February 8, 2019 — Fishermen of an important species of lobster bait will have to contend with a deep cut in quota this year due to concerns about the fish’s population.
Atlantic herring are the source of a major fishery on the East Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Thursday that it’s cutting this year’s herring quota from nearly 110 million pounds to about 33 million pounds.
February 7, 2018 — Atlantic coast states might be protesting President Trump’s plan to expand offshore oil drilling, but they’re increasingly embracing a different kind of seaborne energy: wind.
States bordering the outer continental shelf are looking for carbon-free electricity, even as the Trump administration rolls back rules requiring it.
Last week, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) announced that his state will aim for 3,500 megawatts of installed offshore wind by 2030, enough to power 1 million homes. Massachusetts has a goal to build 1,600 MW of offshore wind power by 2027, and New York has committed to 2,400 MW by 2030.
At the same time, wind technology is quickly advancing, thanks to its popularity in Europe. Ten countries across Europe had deployed 12,600 MW of offshore wind power by the end of 2016. In the United States, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has issued 13 wind energy leases off the Atlantic coast. In late 2016, the first offshore wind farm in the United States came online about 4 miles off the coast of Block Island, R.I.
It’s unclear how the growth in offshore wind might be affected by Trump’s plan to open nearly all U.S. waters to oil and gas drilling.
But there are hints that the two types of development could come into contact on the open water.
According to BOEM’s draft proposed 2019-24 offshore oil and gas leasing plan, any drilling off the Atlantic Seaboard would have to be “coordinated” with current and future offshore wind development. The agency predicts that more wind projects are likely to be built between 2019 and 2024, when oil and gas lease sales are slated to be held.
Experts said it’s unlikely there would be direct competition for the same slice of ocean between the two industries. But that’s a hard question to answer.
Kevin Book, managing director of research for ClearView Energy Partners LLC, said it’s too early to know how offshore wind and oil and gas development might interact off the East Coast. Historically, offshore wind has been a nascent industry, and no one has drilled for oil in the Atlantic for decades. It’s been so long that developers have little idea what type of oil reserves lie under the sea, or if oil companies will want to tap them.
Read the full story from Scientific American/E&E news at IEEFA
January 9, 2018 — BOSTON — The state’s environment, tourism and fishing industry could be threatened by President Donald Trump’s plan to open up more coastal areas to offshore drilling, according to U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, who said the proposal puts “nearly every single mile of coastline in the United States in the crosshairs of an oil spill.”
“Nothing is sacred,” Markey told reporters from the Kennedy Federal Building. “All of the United States is going to be open for the oil industry to be able to drill. That is something that the American people will want to have resolved on the floor of the House and Senate, and that is something that I am going to guarantee him that he will see. This is going to be a huge fight across our country.”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday announced a proposal that would make more than 90 percent of the national outer continental shelf available for oil and gas exploration. Currently, 94 percent of federal offshore acreage is off-limits, according to the American Petroleum Institute.
The 380-page draft plan includes a note that Gov. Charlie Baker does not “support inclusion of areas adjacent to Massachusetts,” and Attorney General Maura Healey “strongly opposes opening up any of the Atlantic or any other new areas to oil and gas leasing.”
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management estimates there are 89.9 billion barrels of oil and 327.5 trillion cubic feet of gas that have yet to be discovered on the outer continental shelf, including 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 38.2 cubic feet in the Atlantic portion of the shelf.
According to the American Petroleum Institute, Atlantic oil and natural gas development could deliver $51 billion in new government revenue, nearly 280,000 jobs and 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent per day for domestic energy production by 2035.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Times
January 8, 2018 — SCARBOROUGH, Maine — Fishing regulators are holding public hearings about potential changes to lobster and crab fishing rules in states up and down the East Coast.
The interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says the proposed rules are designed to improve harvest reporting and data collection about lobsters and Jonah crabs. They would include using new reporting technology and expanding the collection of data.
Fishermen have set records for the volume of the lobster catch in recent years. The first hearing is scheduled for Monday in Wall Township, New Jersey.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times
January 2, 2018 — RALEIGH, N.C. — The state Division of Coastal Management (DCM) has asked four companies to submit more information about proposed seismic testing for offshore oil and gas because the original proposals did not consider the latest scientific studies on the harmful effects to marine life.
According to a press release from the division, documentation to show that the companies’ plans are consistent with state coastal management rules were submitted and approved in 2015.
However, the administration of then-President Barack Obama did not approve the testing, and removed waters off North Carolina and the rest of the East Coast from the offshore drilling plan for 2017-22.
Many local governments along the coast, including Emerald Isle, Morehead City, Atlantic Beach and Beaufort, had urged the president not to OK testing and drilling.
Since then, however, President Donald Trump has restarted the process and directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to develop a new offshore drilling plan, expanding the years it would be valid.
According to the DCM release, additional seismic studies have since been conducted and suggest that shipboard seismic airgun arrays can significantly affect marine life.
Spectrum Geo Inc., GX Technology, MCNV Marine North America and TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co. all want permission to tow arrays of the airguns behind ships, sending pulses to the ocean floor to locate oil and gas deposits.
DCM sent the companies letters requiring more information supporting their position that the plans meet state coastal policies.
Southport resident Randy Sturgill, who helped coordinate local and statewide anti-drilling-and-testing opposition efforts in North Carolina for Oceana, an international conservation group, said Friday it was good to see that the state “has its finger on the pulse,” not only on state residents’ feelings about offshore seismic testing and oil and gas drilling, but also on the latest science about the testing.
Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times
November 17, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Interstate fishing regulators are holding a series of hearings on the East Coast about a plan to improve data collection in the lobster fishery.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is holding the hearings in January. The commission says it wants to improve harvest reporting and biological data collection to better inform fishing regulations.
The hearings and potential rule changes also apply to the Jonah crab fishery. Changes could include use of new reporting technology.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bradenton Herald
November 14, 2017 — PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The federal government is shutting down fishing of a popular species of flatfish in Rhode Island for the rest of the year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says boats fishing under a federal permit for summer flounder may no longer bring the fish to shore in Rhode Island. The shutdown went into effect early Tuesday morning and will last until the end of the year.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Connecticut Post
November 14, 2017 — CAPE MAY, N.J. — Federal fishing regulators are considering requiring more commercial fishermen to assist with a program that seeks to protect sea turtles.
The National Marine Fisheries Service requires observers to be placed on fishing boats in some fisheries to collect data that help with minimization of harm to turtles. The service says it wants to include a group of mid-Atlantic fisheries to the program next year because of the need to collect more data about accidental catch of sea turtles.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at WSOCTV
November 13, 2017 — KENT ISLAND, Md. — Tony Friedrich sped toward Tilghman Point in the Chesapeake Bay in his 25-foot fishing boat. He was searching for striped bass, a prized catch for recreational anglers. Scanning the horizon, he noted the dark oil patches, swooping gulls and the smell of “death and watermelon” — the telltale signs of menhaden, an oily fish that striped bass “eat like Snickers bars.” Where there is menhaden, Friedrich will find striped bass.
Friedrich turned toward East Bay, seeking protection from the southeast winds. Menhaden swim to the surface in large schools to feed on phytoplankton if there aren’t any whitecaps — foamy surface waves caused by the winds, he said. Friedrich has always been amazed by the scene. The hundreds of menhaden that slap the water’s surface. The birds that dive bomb, snatching the small fish in their beaks. The predators — striped bass, weakfish and bluefish — that lurk in the depths to ambush the school from below.
Sometimes called bunker, pogy, or baitfish, fishermen like Friedrich know menhaden well. Although he doesn’t angle for menhaden, they are critical for the food web and support the largest East Coast commercial fishery. That is why the debate over their survival has reached a fever pitch.
Hundreds are expected to gather in Baltimore Monday as interstate regulators make a landmark decision for menhaden, and possibly, all Atlantic fisheries. Menhaden went largely unmanaged for decades, and the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission will potentially move to reinforce protections for the species and the ecosystem they support.
The commission accepted public comments from August to October and received 158,106. Commercial bait and reduction fishers, conservation organizations and recreational anglers are all weighing in on the decision.
The deliberation comes as some marine species that rely on menhaden like striped bass, and weakfish are in steep decline. Menhaden populations saw sharp drops in the late 1960s and again in the late 1990s. But their numbers leveled off 15 years ago, and began to rebound after the ASMFC set the first coastwide catch limit in 2013. Now, the commission is taking a new, and possibly historic, perspective on fish management by considering how the health of one species — menhaden — influences the numbers of others, in this case predators like striped bass and weakfish.
“When [menhaden] are not abundant, everything collapses,” Friedrich said. “We have to do what’s right.”
But there are many opinions on what is right. On Monday, the ASMFC will choose between five options, ranging from dramatic reductions in the allocation and catch limit to no change at all.
Read the full story at PBS News Hour
October 27, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — Interstate fishery regulators will soon begin work on a new effort to get a handle on the population health of horseshoe crabs on the East Coast.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says its assessment of the horseshoe crab stock will begin this month.
Horseshoe crabs are economically important in part because of their role in medicine. They are harvested for their blue blood, which is used to make sure medical products aren’t contaminated. Horseshoe crab blood contains a chemical that is used to detect bacteria.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post