Saving Seafood

Warren releases ‘Blue New Deal,’ a plan to help ailing oceans

December 10, 2019 — Senator Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday released an addendum to her vision for a Green New Deal: the Blue New Deal.

The new plan seeks to address how climate change is affecting oceans and other waters, while ensuring a vibrant marine economy, she said.

“While the ocean is severely threatened, it can also be a major part of the climate solution,” she wrote in a nine-page summary of the plan. “That is why I believe that a Blue New Deal must be an essential part of any Green New Deal.”

“Not being consulted on this isn’t a good start to the relationship,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund in Washington, D.C., which represents the scallop industry. “We expected something more well-thought-out from her.”

Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a coalition of fishing industry associations and companies, said that “any large industrial project in the ocean will have significant impacts to the sustainability of established activities and the marine environment.”

“To me, it seems like it was written by staff, and they did a lot of Googling,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a Washington-based group that represents commercial fishermen. “It’s disappointing, because we know Senator Warren has a more sophisticated understanding of fisheries.”

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Federal judge requires fishing areas off Nantucket closed to protect right whales

October 29, 2019 — In a ruling that could create greater protections for North Atlantic right whales, a federal judge ruled Monday that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act and other federal laws when it made the controversial decision last year to reopen long-closed fishing grounds off Nantucket.

The ruling, which was a major victory for conservation groups, requires the agency to renew the ban on gillnet fishing in about 3,000 square miles of water south and east of Nantucket. Gillnets, walls of netting that rise vertically in the ocean to catch many fish at a time, present a major risk to right whales, whose numbers have plummeted by about 20 percent since 2010. Scientists say there are fewer than 400 left, and the main threat to their survival has been entanglements in fishing gear.

Boasberg’s ruling, however, does not apply to the scallop industry, which has been allowed to fish in the area. The lawsuit did not contest the right of scallopers to use their dredging equipment in the area, as they have not been found to harm the marine mammals.

“It reaffirms that the scallop industry is not at issue with regards to right whale conservation,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney at the Fisheries Survival Fund in Washington, D.C., which represents the scallop industry.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Federal agency accused of misrepresenting views of its scientists in opening fishing grounds off Cape

October 4, 2019 — Without citing its sources, the group told the inspector general of the Commerce Department, which oversees the Fisheries Service, that it has “reason to believe” that there are e-mails, memos, and other internal communications that support their allegations that the agency’s officials were responsible for “blatantly mischaracterizing” the recommendations of its scientists on whether to open 3,000 square miles of popular feeding grounds for right whales to fishermen. The move, made under pressure from the fishing industry, outraged environmental advocates.

“An internal review process would likely reveal a disagreement within the agency, or a failure to take into account the advice of … its own right whale scientists, or true ‘agency expertise,’” Whitehouse wrote.

Officials at the Fisheries Service and the Commerce Department declined to comment on the complaint. An official at the inspector general’s office said he had yet to review the complaint.

Representatives of the scallop industry, which has been allowed to access the newly opened areas and has earned millions of dollars from their catch, said they were operating safely.

“Scallopers have been fishing for years, and there’s not a single known interaction with a right whale,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney at the Fisheries Survival Fund in Washington D.C., which represents the scallop industry. “If we’re not impacting them, then why should we be restricted from the area?”

But scientists say that other fisheries, such as those that use fixed gear like lobster traps, pose a grave threat to right whales. That threat has increased in the waters off Nantucket, where more right whales have been spotted in recent years.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Why It’s So Hard to Build Offshore Wind Power in the U.S.

October 1, 2019 — For years, the mighty wind blowing off the Massachusetts coast has beckoned developers with visions of clean, emission-free electricity. The latest to be seduced, Vineyard Wind LLC, aims to install 84 Statute of Liberty-size turbines about 15 miles off the state’s shoreline, which would together generate enough electricity to power 400,000 homes as soon as 2022.

The project hit a snag in August, when the U.S. Department of the Interior ordered additional analysis of how the wind farm—and potentially 14 others that have been granted leases across almost 1.7 million acres of Atlantic waters—would affect the $1.4 billion fishing industry along the Eastern seaboard. U.S. regulators had sought to fast-track Vineyard Wind and could still sign off on the project by their self-imposed deadline in March, but the additional review is a blow to the companies behind Vineyard Wind, Avangrid Inc. and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which had hoped to begin construction this year.

Analysts predict the U.S. will swiftly catch up with foreign competitors. According to BloombergNEF, even with additional Vineyard Wind scrutiny, the U.S. is on track to become fourth in offshore wind capacity by 2030. The rapid buildout is beyond what anyone expected when Cape Wind was struggling earlier this decade. “There is a gold rush mentality in this right now,” says Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney with the Fisheries Survival Fund, which has battled Equinor’s Empire Wind project. “We’re not saying no. We’re just saying, can we please be wise and realistic in what we are going to develop?”

The Interior Department’s additional environmental scrutiny is critical, Minkiewicz says. Had the government approved Vineyard Wind without deeper analysis of fishing impacts, its opponents would have won an easy victory against it in court. “I get that it’s a renewable energy project, and I get that people are excited about it,” he says, “but would you allow a nuclear reactor or a coal plant to write its own environmental impact statement?”

Read the full story at Bloomberg

NOAA: Another US government shutdown could reduce next Atlantic scallop harvest

February 4, 2019 — Should the US government slide into another partial shutdown on Feb. 15, it’s likely that the harvesters of Atlantic scallops off the coast of New England could be looking at smaller landings, warns an article published in Forbes Magazine.

Michael Pentony, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s administrator for the greater Atlantic region, warned last week that his group was already backed up as a result of the shutdown that was at least temporarily halted after 35 days on Jan. 25 when he briefed the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) at its New Hampshire meeting, as reported by Undercurrent News.

But should president Donald Trump and Democratic party leaders not reach an agreement over his demands for a wall on the Mexican border in 11 days, the shutdown would resume and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) probably wouldn’t be able to make the deadline necessary to implement regulations necessary to increase scallop harvest before the season kicks off on April 1, Forbes warned. That means the earlier default quota would have to be used.

Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund, is quoted as suggesting treating Feb. 15 as if another shutdown was going to happen.

“Get everything that you can get done now,” he said. “Hopefully it’s not going to be a shutdown. But I think it’s foolish to assume it won’t be a shutdown again. We don’t know. Nobody knows.”

But Minkiewicz also was concerned about the next season.

“During the whole 35 days that we’ve been shut down, the government was supposed to be moving (next season’s) package forward. Is that 35-day delay going to not allow us to have that in place for April 1? I don’t know the answer to that yet,” he said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

‘We need to fish’ New Bedford fishermen tell toll of shutdown

January 28, 2019 — Many things fell into place Friday that led to the government reopening, including the words of a New Bedford scalloper in the nation’s capital.

Capt. Jack Morris, director of operations for FV Holdings LLC, spoke on a panel conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as the shutdown prevented one of his vessels from fishing.

“We’re bleeding,” Morris said. “We need to go fishing.”

Hours later, President Donald Trump announced a deal had been struck to reopen the government through Feb. 15.

The shutdown didn’t allow Morris to transfer a license from an out-of-service vessel to a new one.

“It’s a simple application that’s done all the time, and it’s sitting on the desk of the permit office in Gloucester,” Morris said. “There’s nobody at that desk. It’s empty.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Trump rescinds Obama-era ocean policy

June 22, 2018 — In another strike at his predecessor’s legacy, and one that could have long-term consequences for New England, President Trump this week rescinded an executive order by President Obama that established the first national ocean policy, which made protecting coastal waters and the Great Lakes a priority.

Trump said his executive order would cut bureaucracy and benefit business, while environmental advocates denounced his decision, saying it strongly favors commercial interests over conservation.

Trump’s order could alter New England’s plans to protect the Gulf of Maine and other waters in the region. It replaces the National Ocean Council, which brought together a host of federal departments and committees that work on ocean issues, with a new “streamlined” committee that will focus on science and technology and resource management.

It will also eliminate nine regional planning bodies around the country, which the White House called “unnecessary.”

“Claims that the ocean is being abandoned are not supported by the facts,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney at the Fisheries Survival Fund in Washington, D.C., which represents the scallops industry.

He supported the elimination of the regional planning bodies, which he argued had failed in its mission to bring together competing interests, such as offshore wind-farm developers and fishermen, who have been at odds over plans to build turbines off Martha’s Vineyard.

Eliminating the groups “will not lead to less coordination amongst the federal government because they were not doing their stated job,” he said.

Officials at the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents offshore drilling and wind companies, praised Trump’s order, saying Obama’s policies were “uber-bureaucratic” and “caused consternation, uncertainty, and concern for the offshore energy industry.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Pentony steps into NOAA’s top Atlantic post with much underway

January 15, 2018 — Michael Pentony, John Bullard’s successor as administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Greater Atlantic region, is a “straight shooter,” who works toward “yes,” and has a lot of experience on fisheries management issues, sources tell Undercurrent News.

NOAA ended months of speculation on Thursday when it announced that Pentony, a long-time NOAA staffer and also a one-time member of the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) staff, was its pick to lead all fishery policy making in the 100,000 square mile long region that stretches from the state of Maine to Cape Hatteras, in North Carolina, and the Great Lakes.

“Michael’s deep experience in every aspect of sustainable fisheries management, both commercial and recreational, positions him perfectly for this job. He is going to hit the ground running,” assured Chris Oliver, director of NOAA Fisheries, in a statement announcing the decision.

Bullard announced his retirement back in July, ending a nearly six-year rein in the region’s top spot, which comes with an office in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and beginning the agency’s search for a replacement. He said at the time that he had a long list of chores to complete before he could finish, most of which he took on during a recent flurry of activity at the agency.

However, Bullard left quite a few big matters for Pentony to finish up.

Pentony, who is set to assume his new role on January 22, enters his new job at the end of an eventful period, including the prosecution and sentencing of the owner of New England’s largest fishing operation, Carlos Rafael.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Fishing officials ease restrictions in waters off New England

January 8, 2018 — After 15 years of research and deliberation, federal fishing officials this week approved a landmark set of regulations that will open a large swath of the region’s waters to fishing while maintaining other closures to protect vulnerable species.

The opening of one area east of Nantucket, closed since the 1990s, could be extremely lucrative, allowing fishermen to catch as much as $160 million worth of additional scallops in the coming fishing season, regulators estimate.

“The scallop industry is thrilled to be able to access significant scallop beds,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney at the Fisheries Survival Fund in Washington D.C., which represents the scallop industry. “Allowing rotational scallop fishing on these areas will increase the scallop fishery revenue in the short term and in the long run.”

Yet many in the industry had hoped that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would go further.

Minkiewicz and others objected to the decision to maintain the ban on fishing on the northern edge of Georges Bank, where there are significant amounts of scallops but also vulnerable species such as juvenile cod.

Minkiewicz said the industry would continue to press NOAA to reconsider opening those fishing grounds.

“The scallop industry respectfully disagrees with [NOAA’s] conclusion that allowing limited scallop fishing [there] . . . was not consistent with the law,” he said.

NOAA officials said that opening such areas could be harmful to some fish.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

NOAA decision could trigger largest scallop harvest in 14 years

December 12, 2017 — What the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decides next to do about areas off the coast of New England that’ve been closed to scallop fishing for a decade or more could be the difference between another good season and a 14-year record in terms of harvest volumes.

Based on earlier surveys and estimates made by staff at the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC), the 2018-19 scallop season, which starts April 1, will generate at least 51.5 million pounds worth of landings – a little better than the roughly 47.5m lbs expected this season.

But it could also generate as much as 60m lbs, which would be the biggest harvest since the 2004-05 season when 64.6m lbs of scallops were landed.

One of the most important factors will be whether NOAA follows NEFMC’s recommendations and opens the Closed Area 1 “sliver” of the Georges Bank and also an area described as Nantucket Lightship West.

Based on surveys reported in September, Closed Area 1 contains 19.8m lbs (9,016 metric tons) of exploitable scallop meat, meaning a lot of scallops were found with shells at the minimum 4 inch-wide diameter needed to be caught in dredging nets. Even better, as much as 45.6m lbs (20,670t) of exploitable scallop meat is projected to exist in the western portion of the Nantucket Lightship area.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News