Earthjustice Archives - Page 2 of 3

Hawaii Longline Swordfish Fishery Closed for Rest of Year; Industry Helped Negotiate Closure

May 15, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — In the ups and downs of the Hawaiian swordfish fishery, the recent May 8 closure for the rest of the year was no surprise to the industry. Longliners worked with the National Marine Fisheries Service and plaintiffs of a recent lawsuit to comply with a court order.

The Turtle Island Restoration Network, Center for Biological Diversity and Earthjustice originally sued the Department of Commerce over a 2012 biological opinion that allowed the shallow set longline fishery to take a certain number of loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles every year. The U.S. District Court of Hawaii ruled in NMFS’ favor, so the ENGOs appealed. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a split decision on Dec. 27, 2017, affirming the BiOp regarding leatherback sea turtles, but not for loggerhead turtles. The Hawaii Longline Association, which filed as interveners, were party to the settlement negotiations with the plaintiffs and NMFS, which were outlined in a May 4, 2018 agreement and court order. The result for 2018 was closure for the rest of the year.

While ENGOs are cheering the outcome as a victory for sea turtles, it’s somewhat of a pyrrhic victory and does more to promote an agenda for the plaintiffs rather than have any actual effect this year.

“The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is supposed to be protecting our wildlife, has instead been illegally helping the longliners push sea turtles to the brink of extinction,” Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff said in a press release. “We won’t allow it.”

The main swordfish season usually takes place in the winter, with most landings occurring by the end of March. This year was an anomaly, Hawaii Longline Association President Sean Martin said, in that the fishery reached its annual limit of turtle interactions in January, so the fleet was already done with swordfish for the year.

“We’re on the tail end of what would be the prime season anyway,” Martin said.

The fishery will open again on Jan. 1, 2019, no matter what, Martin said. Since the court vacated the 2012 biological opinion, NMFS is working on a new one. The agency could come back with a new incidental take statement for next year’s fishing season. Or, if the BiOp and corresponding take statement are not finished by Jan. 1, the fishery will open under an incidental take allowance approved by an earlier BiOp that allowed roughly half the number of turtle interactions as the 2012 BiOp.

Federal officials note the loggerhead turtles already show signs of recovery due to a history of better management measures, such as circle hooks and using mackerel for bait — squid bait is prohibited –has proven immensely effective worldwide. Most turtles caught in the fishery are released alive.

Those measures and more, implemented in the early 2000s, reduced sea turtle interactions in the fishery by 93 percent, the Council said. Observer coverage is 100 percent; all vessel owners and operators annually attend mandatory protected species workshops; all longline vessels are required to carry specified tools to safely remove hooks and lines from the turtles and to follow safe handling, resuscitation and release procedures; vessels are monitored through a mandatory satellite-based vessel monitoring system; and longline closed areas from 0 to 50 nautical miles of the main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have existed since the early 1990s.

“The record of 99 percent live releases, only two mortalities in 24 years and increasing loggerhead abundance over the past two decades underscore the management success of the Hawaii shallow-set longline fishery,” Council Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds said in a press release.

Martin said most of the 30 or so longline vessels will instead turn to the deep-set longline fishery for the remainder of the year, targeting tunas.

This story originally appeared in Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

Hawaii swordfish industry shut down to protect endangered turtles

May 11, 2018 — A federal court order to protect endangered loggerhead sea turtles has forced the National Marine Fisheries Service to immediately close the shallow-set longline fishery in Hawaii for the rest of the year.

A 2012 lawsuit filed by the Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Center for Biological Diversity, represented by the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice, was rejected in a Hawaii district court but they eventually won a split decision on appeal in December.

The parties reached an agreement Friday to settle the case. It included an immediate shutdown of the shallow-set longline fishery, which targets swordfish. NMFS implemented the closure Thursday.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Scott Pruitt pushes back on finding that would restrict pesticides’ use to protect fish

February 5, 2018 — For months, chemical companies have waged a campaign to reverse findings by federal fisheries scientists that could curb the use of pesticides based on the threat they pose to endangered species. They scored a major victory this week, when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced he would press another federal agency to revisit a recent opinion triggering such restrictions.

The struggle over an arcane provision of the Endangered Species Act, in which the EPA must affirm that the pesticides it oversees do not put species’ survival in jeopardy, has become the latest front in the battle over a broad-spectrum insecticide known as chlorpyrifos. Pruitt denied a petition to ban its agricultural use after questioning EPA scientists’ conclusions that exposure impedes brain development in infants and fetuses.

Speaking to the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture on Wednesday, Pruitt said he plans to inform the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Fisheries Service “that there needs to be a consultation because we have usage data, frankly, that wasn’t considered.”

NOAA Fisheries issued a Biological Opinion on Dec. 29, which was publicly released Jan. 9 by the environmental law firm Earthjustice, finding that the current use of chlorpyrifos and malathion “is likely to jeopardize the continued existence” of 38 species of salmon and other fish in the Pacific Northwest and destroy or harm the designated critical habitat of 37 of those species. It found another pesticide, diazinon, could jeopardize the continued existence of 25 listed fish species and could harm critical habitat for 18 of them.

In allowing chlorpyrifos to stay on the market — the product is already prohibited for household products — Pruitt cited concerns raised by the Department of Agriculture, pesticide industry groups and an EPA scientific review panel about studies the agency used to conclude that the pesticide poses a serious enough neurological risk to ban its use on dozens of crops. One study, by researchers at Columbia University, found a connection between higher exposure levels to chlorpyrifos and learning and memory problems among farmworkers and children.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Red Snapper’s Overfishing Threat Triggers Records Suit

January 25, 2018 — BALTIMORE — Worried about regulatory changes that will exacerbate overfishing of red snapper, conservationists claim in a federal complaint that the Trump administration is stonewalling their records request.

Represented by Earthjustice, the nonprofit group Ocean Conservancy says it invoked the Freedom of Information Act on June 19, 2017 — the same day that the red snapper fishing season was expanded for private anglers in the Gulf of Mexico to 42 days, up from just three.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “admitted that the action would cause the private recreational fishing sector to substantially exceed the annual catch limit set for that sector and delay rebuilding for the overfished population of red snapper, in violation of a number of statutes,” the complaint states.

Ocean Conservancy says it wants access to the agencies’ records about the rule change so that it can understand why the rule was adopted and inform the public.

“The government has an obligation to the citizens of this country to manage our shared public resources in a transparent way, and it is unacceptable for them to withhold that information from us,” Meredith Moore, director of fish conservation at Ocean Conservancy, said in a statement on the group’s website. “By all indications, the red snapper decision was a politically motivated action that ignored science, contrary to the law. Their decision will cause long-term damage to the fishermen and communities that depend on this economically and ecologically important fishery.

Neither the NOAA nor NMFS has responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Read the full story at Courthouse News

Oceana wins lawsuit against feds over anchovy quota.

January 22, 2018 — Anchovies may have fallen out of fashion as a food for humans, but they are a key food source for whales, dolphins, pelicans and a host of other creatures that make Monterey Bay one of the richest marine ecosystems in the world.

And Jan. 18, that ecosystem scored a huge victory: Oceana, a marine environmental nonprofit, and Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit that represented Oceana, won a lawsuit in the U.S District Court Northern District of California against the federal government. Their argument: that the National Marine Fisheries Service set the anchovy catch limit off the California coast at illegally high levels in October 2016.

The crux of Oceana’s case was this: In October 2016, NMFS set the catch limit at 25,000 metric tons annually for the California subpopulation of anchovies when the latest available science suggested the total biomass of that population was between 15,000-32,000 metric tons.

In other words, the annual catch limit was set within the estimated range of the total population.

Read the full story at the Monterey County Weekly

Saving Seafood covered Oceana’s legal challenge in a story posted November 29, 2016. It’s available here.

The full ruling is available here.

The following was released today by Oceana:

MONTEREY, Calif. — In response to a lawsuit brought by Oceana, as represented by Earthjustice, a federal judge struck down a decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service (Fisheries Service) to set a 25,000 metric ton (mt) catch level for the central population of northern anchovy for violating the nation’s fishery management law. The court rejected the Service’s reliance on decades-old data to manage this fishery off the California coast. The court found that the government’s annual catch limit was not based on the best scientific information available, and that the Fisheries Service did not adequately consider whether its management prevented overfishing. Instead of basing catch limits on the most recent scientific data showing that the anchovy population had reached a historic low of less than 32,000 mt, the Fisheries Service set the limits based on pre-1990s population estimates assuming a population of more than 733,000 mt.

“The law is clear: the agency can’t sweep inconvenient facts under the rug and rely on a bureaucratic preference to “set it and forget it” for the most ecologically critical fish on the West Coast,” said Andrea Treece, Staff attorney for Earthjustice. “The agency must develop modern, reality-based management measures that reflect the actual status of the anchovy population and ensure that enough of them stay in the ocean to feed pelicans, sea lions, salmon, and other marine predators.”

“This decision holds the Fisheries Service to fundamental standards intended by Congress, which require the government to sustainably manage our nation’s fisheries for the benefit of both fishermen and dependent species,” added Mariel Combs, Pacific Counsel for Oceana.

The decision strikes down the rule currently in place. Now the agency must promulgate new management limits based on the best available science.

“This decision is a huge victory for the ocean’s little fish, and in turn the larger fish and wildlife, that depend upon them,” said Geoff Shester, California campaign director and senior scientist for Oceana. “An abundant anchovy population also supports California’s coastal economy including sport fishing and whale watching. The court delivered an important win for science, marking a turning point that will force fishery managers to safeguard some of the most important fish in the sea.”

Coast Guard on the Hook in Killer Whale Lawsuit

January 19, 2018 — SEATTLE — The Coast Guard must face claims by two Northwest tribes that a plan for oil tanker traffic threatens the habitat of southern resident killer whales, a federal judge ruled this week.

The Tulalip and Suquamish Tribes sued the Coast Guard last year over its adoption of a traffic-separation plan off the coast of Washington state.

The tribes say the Coast Guard did not consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service before adopting the plan. The “seven-fold increase” in oil tanker traffic en route to Canada threatens the southern resident killer whales, according to the lawsuit.

That particular group of killer whales, also called orcas, is the only population of killer whales protected under the Endangered Species Act.

There are fewer than 80 orcas in the population, and they spend a large part of each year in the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Georgia Strait.

The tribes sought a court order requiring the Coast Guard to consult with the Fisheries Service on a new shipping traffic plan, with permanent measures to “ensure against jeopardy, prevent adverse modification of critical habitat, and minimize incidental take.”

“Killer whales are revered by our people. They are part of our ancestral marine ecology and continue to be very important to our culture. They now face their biggest threat to date: the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline,” Marie Zackuse, Tulalip Tribes chairwoman, said last year.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

2018 will be good year for clam chowder, Bumble Bee, thanks to NOAA moves

January 9, 2018 — The makers and fans of New England clam chowder, including Bumble Bee Seafood, can feel confident that the kind of mollusk most often used to make the soup — ocean quahogs — will be in ample supply in 2018 thanks to two moves made recently by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Ocean conservationists, however, are not breaking out their party hats and noisemakers.

When John Bullard, NOAA’s northeast regional administrator, informed the New England Fishery Management Council last week that the agency will authorize the majority of NEFMC’s Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment 2 (OA2), many focused on the positive ramifications for scallop harvesters.

But NOAA’s approval of the council’s new plan for balancing the conservation of different sea life with the concerns of local fishermen also came with good news for harvesters of ocean quahogs and surf clams. Bullard informed NEFMC that his agency also agrees with its suggestion to provide a one-year exemption for clam harvesters to prohibitions against the controversial use of hydraulic dredging gear in the Great South Channel habitat management area (HMA), a deep-water passage that cuts between Nantucket and Georges Bank.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Hawaii: More Tuna For Hawaii Fishing Boats In 2018

December 27, 2017 — Hawaii’s longline fishermen didn’t get everything they were hoping for at the most recent annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, an international body that sets tuna catch limits for the U.S., several Asian countries and small island developing states.

But they did come out of the weeklong meeting in the Philippines with an agreement that will let the Honolulu-based fleet fish for an additional 400 tons of bigeye in 2018. Their quota next year will be about 3,500 tons, the same level as 2016.

Eric Kingma of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, a quasi-governmental body that manages 1.5 million square miles of U.S. waters, described the new catch limit as “suboptimal” for the roughly 140 longline vessels in Hawaii that target bigeye tuna for fresh sashimi markets and restaurants.

He said the measure does recognize the financial arrangements that Hawaii’s longliners have had the past few years with three U.S. Pacific island territories to extend their catch by up to 3,000 tons. The deals involve paying $250,000 into a fisheries development fund managed by Wespac in exchange for the ability to fish for an additional 1,000 tons and attribute it to that territory.

In 2017, the U.S. longline fleet hit its annual limit of 3,138 tons within the first eight months of the season, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service. The fishermen then caught an additional 1,000 tons by the first week of December that they attributed to the Northern Marianas and have continued fishing for another 1,000 tons under their agreement with American Samoa. There is a similar arrangement with Guam should they need it, but that doesn’t seem necessary this year.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

House Natural Resources Committee Passes Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization

December 13, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources passed H.R. 200, the “Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act.” Introduced by Chairman Emeritus Don Young (R-AK), the bill reauthorizes and modernizes the Magnuson-Stevens Act by implementing regional flexibility, tailored management practices and improved data collection for America’s federal fisheries.

“It has been 11 years since the Magnuson-Stevens Act was reauthorized and when we first passed this law, we saw tremendous success for the fisheries nationwide. Alaska is considered the gold standard of fisheries management and this industry is crucial to our local economy. I am proud to see my bill pass out of Committee today. This legislation will improve the management process by allowing regional fisheries to develop plans that match the needs of their area. Ultimately, this bill updates the Magnuson-Stevens Act to ensure a proper balance between the biological needs of fish stocks and the economic needs of fishermen and coastal communities,” Rep. Young stated.

“America’s fisheries are governed by an outdated regulatory scheme and inflexible decrees imposed by distant bureaucrats. Fishermen and biologists on the ground should be partners in the formation of management plans, not powerless onlookers,” Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) said. “This bill provides flexibility so we can better meet local needs, expand economic activity and conserve ecosystems. Rep. Young has delivered a win for local management and I look forward to moving this bill through the chambers in the coming year.”

Click here to learn more about the bill.

The following was released by the Democrats of the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today highlighted the broad-based economic and environmental opposition to H.R. 200, today’s highly partisan rewrite of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which governs fisheries and fishing quotas across U.S. waters. The GOP bill is opposed by the Seafood Harvesters of America and a wide swathe of restaurants and individual commercial fisherman and by dozens of environmental groups, including the Alaska Wilderness League, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Audubon Society, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ocean Conservancy and the Wilderness Society.

Opponents of the Republican bill have written a barrage of letters to Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and other Republican leaders, including Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), who chairs the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans, urging them to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act and abandon today’s bill, which was written by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) on highly partisan lines. The letters are available at http://bit.ly/2nYuEin.

“Republicans’ plan is to deregulate our oceans and fish everywhere until there’s nothing left, and we’re not going to let that happen,” Grijalva said today. “Ocean management is about sustainable use and enjoyment, not just making environmentalists unhappy. Like most of the bills advanced by the leadership of this Committee, this bill is extreme and has no future in the Senate. Until my counterparts decide to take the issues in our jurisdiction more seriously, we’re going to keep wasting time on unpopular bills that have no chance of becoming law.”

Grijalva also underscored the deep opposition to H.R. 3588, Rep. Garret Graves’ (R-La.) bill deregulating red snapper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Many letter-writers who oppose H.R. 200 also oppose Graves’ effort, which an alliance of chefs and restaurateurs noted in a Nov. 7 letter “could inadvertently result in significant overfishing and deprive our customers of one of their favorite fish.”

Papahanaumokuakea Review Spurs Tension With Conservation Groups, Fisheries

June 28, 2017 — President Donald Trump’s targeting of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the northwest Hawaiian Islands for national review has revived a lopsided debate between Native Hawaiians, senators, scientists and conservation groups in favor of the monument’s designation, and an activist fishery council mainly concerned with “maximizing longline yields.”

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council vocally opposed the monument’s expansion in 2016 during a public comment process, communicating that to the White House under the leadership of Executive Director Kitty Simonds. Simonds’ PowerPoint presentation at a recent Council Coordination Committee meeting detailed other monument areas in the Pacific under review, including the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll, explicitly criticizing the designations as an abuse of the Antiquities Act. The PowerPoint concludes, “Make America great again. Return U.S. fishermen to U.S. waters.”

Established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Acts of 1976 and 1996, WESPAC is charged with reporting its recommendations for preventing overfishing and protecting fish stocks and habitat to the Commerce Department.

While WESPAC International Fisheries Enforcement and National Environmental Policy Act coordinator Eric Kingma believe that WESPAC’s communications with the president fall within the agency’s purview of advising the executive branch, others, including Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff, consider the comments an illegal “lobby to expand WESPAC turf” and shape public policy.

WESPAC argues that monument expansion hampers longline fishermen from feeding Hawaii, which imports roughly 60 percent of the fish it eats. Pro-expansion groups such as Expand Papahanaumokuakea point out that only 5 percent of longliner take came from the monument; that longliners have recently reached their quota by summer, then resorted to buying unused blocks from other fleets; and that much of the longliners’ take, including sashimi-grade bigeye tuna, is sold at auction to the mainland U.S., as well as to Japanese and other foreign buyers. The bigeye tuna catch, moreover, has been trending upward every year since the first year of logbook monitoring in 1991. In 2014, the Hawaii longline fleet caught a record 216,897 bigeye tuna, up 12 percent from 2013.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service