Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: When the Local Paper Shrank, These Journalists Started an Alternative

June 21, 2021 — When Jon Mitchell, the mayor of New Bedford, Mass., delivered his state of the city address in 2019, he made an unusual plea.

“Support your local paper,” he said, referring to The Standard-Times, New Bedford’s daily newspaper. “Your city needs it to function effectively.”

Owned by Gannett, the parent company of USA Today and more than 250 other dailies, The Standard-Times was getting thin. Like thousands of newspapers across the country, it was taking on the characteristics of a “ghost” paper — a diminished publication that had lost much of its staff, curtailing its reach and its journalistic ambitions.

Now, two years later, the mayor’s assessment is more blunt.

“We don’t have a functioning newspaper anymore, and I say that with empathy with the folks who work there,” he said in an interview. “It used to be that I couldn’t sneeze without having to explain myself. Now, I have to beg people to show up at my press conferences. Please, ask me questions!”

He was so eager for the city to have a robust paper that he joined a group that explored buying The Standard-Times — but Gannett wasn’t selling.

So when a cadre of journalists, including former editors of The Standard-Times, said last year that they planned to start a nonprofit digital news outlet to cover New Bedford, the mayor was all in.

As unusual as it may seem, Mr. Mitchell wanted his administration to be held accountable. Beyond that, he said that a trusted news source could restore something vital that he felt New Bedford had lost: “a sense of place,” by which he meant an ongoing narrative of daily life in this multicultural blue-collar city of 95,000 residents.

In the 19th century, when Melville embarked from its shores on the whaling voyage that would inspire “Moby-Dick,” it was the richest city per capita in North America. Now, 23 percent of New Bedford’s citizens live in poverty.

The mayor’s vision of a trusted news source was similar to what the group of journalists had in mind when they created The New Bedford Light. With its newsroom still under construction, in a refurbished textile mill, the publication went online June 7.

Read the full story at The New York Times

MASSACHUSETTS: State, New Bedford officials and local leaders criticize state’s offshore wind bid process

May 18, 2021 — In 2019, Mayflower Wind submitted multiple bids for offshore wind projects to the state. One had a higher price tag, but included investment promises for the region, such as a plan to build a factory at Brayton Point that would have employed as much as 200 people, according to Mayor Jon Mitchell; another lacked that plan, but had a lower price tag. The state selected the latter, he said.

That decision is one example the mayor cited to argue that the state has valued price over economic investment to the detriment of Southeastern Massachusetts.

In an April comment letter sent to the Baker administration and state Department of Public Utilities (DPU) — which oversees bid procurement — Mitchell, Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan, state representatives, city councilors and various New Bedford business leaders said they are concerned the state’s approach to procuring offshore wind energy contracts will make it “more difficult for this region to achieve its potential.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

The following is a letter from local stakeholders regarding the offshore wind bid process:

Dear Secretary Marini:

We are a group of public sector, business, and civic leaders in Southeastern Massachusetts who continue to be concerned that the Commonwealth’s approach to procuring offshore wind energy contracts will make it more difficult for our region to reach its full potential as a national leader in the industry. We offer the following comments to the draft RFP and the Initial Comments submitted last week.

The Current RFP Repeats the Mistakes of the Past

We have written previously about the state’s wind energy procurement process, and how it has yielded little in the way of permanent industry investment in Southeastern Massachusetts. As articulated by the Attorney General in her Initial Comments, the current proposed Request for Proposals for Long-Term Contracts for Offshore Wind Energy Projects, despite modest improvements, essentially repeats the mistakes of the first two solicitations. The root of the problem is the Commonwealth’s continued insistence on obscuring the value of economic benefits in the evaluation of project proposals, coupled with its leaving the evaluation of economic benefits entirely in the hands of the state’s utilities. As the developers themselves explicitly noted in their comments to the draft RFP, the net effect again will likely be an award based almost exclusively on price, and the continued capturing of still more industry investment by East Coast states that have been more eager to compete for it.

Our frustration is based on our intensely felt recognition that attracting capital to formerly industrial cities that are not part of a major metropolitan area is inherently difficult. In America’s winner-takes-all economy of the last twenty years, in which so-called “superstar” cities like Boston have pulled in the lion’s share of the country’s investment capital, the offshore wind industry offers a rare opportunity for our region to expand its economic base. With its close proximity to wind energy areas, maritime workforce, and high-functioning port infrastructure, Southeastern Massachusetts is naturally suited to attract a wind industry cluster and the well-paying jobs that would come with it.

Many of us have worked for most of the last decade to cultivate the industry’s interest in our region, and we are proud that our early work laid the foundation for industry’s acceptance across Massachusetts and beyond. Although we are excited that the industry will help to lower America’s carbon emissions, our effort has been primarily about economic development. So it has been troubling for us to witness the establishment of headquarters and regional offices of major wind companies in Boston.

We fear that the DOER’s tweaks of the previous RFP will not meaningfully change the outcome. As the Attorney General notes, “The Proposed RFP’s evaluation protocol, including the failure to disclose the relative value that evaluators will place on each of the Proposed RFP’s required commitments, may result in missed opportunities for the Commonwealth.” See AGO’s Initial Comments at 5-6. We couldn’t agree more, and we fear that the developers, not knowing the actual value assigned to economic benefits, will again submit alternate bids, and the utilities again will select one that is light on investment commitments. Unless the utilities are required to disclose how they will score economic benefits, our region could lose out again.

Read the full letter here

MASSACHUSETTS: You Can’t Scallop Over Zoom: New Bedford Works to Vaccinate Seafood and Fishing Communities

April 14, 2021 — New Bedford is the country’s largest commercial fishing port and has the largest collection of seafood processing plants in the United States.

But these two accolades also create some unusual circumstances for the city when it comes to reaching and vaccinating those communities.

This past weekend, New Bedford held a vaccine clinic specifically geared towards those working in these industries. More are planned for this week.

Mayor Jon Mitchell said the city made a push with workers, as well as their employers.

“One of the big barriers to vaccine uptake, not just here in New Bedford but everywhere, is the fact that shift workers just have a harder time, for reasons that everyone can understand, getting away from work and going to a vaccine appointment,” Mitchell said. “If you’re a professional, if you’re a lawyer, a doctor, or an accountant, it’s no matter just to go break away from your work for an hour to go get your shot. But if you’re on a shift, and you are, like many shift workers, given two specififed periods of the day to take a break, you can’t readily get away to get a shot.”

Read the full story at WGBH

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford mayor calls offshore wind ‘generational opportunity’

April 12, 2021 — New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell is of two minds about Vineyard Wind, which after lengthy regulatory delays seems poised to finally get underway.

The mayor is excited about the potential for offshore wind farms to transform New Bedford the way they have many older European port cities, but he also worries that Massachusetts may be missing the boat when it comes to capturing the true value of the industry.

“Offshore wind is really a generational opportunity for a city like ours to leverage its competitive advantages in a way that brings in investment, creates jobs, and improves a city’s quality of life,” Mitchell said on The Codcast.

“We’re looking at roughly a $3 billion capital expenditure with this project,” he said. “That means a considerable amount of local procurement here in New Bedford from things as simple as hotel rooms and restaurant food to welders to any number of things. But it also means the more that the industry settles in here, the higher the likelihood that there will be investment in operating facilities and permanent enterprises. That really is, for us, the ultimate goal, to have an industry cluster here like we have with fishing.”

Mitchell said New Bedford, with its fishing port, is well-positioned to support the offshore wind industry, but it is unlikely to snare manufacturing operations because the city’s waterfront is so densely packed already. Even so, New Bedford has been expanding beyond the state-built New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal to provide more space for offshore wind development. The mayor also said he hopes to tap federal infrastructure funds proposed by President Biden to modernize the city’s port facilities.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

As New Bedford lags behind Massachusetts, Sen. Markey visits city to push vaccines

April 7, 2021 — U.S. Sen. Ed Markey on Tuesday exhorted New Bedford residents to get immunized against COVID-19, as the city’s vaccination rate remains well below the statewide average.

Home from Washington due to the Senate recess, Markey stopped in New Bedford to tour a federally funded vaccination clinic at the McCoy Recreation Center in the West End. The clinic, which is targeting senior citizens, received an extra supply of 1,000 Johnson & Johnson doses this week on top of its usual allotment of 600 Moderna shots.

“New Bedford is a little bit below the state average, so the message to the residents of New Bedford is very clear: we want to get you vaccinated,” Markey said.

Data reviewed by Target 12 shows all four cities in Bristol County are lagging behind the statewide pace of inoculations.

While 35% of all Massachusetts residents were at least partly vaccinated as of April 1, only 21% of New Bedford residents have gotten at least one shot. The rates were also below average in Fall River (22%), Attleboro (25%) and Taunton (25%).

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said “deep-seated” challenges are driving the comparatively low level of vaccinations in his city. He cited a lack of access to technology in order to make appointments online, language barriers, and jobs with limited flexibility.

Read the full story at WPRI

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford to Open Vaccination Center for Seafood Workers

April 2, 2021 — New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, joined by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Congressman Bill Keating, and members of the New Bedford City Council and state legislative delegation, announced Wednesday that the City of New Bedford has established a waterfront vaccination center on Tichon Avenue to vaccinate essential seafood industry workers.

The site is located at the former Environmental Protection Agency Dewatering Facility on the waterfront, recently turned over to the New Bedford Port Authority by the EPA. It will launch in the coming weeks with additional vaccine supply and through a partnership with the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center.

The waterfront vaccination center will be operated as a partnership between the City and the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center which will staff the vaccination site. The Greater New Bedford Community Health Center recently received an award of nearly $4 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration as part of the American Rescue Plan to support its work, including direct receipt of vaccine, which makes possible the operation of this site.

Read the full story at WBSM

MASSACHUSETTS: Vaccine site for seafood workers to open next weekend in New Bedford

April 1, 2021 — Meat processing plants have experienced some of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks of any workplace in the country. Officials feared the same would be true of the New Bedford’s fish houses.

Last spring, Mayor Jon Mitchell’s administration passed an emergency order that set strict safety protocols for seafood companies and other manufacturers, threatening fines of $300 per day against companies that fail to provide PPE and enforce social distancing.

And on Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the mayor and other public officials introduced plans for a new vaccine clinic targeting the workers who kept America’s most valuable fishing port operating during the pandemic.

“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.”

Read the full story at The Public’s Radio

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

MASSACHUSETTS: Wind Farm Off Martha’s Vineyard Near Approval

March 10, 2021 — The following is an excerpt from a segment that ran on NBC Boston:

On Monday, the U.S. Department of the Interior completed Vineyard Wind’s environmental impact assessment. With the completion of this assessment, Vineyard Wind has edged closer to completion. Groups representing the seafood industry from across the Atlantic coast have expressed concern that it may lead to restrictions on large portions of valuable fishing grounds.

“There’s proposals all up and down the East Coast to occupy massive acreage of ocean bottom. So, that’s going to be a problem for fishermen,” said Eric Hansen, a local scallop fisherman from New Bedford.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell expressed that “it will take a lot of communication over the next several months to make sure that the wind farm and the fishermen can safely co-exist.”

Watch the full video here

America’s largest scallop company sues New Bedford over waterfront expansion

February 22, 2021 — Roy Enoksen and his business partner own the largest scallop fleet in the world. Their 27 fishing vessels bring more than 80,000 pounds of seafood into New Bedford each day, employing more than 400 captains, fishermen and support staff.

But a construction project planned by the city’s port authority would cut off water access at one of Enoksen’s boat maintenance facilities.

A lawsuit filed by Enoksen last month has blown the lid off a simmering conflict between New Bedford and one of the largest employers along its waterfront. Enoksen owns multiple businesses that operate in the port, including Eastern Fisheries and Marine Hydraulics, a marine repair company that services his boats.

Mayor Jon Mitchell called the litigation “a veiled attempt to grab valuable land that belongs to the public for the purpose of enhancing the company’s already substantial profits.”

The proposed expansion of New Bedford’s North Terminal would cull more than six acres of fresh land from the harbor using sand dredged from the mouth of the Acushnet River. The dredging would create dozens of new spaces for commercial vessels and remove contaminated sediments that have turned the harbor into a federal Superfund site.

Read the full story at The Public’s Radio