Saving Seafood

US spending bills include millions for seafood-related initiatives

July 30, 2021 — Washington, D.C., U.S.A was a busy place Thursday, 29 July, as lawmakers in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate passed large appropriation bills, both of which included seafood-related line-items and initiatives.

In the House, a package of seven spending bills passed by a 219-208 vote. The appropriations package included funding for such agencies as the Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration and Department of Interior. Among the projects in the bill is a USD 6 million (EUR 5.1 million) initiative secured by Louisiana U.S. Reps. Garret Graves (R), Steve Scalise (R), and Troy Carter (D) that would redirect dredged sediment to coastal restoration projects in the state instead of having it dumped in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Chesapeake Bay’s ‘dead zone’ to be smaller this summer, researchers say

June 30, 2021 — The Chesapeake Bay’s “dead zone,” the oxygen-starved blob of water that waxes and wanes each summer, is forecast to be smaller than average for a second consecutive year.

A consortium of research institutions announced June 23 that it expects the volume of this year’s dead zone to be 14% lower than average. In 2020, the zone was smaller than 80% of those monitored since surveying began in 1985.

The size of the summer dead zone is driven largely by how much excess nutrients flow off lawns and agricultural fields into the Bay during the preceding January to May, researchers say. Those nutrients — nitrogen and phosphorus — fuel explosive algae growth, triggering a chemical reaction that robs the water of oxygen as it dies back. The area is dubbed a “dead zone” because of the lack of life found within it.

This year, those first five months were slightly drier than usual, causing river flows entering the Bay to be 13% below average. As a result, the Chesapeake received 19% less nitrogen pollution compared with the long-term average at monitoring stations along nine major tributaries.

Efforts to curb nutrient pollution in the Bay’s 64,000-square-mile watershed also appear to have played a role in shrinking this year’s dead zone, scientists say. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has joined with Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia to implement a “pollution diet” for the Bay and its tributaries by 2025.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Ninth Circuit Revives Fight Over Mining Plans in Pristine Alaskan Bay

June 18, 2021 — Home to the greatest wild salmon fisheries in the world, Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska also lies near prized natural resources long sought by a mining enterprise. To protect the pristine Alaskan frontier, the Obama administration’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sought to restrict a proposed mining operation in 2014 — a move later dumped by the Trump administration.

Conservationists sued, but a federal judge found the Trump EPA’s decision unreviewable and dismissed the case.

On Thursday, a Ninth Circuit panel ordered the case remanded to determine if the EPA’s about-face was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or contrary” to federal law.

The legal history surrounding this pristine slice of Alaskan wilderness stretches back to 2014, when the EPA announced it would seek to restrict mining operations in Bristol Bay under the authority of the Clean Water Act. The proposed Pebble Mine operation would extract copper, gold and other minerals and would be the largest of its kind in North America. The operation’s toxic waste pits could sit at the headwaters to Bristol Bay, and any type of collapse would likely contaminate the region’s watershed.

But in 2019 the Trump EPA withdrew its proposed determination. Several lawsuits followed including a complaint filed by Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit advocacy group, in the District of Alaska. The group challenged the agency’s withdrawal decision as a violation of the Clean Water Act and the implementing regulations.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Pebble: Appeals Court revives case challenging EPA’s removal of watershed protection

June 18, 2021 — A panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a lawsuit aimed at blocking construction of the Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska.

The lawsuit, filed by environmental groups, tribes and other mine opponents, challenged a 2019 Environmental Protection Agency decision to remove protection for the Bristol Bay watershed.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason ruled last year courts could not review the decision because the Clean Water Act did not specify what legal standard applied. The appeals panel agreed the law did not include that standard — but said EPA’s regulations do.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Tongass and Bristol Bay protection can help Biden meet new climate goal, fishing and conservation advocates say

May 10, 2021 — The Biden administration issued a conservation plan Thursday called “America the Beautiful.”

At 22 pages, it’s more of a statement of principles. The centerpiece is a goal of conserving 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030, in part to combat climate change.

Republicans in Congress immediately criticized it as vague and an attempt to lock up natural resources.

Meanwhile, conservation groups are eyeing parts of Alaska they’d like to see protected. Their eyes are on salmon.

“It’s hard to think of two better candidates than the Tongass in Southeast Alaska and Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska,” said Tim Bristol, executive director of Salmon State.

He said conservation measures in the Tongass and Bristol Bay would protect fish, wildlife and save thousands of jobs which depend on renewable resources.

Read the full story at KTOO

Communities, companies taking steps to get COVID vaccine to seafood industry workers

April 2, 2021 — Later this month, an old U.S. Environmental Protection Agency facility on the waterfront in New Bedford, Massachusetts, will be teeming with seafood industry workers taking the next step toward the industry’s – and the nation’s – recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thanks to nearly USD 4 million (EUR 3.4 million) in funds from the recently enacted American Rescue Plan, the facility will become a COVID-19 vaccination site. A release from the city indicates it will handle up to 125 inoculations an hour and potentially up to 1,000 people daily, and the focus will be on fishermen and others in the commercial seafood industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: Sen. Warren returns to New Bedford, touting $3.9M for waterfront vaccines

April 1, 2021 — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren made her first visit to New Bedford in more than two years on Wednesday, touring a new federally funded vaccination center and expressing gratitude to essential workers in the food sector.

Warren joined Mayor Jon Mitchell to inspect a waterfront building that the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center is turning into a vaccination site designed to serve employees in the nearby fish processing plants. It will begin offering Johnson & Johnson doses on April 10.

“This center is about protecting our essential workers,” Warren said. “It is about treating our fishermen with respect. It is about treating our food workers with respect.”

The Community Health Center has received a $3.9 million grant under the newly enacted American Rescue Plan Act that will help cover the cost of the vaccination site. The building where the shots will be administered is on Hervey Tichon Avenue, and was recently given to the city by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which had been using it for the Superfund cleanup of New Bedford Harbor.

“This center is a way of saying thank you, and opening up vaccinations so they are here, for the people who have been here for the rest of America over the past year,” Warren said.

Read the full story at WPRI

Alaska Fishermen Support Regan’s Confirmation as EPA Administrator and Murkowski’s Endorsement

March 12, 2021 — Yesterday’s confirmation of Michael Regan to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was hailed as a win for Alaska’s fishermen, due in part to EPA’s pivotal authority over Pebble Mine.

The Salmon Habitat Information Program (SHIP) issued a statement yesterday praising the bipartisan support of his confirmation. The vote was 66 – 34 in the Senate.

Read the full story at Seafood News

ROBERT VANDERMARK & LINDSAY LAYLAND: United we stand against Pebble Mine

March 10, 2021 — President Joe Biden has the perfect opportunity to make good on his promise to unite our ideologically fractured country by moving quickly to preserve Bristol Bay, Alaska, one of our nation’s greatest natural and cultural treasures. Bipartisan support for this issue makes it a popular and easy win early in his presidency. And on top of that, protecting Bristol Bay supports thousands of American jobs and promotes food security both domestically and internationally during these difficult times.

Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of a Canadian mineral exploration and development company, is seeking to extract copper, gold, and molybdenum from Bristol Bay, which could permanently damage more than 100 miles of rivers and streams and 2,200 acres of wetlands in the surrounding area.

The Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and independent technical experts have all determined that even without an accident or a catastrophic event, the Pebble Mine would destroy critical fish habitat and aquatic resources in the near pristine watershed. Bristol Bay needs federal protection to forever preserve this unique ecosystem from the potential harm this mine would inflict.

Wildlife from belugas to eagles to brown bears inhabits this region, but the economic and cultural heart of this area is salmon. Bristol Bay’s annual wild sockeye salmon runs are the largest on Earth. The area supports a $1.5 billion annual commercial fishery, creates 14,000 jobs in fishing and tourism, and produces more than half of the world’s supply of wild sockeye.

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman