Saving Seafood

LOUISIANA: Louisiana breaks ground on experimental project to rebuild lost wetlands

August 12, 2023 — Over thousands of years, the Mississippi River wended its way through the lush and dense wetlands of the Barataria Basin in what’s now south-central Louisiana. As it flowed south on its way to the sea, the river continually poured sediment into the basin, gifting it with fresh, nutrient-rich river mud that replenished the land and prevented coastal erosion. But 20th-century innovations like dams and levees stopped the river’s natural systems. This, in combination with recent sea-level rise and the constant battering of supercharged hurricane seasons, means the sea now gnaws steadily at the bottom of the state, causing gradual but catastrophic land loss. Since 1932, the Barataria has lost 17 percent of its land. It’s predicted to lose another 200-plus square miles in the next 20 years.

To combat this, Louisiana officials broke ground Thursday on an ambitious, $2.92 billion project to divert sediment from the Mississippi River into the basin, mimicking the natural processes of the river’s flow in an attempt to save the state’s disappearing coast. The initiative is the first step in Louisiana’s $50 billion Coastal Master Plan, funded in part by a lawsuit settlement from the devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. Though many laud the project, some worry it will harm existing wildlife in the basin, while taking a very long time to do its work.

The main event for the mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project will be “punching a hole in the levee” that prevents the Mississippi River from regularly overflowing its banks and changing course, said Bren Haase, the chair of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. The project involves installing a complex gate structure through the Mississippi River’s levee, allowing some water to flow into a channel, which will then empty out over the basin and wash into the sea, carrying mud, silt, and clay with it to create new land. It’ll take five years to build. Over 50 years, the diversion project should add 21 square miles of land to the basin, according to Haase.

Read the full article at Grist

LOUISIANA: A billion-dollar coastal project begins in Louisiana. Will it work as sea levels rise?

August 10, 2023 — Nearly $3 billion in settlement money from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster that devastated the Gulf Coast and killed hundreds of thousands of marine animals is now funding a massive ecosystem restoration in southeastern Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish.

The flat, sparsely populated land divided by the Mississippi River delta is marbled by bayous and bays. Farms, fishing camps and shrimp boats share the region with oil rig supply vessels and industrial storage. And it’s about to host a vast undertaking meant to mimic Mother Nature: Enormous gates will soon be incorporated into a flood protection levee.

The aim is to divert some of the river’s sediment-laden water into a new channel and guide it into the Barataria Basin southeast of New Orleans.

If it works, the sediment will settle out in the basin and gradually restore land that has been steadily disappearing for decades. State coastal officials call it a first-of-its-kind project they are certain will work, even as climate change-induced rising sea levels threaten the disappearing coast.

Read the full article at Associated Press

LOUISIANA: Louisiana shrimpers, lawmakers unite to protect domestic fisheries as season begins

August 10, 2023 — The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission announced the opening dates for the fall inshore shrimp season Aug. 7.

Meanwhile, Louisiana lawmakers have called on Congress to protect the domestic seafood industry as shrimp harvesters face low prices due to large amounts of imported shrimp.

The Louisiana Shrimp Association joined in a letter that said the influx of imported shrimp has proven especially problematic for domestic harvesters. Nineteen other allied organizations and companies, representing more than 4,000 seafood businesses of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic region also signed onto the letter.

Read the full article at the Daily Advertiser

Letters: Pleas for help from Louisiana shrimpers fall on deaf ears

July 26, 2023 — The Louisiana shrimp industry is in crisis; putting our 15,000 jobs and $1.3 billion industry at risk.

During the legislative session, hundreds of shrimpers, dock owners and processors marched on the State Capitol to call out unwanted competition from imported shrimp.

Louisiana plays a significant role in the U.S. shrimp market, accounting for 25% of the nation’s demand. But imports from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Ecuador are flooding U.S. markets, resulting in distressed prices for our product.

Absent an outright ban or a cap and control mechanism on imported shrimp, it becomes increasingly challenging to sustain our livelihoods. Additionally, imports raise concerns about cheap foreign labor practices and potential health risks.

Expanding testing and enforcing country-of-origin labeling are common sense solutions to ensure consumer safety and awareness. But our pleas for assistance to our federal and state lawmakers continue to go unanswered.

To add insult to injury, we face another threat by Louisiana’s recreational and for-hire charter fishermen who have suggested there need to be arbitrary and scientifically unsubstantiated limits on commercial fishing, including shrimping and Gulf menhaden fishing, to reduce incidental bycatch of speckled trout and redfish.

While conservation efforts of these stressed species are important, singling out the commercial fishing sector without addressing the root causes of reckless overfishing by the tens of thousands of unmonitored anglers off Louisiana’s coast is misguided. Louisiana’s commercial fisheries follow sound fisheries management practices.

We are heavily regulated, guided by science and sustainability. We will not allow others to selectively shift blame to us when they need to do more to preserve and protect their catch.

Failure to address these challenges will have far-reaching consequences, potentially resulting in the loss of not just our industry but a cultural heritage deeply intertwined with our coastal communities.

ACY COOPER

president, Louisiana Shrimp Association

Read the full article at NOLA.com

LOUISIANA: Louisiana poised to spearhead offshore wind in Gulf of Mexico

July 26, 2023 — Last week, the White House announced the first offshore wind power auction in the Gulf of Mexico will take place next month.

The Biden administration will allocate leases for a 102,480-acre area of federal waters off the coast of Lake Charles in Louisiana and two areas offshore Galveston, Texas totalling around 200,000 acres.

In May, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) found no significant environmental impact from offshore wind leasing on a 30-million-acre area, paving the way for the first lease sales that could host 3.6 GW of capacity.

A number of companies have prequalified for the sale, including oil and gas groups Shell, Equinor and TotalEnergies, but the first turbines could in fact be installed in Louisiana state waters.

Louisiana aims to install 5 GW of offshore wind by 2035 and the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is in talks with two offshore wind developers for projects in state waters, DNR confirmed to Reuters Events.

Read the full article at Reuters

Louisiana hasn’t issued any fines despite 2,671 violations of imported shrimp law

June 29, 2023 — Restaurants in the U.S. state of Louisiana are flouting a state law requiring them to indicate on their menus whether the shrimp or crawfish they’re selling is imported, but the state has yet to impose any fines on violators.

Health inspectors have issued 2,671 citations for violations of the 2019 Louisiana law, according to an investigation by the Louisiana Illuminator. However, the state law does not include any provisions about penalties, leaving the state health department toothless in trying to enforce it.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA declares fishery disasters in Louisiana and Mississippi

June 27, 2023 — The U.S. Department of Commerce has determined multiple fisheries in the U.S. states of Louisiana and Mississippi suffered from disasters in 2020, clearing the way for those state to receive financial assistance from the federal government.

“Sustainable fisheries are vital to our nation’s ocean economy and fishery disasters directly harm our local communities when they occur,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said. “These disaster determinations allow us to get fishing communities in the Gulf of Mexico the financial assistance they need to mitigate impacts of disasters, restore fisheries, and help prevent future disasters.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

LOUISIANA: Louisiana spring shrimp season to open in a portion of inshore waters

April 24, 2023 — On April 19, the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission convened a special meeting to consider setting the opening of the spring shrimp season in a portion of state inshore waters. The opening will be based on information provided by LDWF biologists and public comments.

The commission stated, “The portion of state inside waters from the eastern shore of South Pass of the Mississippi River westward to the western shore of Freshwater Bayou Canal to open at 6am on May 1, 2023.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

 

Gulf shrimp landings data showing rebound in Louisiana and decline in Texas

March 15, 2023 — The Fishery Monitoring Branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center released preliminary shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic for November 2022.

As with the agency’s reporting since July of last year, the numbers released by NOAA include substantial revisions, with reporting for the years prior to 2022 reflecting final totals tabulated by the agency. Because NOAA’s reporting for November 2022 remains preliminary in nature, the Southern Shrimp Alliance presents this data in the historical context of the agency’s previously reported preliminary figures. This means that in the summary charts prepared by the Southern Shrimp Alliance, the historical figures for the month of November in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 do not correspond to the numbers now being reported by NOAA.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Louisiana denounces federal rule for shrimp boats at Fifth Circuit

March 11, 2023 — From po’ boy sandwiches to jambalaya, etouffee and gumbo, shrimp is a staple in Louisiana’s and New Orleans’ celebrated cuisine.

The small shellfish are big business in Louisiana with 15,000 residents employed in the industry, which has an annual economic impact of $1.3 billion for the state, according to its Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board.

But Louisiana shrimpers who followed their fathers and grandfathers into the trade say it is dying as wild-caught and farm-raised imports from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and India into the U.S. have exceeded 1 billion pounds annually in recent years.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service