Saving Seafood

World’s biggest offshore wind developers eyeing Louisiana for Gulf’s first turbines

January 24, 2022 — The Texas coast may have better winds for offshore wind development, but it’s Louisiana’s political winds that are drawing the interest of the industry’s two biggest players.

Orsted and RWE, which rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the booming offshore wind market, both highlighted Louisiana’s political support for offshore wind in letters to federal energy regulators tasked with readying the Gulf of Mexico for what could be a flurry of offshore wind development.

RWE, a German company that has renewable energy operations in 15 countries, urged regulators to focus on Louisiana despite studies showing Texas has a clear advantage with stronger, more consistent wind speeds.

“To date, Louisiana is the only state along the Gulf of Mexico that has signaled its interest in pursuing an offshore wind policy to meet its climate objectives,” Kate McKeever, an RWE manager of U.S. government affairs, told the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, also known as BOEM.

Read the full story from the Times-Picayune at the Rome News-Tribune

Study estimates recent hurricanes inflicted $579 million in damage to Louisiana fisheries

January 14, 2022 — Hurricanes over the past two seasons delivered an estimated $579 million in losses to Louisiana’s commercial fishing industry, a new state study shows.

Findings of the study, conducted by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, LSU and Louisiana Sea Grant, were released Thursday.

The study analyzes losses to infrastructure, including boats, seafood sales and fish and seafood stocks. It also projects financial losses from the past two hurricane seasons that are continuing into 2022.

Read the full story at the Daily Comet

 

Houma Oysterman’s Life Left in Shambles by Hurricane Ida

January 3, 2021 — For more than six hours fifth-generation Houma oysterman Jacob David Hulse, his girlfriend Lindsey Willis and his dog Change huddled in an the oyster shop of friend Kenneth (Keno) Templet struggling to keep the walls and roof from caving as the more than 140-mph winds of Hurricane Ida continuously battered away at the structure.  When the winds started to subside, Hulse thought he had gone through the worse of it.  Like many Louisiana fishermen are finding out, his troubles were only beginning after the storm was finished.

“I feared for my life, I really feared for my life,” Hulse told Gulf Seafood News. “You hear everyone say it sounds like a freight train, well it does.  A freight train that keeps coming and coming and coming, never sure when it ends.”

For the 33-year-old Hulse his four-month continuing nightmare started around three in the afternoon on Sunday, Aug. 29th as the first hurricane force winds started to batter the bunkered down trio.  His 73-year-old mother Gail Hedrick Hulse, with whom he shares his house, had evacuated to Kentwood with his older brother Jason.  The young oysterman had stayed behind to finish boarding his home, as well as securing his boat and truck.

“By the time I had finished it was too late to escape what was coming,” he said.  “I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic trying to evacuate, so my friend Keno told me to come on over to the oyster shop. He was staying to try and save $20,000 worth of oysters he had in the cooler.”

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood News

Federal monitoring push stokes battle with Gulf fishermen

December 2, 2021 — If NOAA gets its way, Allen Walburn will soon be forced to keep electronic monitors on his three charter fishing boats to follow their every move, a requirement that he likens to criminal defendants forced to wear ankle bracelets.

“I don’t want people knowing where I’m at,” said Walburn, 71, who has been running his charter fishing business in Naples, Fla., since 1978.

In a key test of NOAA’s surveillance powers, Walburn and a group of other charter fishermen from the Gulf of Mexico have gone to court to block the proposed rule, asking a federal judge in Louisiana to declare it unconstitutional and an invasion of their privacy.

In court briefs, NOAA argued that its proposal to require electronic tracking in the Gulf should be allowed under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the nation’s premier fishing law passed by Congress in 1976.

The law, which Congress is now considering reauthorizing, requires NOAA to devise plans to prevent overfishing and protect the long-term health of fish populations. The agency argues that electronic monitoring makes data collection more timely, accurate and cost-efficient than other alternatives.

Read the full story at E&E News

LOUISIANA: Input from commercial, recreational fishermen wanted on development of offshore wind energy projects

December 1, 2021 — The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is asking for input from commercial and recreational fishermen concerning offshore wind projects and their potential impacts.

According to LDH, The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), in consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service and affected coastal states, is developing guidance to mitigate potential impacts from offshore wind projects on commercial and recreational fisheries.

BOEM has issued a Request for Information (RFI) in order to collect knowledge from the people and organizations who know and use the areas that could be affected.

Read the full story at KATC

Louisiana Seafood Leaders Come Together After Hurricane Ida To Pave a Path Forward

October 13, 2021 — For almost two hours Louisiana’s seafood leaders from all sectors of the industry gathered via zoom, mobile phones at restaurants or in cars, and in a conference room in Baton Rouge to discuss the damage of Hurricane Ida’s wrath on the State’s seafood industry.  The consensus; the hurricane laid a path of destruction that has crippled almost every sector.

“It is pretty bad,” said Louisiana Crab Task Force chairman Britney Breaux.  “Bayou LaFourche is completely destroyed.  The docks are completely gone, 47 boats have been sunk and there is no ice or clean water. The bayou is filthy and littered with trees everywhere.”

“The purpose of this task force is to help the seafood industry recover from this historically damaging storm,” said Harlon Pearce of the Gulf Seafood Foundation.  “Twenty years ago after Hurricane Katrina we formed a similar group.  Our purpose today is to replicate the success we had then.”

The group was gathered under the umbrella of a joint effort between the Gulf Seafood Foundation, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), Louisiana Sea Grant and Louisiana Ag Center at LSU.  It was comprised of representatives from finfish, docks, bait dealers and marinas; as well as American Shrimp Processors’ Association, Omega Protein, Oyster Task Force, Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, Shrimp Task Force, Crab Task Force, Coastal Conservation Association, Louisiana Shrimp Association, LSU Department of Agriculture Economics and Agribusiness, Louisiana Charter Boat Association, LSU Sea Grant, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, NOAA, Shell Oil, Louisiana Restaurant Association and the Gulf Seafood Foundation.

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood News

 

Aftereffects of Hurricane Ida still being felt by Louisiana’s oyster-growers

October 12, 2021 — As Hurricane Ida plowed into the U.S. state of Louisiana and on to the Northeast last month, another storm surge of sorts swept through seafood markets, a brutal putdown to the local seafood industry’s slow pandemic recovery.

With heavy damage to local fleets, hard-hit Lafourche and Terrebonne parish bayou communities were cut off from power through the end of September, hobbling efforts to repair docks and bring back ice and shrimp packing.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Risk of oil spills may rise as climate change creates more monster storms

September 30, 2021 — Hurricane Ida left a trail of destruction after slamming into the Gulf Coast, but offshore the Category 4 storm left something else in its wake: oil spills.

Oil spills aren’t uncommon with strong storms, but as climate change pushes up sea levels and creates stronger storms with more moisture, offshore refineries are going to need greater and greater protections.

The Gulf of Mexico is “particularly vulnerable” because of the prevalence of storms, the low-lying geography, sea-level rise, receding shorelines and the presence of oil facilities, Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told ABC News. Since offshore drilling began in the region in 1942, about 6,000 oil and gas structures have been installed in the Gulf of Mexico.

On Sept. 4, the day before Ida made landfall in Louisiana, the Coast Guard announced that cleanup crews already were responding to a large oil spill at an offshore drilling about 2 miles south of Port Fourchon, Louisiana.

Read the full story at ABC News

 

 

LOUISIANA: Judge’s order delays implementation of Turtle Exclusion Devices for vessels

September 29, 2021 — A US District Judge has granted a motion from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) for a preliminary injunction on the federal Turtle Exclusion Devices for some vessels.

LDWF says the order delays implementation of the requirements of TEDs in skimmer vessels 40 feet in length or greater in Louisiana inshore waters until February 1, 2022. The motion for the injunction was granted on September 9, 2021.

LDWF says that on December 20, 2019, the Final Rule was published requiring skimmer vessels 40 feet in length or greater to have an approved TED installed by April 1, 2021. In March 2021, NOAA delayed implementation of the Rule to August 1, 2021 due to a lack of outreach and availability of TEDs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In April 2021, NOAA released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require TEDs on all skimmer vessels, regardless of vessel length.

Read the full story at KATC

 

Congressman: Louisiana needs fishery disaster determination after Ida

September 14, 2021 — U.S. Congressman Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) is calling on the federal government to declare his state a “fishery disaster” area, following the destruction caused by Hurricane Ida.

Graves is calling for the U.S. Department of Commerce to immediately make a “Fishery disaster determination” due to “both the biological resources and fishery infrastructure sustaining major damage related to Hurricane Ida,” Graves said in a news release.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource