Saving Seafood

Rally on Rewind: Pebble Mine fight carries on

January 26, 2022 — Eight years ago this week, representatives of Bristol Bay Tribes, commercial fishermen, seafood processors, Pacific Northwest and Alaska fisheries, local chefs, and other stakeholders convened in Seattle for a rally to urge the U.S. EPA to veto Pebble Mine.

Most of us are well aware of the fact that the fight to stop the construction of this mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay’s world-famous and unparalleled salmon streams has been ongoing for more than two decades.

This anniversary of the rally, organizers say, is the perfect time to remember that permanent protections are the only solution that will end this fight.

“I am tired of being held hostage by the cloud that this type of development has settled over our region. I am tired of watching my friends and family wonder: If this happens, how will we feed our children? How will our culture survive?” said Alannah Hurley, executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, at the rally on Jan. 23, 2014. “The people of Bristol Bay are sick and tired of the uncertain fate of our watershed that has fed the hearts and souls of our people for thousands of years.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

EPA Approves Permit for Wind Farm Off Martha’s Vineyard

January 20, 2022 — The final air quality permit was approved for an offshore wind project by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday, paving the way for full project approval that was granted this morning.

South Fork will be a 130-megawatt wind farm off the southwest coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The EPA permit restricts air pollution during the construction and operation of the wind farm.

Construction is set to kick off with cable being laid on the sea floor, the company stated last week.

Final approval for the project from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management was announced this morning.

Read the full story at WBSM

EPA looks to place permanent protections on Bristol Bay by 2022

November 24, 2021 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has placed dates on the timeline to reinstate Clean Water Act protections on Alaska’s Bristol Bay, with a Federal Register notice posted on Wednesday, 17 November, naming a date of 31 May, 2022, for the finalization of the safeguards.

Permanent protections of the bay are critical to protect its robust salmon fishery, which is projected to produce 71 to 75 million salmon returns in 2022, Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association Board President Michael Jackson said.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Heydays of Bristol Bay, Alaska: Pushing back on Pebble

November 19, 2021 — We’ve got the most sustainable fishery in the world,” said Michael Jackson, board president of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association on Thursday in Seattle. “We didn’t do anything to earn that. But it’s there.”

Jackson spoke on behalf of the Alaska fishing organization for a Pacific Marine Expo panel discussing the future of Bristol Bay’s salmon fishery and the increasing hopes that locals, fishermen and other stakeholders may be able to put a wrap on threats from the proposed Pebble Mine.

News this week that the EPA put dates on the time line to reinstate Clean Water Act protections propelled the hopeful vibe at this standing Expo session, along with a robust projection for 71 million to 75 million salmon to return to the bay in 2022.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

New court ruling clears path for Bristol Bay Clean Water Act protections

November 1, 2021 — Bristol Bay fishing advocates say a federal court ruling Friday enables the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to restart a process to protect the bay watershed from plans to develop the Pebble Mine under the federal Clean Water Act.

The order by U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage came in response to a recent motion by the Pebble Limited Partnership and state of Alaska, asking the court to set a schedule for the EPA to either withdraw or finalize a 2014 proposal during the Obama administration that would have restricted mining and waste disposal.

Ruling in favor of the groups Trout Unlimited and SalmonState that filed as intervenors in the case, Gleason in her order stated “neither the retention of jurisdiction pending remand nor the establishment of an administrative timetable by the Court is warranted in this case,” remanding the matter to the EPA for action.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Would you quit your job for $110,000? This California swordfish catcher said no

October 18, 2021 — As the morning fog peeled off the docks of Santa Barbara Harbor recently, fisherman Gary Burke eyed all that’s left of a fleet that once helped satisfy America’s insatiable appetite for swordfish: four old vessels with splotches of rust showing through peeling paint.

Decades ago, there were more than 100 such ships in Santa Barbara alone, towing mile-long drift gill nets in choppy seas far beyond the breakwater. Today, there are perhaps a dozen in the entire United States, and they will probably soon be removed from service.

Hammered by government regulations, foreign competition, soaring fuel and labor costs, fluctuating market prices, a state buy-back program to take nets out of the water, and conflicts with preservationists over incidental entanglements of whales, porpoises, seals, turtles and birds, Burke’s livelihood has gone the way of Southern California fur trappers and dairy farms.

As if all that weren’t enough, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have issued an advisory warning that swordfish are not safe to eat because they contain high levels of mercury.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

Biden administration moves to protect key Alaska watershed

September 10, 2021 — The Biden administration said on Thursday it will relaunch a process that could permanently protect a vital Alaskan watershed from development of the contentious Pebble Mine project that has been pursued for more than a decade.

The Department of Justice asked in an Alaska federal district court filing that the court vacate a 2019 decision by the Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency to remove protection of the Bristol Bay watershed.

If the court grants the request, it would automatically reinstate the EPA’s Clean Water Act Section 404 review process. The agency could then resume an effort to protect certain waters in the Bristol Bay watershed, whose streams, wetlands, lakes and ponds are home to North America’s most productive salmon fisheries of five types of salmon: coho, Chinook, sockeye, chum and pink.

Read the full story at Reuters

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