Saving Seafood

Climate change: NJ is warming faster than most of the country

August 26, 2019 — The New Jersey lobster boom has passed.

Tom Fote, legislative chairman for The Jersey Coast Anglers Association, recalls a time in the 1990s when warming waters off the Jersey Shore prompted the tasty crustaceans to reproduce more, attracting more boats to fish for them.

But then the water got too hot. The lobsters stopped reproducing as they had been.

“We were the canaries in the mines,” Fote said of anglers in New Jersey.

New Jersey has emerged as a top state in the nation experiencing climate change, according to a new analysis of climate data by The Washington Post. 

New Jersey heated by nearly 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, since about the turn of the last century, the Post found. That’s double the average for the continental United States. Alaska, then Rhode Island crossed the 2-degree mark, the Post reported. New Jersey is close.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

Trump has proposed offshore drilling in the Atlantic. Here’s what it means for N.J.

January 24, 2018 — When President Trump’s administration announced plans earlier this month to reconsider drilling off the Atlantic coast, officials and community leaders up and down the Jersey Shore began digging in for a fight they thought they’d won in 2016. Here are the basic facts behind the plan and the reasons why so many groups are against the proposal.

Trump’s plan: Drill baby drill

Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke proposed opening nearly all federal waters to offshore drilling. The federal waters would be divided into sections and then the leases to those sections would be auctioned off to oil companies. Under the proposal, 25 of the government’s 26 planning areas would be opened up for 47 potential lease sales.

New Jersey would be part of the North Atlantic section, and leases for areas off the Jersey Shore would be auctioned off in 2021 and 2023.

“Responsibly developing our energy resources on the Outer Continental Shelf in a safe and well-regulated way is important to our economy and energy security, and it provides billions of dollars to fund the conservation of our coastlines, public lands and parks,” Zinke said in a press release announcing the plan.

Who supports this plan?

Only one governor on the Atlantic Coast — Paul LePage of Maine, pictured above — has expressed approval of the plan. The Maine governor has said that he supports the plan because he believes it will bring jobs to his state and lower energy costs for Maine residents.

In a December 2013 report, the American Petroleum Institute — a group that advocates for the expansion of oil and natural development nationwide — estimated that offshore drilling could bring more than 8,000 jobs to New Jersey and bring in $515 million in revenue for the state government.

Uncertain potential for profit

Oil and gas companies could stand to profit from drilling off the Jersey Shore, but only if they find enough oil out there.

The last offshore exploration near the Garden State was in the 1970s and 1980s, when companies like Texaco and Tenneco drilled wells near the Hudson Canyon, a little less than 100 miles east of Atlantic City.

According to reports filed with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the exploration found no significant oil deposits and small amounts of natural gas reserves.

Has there been drilling off of the shore before?

Technically yes, but the exploratory drilling of the 1970s and 1980s was the farthest that the process has ever gotten. No lease sales have occurred in the Atlantic since 1983.

In 2017, a BOEM assessment estimated that the Atlantic contained an between 1.15 billion and 9.19 billion barrels of oil, a fraction of the estimated 76.69 billion to 105.59 billions barrels throughout all federal waters. According to the same assessment, the North Atlantic is estimated to hold between 0.06 billion and 5.11 billion barrels.

Read the full story at the NJ.com

 

Climate change: 5 signs it’s already begun in New Jersey

August 11, 2017 — By now, most are aware of the dire warnings: Climate change is coming and its effects are going to be especially painful for residents of the Jersey Shore.

While the timing of the truly catastrophic predictions remains fuzzy — Will the barrier islands be lost in 2050? 2100? Later? Sooner? — there are signs that irreversible change has already begun.

From economic and public health challenges to the more obvious outcomes of heat waves and rising seas, climate change has a foothold in New Jersey.

1. Migrating fish

There are about 3,000 commercial fishermen in New Jersey and thousands more who work at processing plants, wholesalers or in shellfishing.

“Fishermen knew about climate change a long time ago,” said Tom Fote, an officer with the Jersey Coast Anglers Association. “We started seeing stocks of fish moving farther north.”

As water temperatures rise, fish move northward, seeking deeper, cooler waters. Higher acidity in the ocean damages crabs, scallops, clams and other shellfish, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY: One way or another, NJ victory in flounder fight won’t last long

July 31, 2017 — Several months of fighting over catch restrictions for summer flounder, a.k.a. fluke, culminated earlier this month in a striking victory for New Jersey fishing interests and their representatives.

Federal regulators wanted to cut the catch 30 percent by increasing the size of keeper fish an inch (to 19 inches in the ocean and nearby waters, 18 in Delaware Bay), imposing a daily limit of three fish and setting a 128-day season.

Since January, fishing groups such as the Jersey Coast Anglers Association and federal representatives have pushed to avert the restrictions, at least until a fresh assessment of the flounder stock can be made.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo and fellow delegates from New Jersey in January sent the first of four letters against the restrictions to Obama administration Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. When that got nowhere, a letter went to her replacement in the Trump administration, Wilbur Ross … and then in April one to the chair of the House panel considering a LoBiondo-sponsored bill requiring a new stock assessment.

Read the full editorial at the Press of Atlantic City

NEW JERSEY: New size limits for summer flounder and sea bass passed

March 4, 2016 — Delaware Bay anglers will be able to fish for a 17-inch summer flounder this summer, according to a statement by the Jersey Coast Anglers Association.

The New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council met yesterday in Galloway Township and approved the 2016 regulations for summer flounder and sea bass, two very popular fish to the recreational fishing industry.

According to the state released by JCAA board member, the council approved the following measures:

Summer flounder anglers will be allowed five fish at 18 inches with a season beginning on May 21 and ending on Sept. 25, except for Delaware Bay where there will be a four fish limit at 17 inches and at Island Beach State Park where there will be a two fish limit at 16 inches.

Read the full story at Asbury Park Press