – the industry believed it had found the key to achieving its goal.

Energy companies came close two years ago when former President Barack Obama considered allowing oil and gas development in Atlantic waters. They had the support of Republicans and Democrats, including Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2016, and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime friend and fund raiser for Hillary and Bill Clinton, but Obama ultimately decided against an expansion of offshore drilling.

Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle

 

Interior to Hold Massive Sale of Offshore Oil and Gas Leases

February 21, 2018 — The Interior Department announced Friday that the sale of leases on 77.3 million acres off the Southeast coast for oil and gas exploration will occur on March 21.

The sale, which Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said is the largest in U.S. history, will consist of leases off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. It includes all currently unleased areas in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Responsibly developing our offshore energy resources is a major pillar of President Trump’s American Energy Dominance strategy,” Bernhardt said. “A strong offshore energy program supports tens of thousands good paying jobs and provides the affordable and reliable energy we need to heat homes, fuel our cars, and power our economy.”

Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a New Orleans-based nonprofit that is heavily involved in environmental issues asked “How stupid can we be?” when she learned of the scheduled lease sale.

“The Gulf Coast is consistently nailed by hurricanes and yet our government insists on an energy strategy that exacerbates these hurricanes,” she said.

“A real energy strategy would be one that pursues renewables full speed ahead. Their so-called energy strategy is really a scheme for corrupt politicians to enrich themselves and their cronies,” Rolfes added.

Raleigh Hoke, campaign director of the Gulf Restoration Network, also took a dim view of the Interior Department announcement.

“We are disappointed that this Administration is moving forward with yet another lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico while simultaneously rolling back key safety measures to protect workers and the environment,” Hoke said. “Oil spills and accidents are an everyday occurrence in the Gulf, and we’re still at risk of a major catastrophe like the 2010 BP drilling disaster. We need stronger safety requirements, not weaker, and an end to all new offshore leasing in the Gulf.”

“Trump’s auctioning off this massive amount of our ocean while at the same time proposing to rollback important environmental and safety requirements,” agreed Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

 

Jim Lovgren: A hard look at NOAA’s observer program

February 21, 2018 — With the Trump administration looking to reduce burdensome regulations and slash unnecessary bureaucratic jobs, it’s time for them to take a hard look at NOAA’s fishery observer program. This program has grown from a handful of employees just two decades ago, now to hundreds of them who swarm fishing docks each day looking for a ride. And if you dare refuse, you face possible fines, or NMFS enforcement will not allow you to go fishing.

I’m the owner of a 75-foot fishing vessel out of Point Pleasant, N.J. And in the last two years, I have seen my observer coverage double, despite my best efforts to avoid them. The coverage in the Mid-Atlantic has substantially increased because NMFS has put most New England fishermen out of business, so instead of reducing the workforce, they in true bureaucratic tradition increase coverage on those left — this despite the fact that the Mid-Atlantic fisheries have already had extensive coverage for more than 20 years. There is no new data to be gathered. It is simply an effort to enrich the observer provider companies and increase the workforce in the Northeast Fishery Science Center, which has to collate and analyze the data.

Since we have had such extensive fishery coverage over the years, why do we need to increase it? What exactly do they expect to find? In the summer flounder fishery in New Jersey, thousands of observed trips have been taken over the years. Do they expect to find something different?

The data will be the same. The coverage is redundant and a waste of taxpayer dollars. And soon it will be the death knell of the independent fisherman, as NMFS expects them to pay the $750 a day to the observer companies, which in many cases is more than the boat makes on a trip. Also the more data that gets gathered, the more employees at the science center need to analyze it. The pathetic performance of the science center in regard to stock assessments is legendary and documented by the National Academy of Sciences study of fishery management plans. More data will not help them until they fire the incompetent people who still are doing the same stock assessments.

Recently the newest boat at our dock, totally refurbished less than a year ago, was informed that an observer had gotten bed bugs from it. The problem here is that it was an observer who brought the bedbugs onto the boat in the first place. The boat in question had new mattresses and bedding, with the same crew since its arrival. What they also had was an army of observers rotating on their boat, observing scallop and other fisheries. These observers hop from boat to boat, carrying their bags and bedding with them. Many of them are stationed in a group home near large fishing ports, where they live with up to nine other observers in the same small rental, sharing beds and furniture. They have become modern-day Typhoid Marys with the ability to contaminate multiple boats and houses with bedbugs, lice, crabs and fleas, among other unsanitary conditions. Observers and their belongings and group homes should be required to undergo weekly health examinations, just as fishermen are required to have their safety equipment checked.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Trump Administration Wants to Cut Budget for NOAA, But Congress Unlikely to Accept

February 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Seafood News Editor’s Note: The story below lays out known facts about the cuts to the federal budget made by the Trump Administration. However, it is unlikely that Congress will accept these cuts.

The Trump Administration’s $4.4 trillion federal budget for next year takes some mean whacks to programs that affect fisheries.

Off the top, the spending plan unveiled on February 12 cuts the budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by 20 percent to $4.6 billion. Among other things, NOAA manages the nation’s fisheries in waters from three to 200 miles offshore, which produce the bulk of Alaska’s seafood landings.

It’s the cuts within the cuts that reveal the most.

NOAA Fisheries is facing a $110.4 million drop to $837.3 million, a 14 percent budget cut. That includes a $17.7 million decrease in fisheries science and management, a $5 million cut in data collection needed for stock assessments, a $5.1 million reduction in funding for catch share programs and a $2.9 million cut to cooperative research programs.

The proposals for NOAA law enforcement are even more severe – a decline of $17.8 million is a 25 percent budget reduction.

“The entire law enforcement reduction is coming from the agency’s cooperative enforcement program and will eliminate funding for joint enforcement agreements with law enforcement partners from 28 states and U.S. territories,” reported the Gloucester Times.

The National Weather Service, also under NOAA’s umbrella, is facing a $75 million slice off its $1 billion budget. It will axe 355 jobs, more than a quarter of the NWS staff, including 248 forecasters.

Trump also wants to cut $4.8 million from habitat and conservation programs, wiping out funding and grants for NOAA’s fisheries habitat restoration projects.

The Trump plan proposes gutting $40 million from NOAA climate change programs, which would eliminate competitive grants for research and end studies on global warming in the Arctic, including predictions of sea-ice and fisheries in a changing climate.

The national Sea Grant College Program, which conducts research, training and education at more than 30 U.S. universities, is again on the chopping block.

Funding for programs under the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that monitor earthquakes and volcanoes would each drop by 21 percent. The USGS water-resources program, which includes the national stream-gauge network, would be reduced 23 percent.

Trump proposes to cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget to $6.1 billion in 2019, its lowest level since the early 1990s and about 25 percent below the current mark.

The EPA budget also eliminates funding for climate-change research while providing $502 million for fossil energy research, an increase of nearly 24 percent.

Seafood sales also could be badly hurt by proposed deep cuts to food stamps, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Instead of shopping at grocery stores, under Trump’s plan recipients would receive boxes of shelf-stable commodity items such as powdered milk, juices, pasta, peanut butter, and canned meats, fruits and vegetables.

“Seafood is the only major food group that is not considered a USDA commodity. If the new food delivery platform is going to put an emphasis on commodity goods, then that will leave out lean, heart-healthy seafood,” said Linda Cornish, president of the Seafood Nutrition Partnership.

Closer to home, Trump also plans to stop federal funding for the Denali Commission, introduced by Congress in 1998 as an independent agency to provide critical utilities, infrastructure and economic support throughout Alaska.  The plan calls for a $10 million cut out of $17 million, with the difference going to an “orderly closure.”

The White House says that any state that can afford to pay its residents an annual dividend doesn’t need a “unique and additional federal subsidy” such as the commission, wrote longtime Alaska journalist Dermot Cole. Trump added that “the commissions’ effectiveness at improving overall economic conditions remains unproven.”

The FY19 budget, which goes into effect on October 1, now goes before Congress.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

Fish stakeholders to protest drilling plan

February 20, 2018 — Well, the boys of spring are heaving the ol’ horsehide around in the warmer climes of Florida and Arizona and that’s always a good thing, knowing that the calendar is about to flip over to baseball any minute.

Quick thought: What if baseball had been invented in, well, Norway or Iceland? Well, then the ball probably would be covered with fish skin rather than horsehide or the cowhide baseball switched to in 1974.

Be way better with fish skin. That way, any wild pitch truly would be the one that got away.

Meeting and greetin’

As we mentioned in last week’s column, things should be hopping in Boston on Feb. 27 when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management hosts a public hearing on the Trump administration’s proposal to open the ocean floor off New England to potential drilling and exploration for gas, oil and whatever else is down there that can make a buck for somebody.

The meeting is expected to be packed with fishing stakeholders, conservationists and public officials — all of whom seem to be against any systematic mechanical intrusion into the marine ecosystem off the coast of New England.

One programming note: The venue for the event has been changed to the Omni Parker House hotel from the Hyatt Regency Boston. The time remains the same — 3 to 7 p.m.

We also were remiss last week in our discussion of the issue not to mention that the New England Fishery Management Council has submitted comments setting out its concerns about the possibility of gas and oil drilling off the Eastern Seaboard.

The council has recommended BOEM exclude the North and Mid-Atlantic areas because “oil and gas exploration and extraction activities in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf involve inappropriate risks that may harm living marine resources and communities that depend on them.”

Last summer, the council listed five general concerns: direct displacement of fishing activities due to survey or extraction activities; harm to sensitive deepwater habitats, such as corals; negative impacts on living marine resources from the high-decibel sounds produced during surveys and drilling; negative impacts to near-shore fish habitats from infrastructure necessary to support oil and gas industries; and risks associated with leaks and spills resulting from extraction and transport.

That’s a lot of concerns.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Proposed changes to food stamps program could take a bite out of seafood sales

February 16, 2018 — U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2019 budget proposal, which includes deep cuts to the U.S. food stamp program, could harm seafood sales at U.S. supermarket chains, organizations told SeafoodSource.

The Trump administration proposes slashing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or “food stamps” program, by USD 17.2 billion (EUR 13.8 billion) in 2019, or around 22 percent compared to last year’s funding.

In addition, the program would shift to a boxed food delivery program. The current system allows SNAP participants to purchase their  groceries at supermarket chains, farmers markets, and other retail locations.

Under the new proposal, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), would deliver packages of U.S.-grown commodities such as shelf-stable milk, juice, grains, cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans, along with canned meat, fruits and vegetables to recipients.

USDA estimates that it could provide the boxed delivery program at half the cost of the current retail program.

“Seafood is the only major food group that is not considered a USDA commodity. If the new food delivery platform is going to put an emphasis on commodity goods, then that will leave out lean, heart-healthy seafood, which is the only significant source of essential nutrients such as omega-3s EPA and DHA, as well as selenium,” Linda Cornish, president of Seafood Nutrition Partnership, told SeafoodSource.

Read the full story at Seafood Source