Saving Seafood

MAINE: Marine Patrol Directed To Remove Gear From Path Of Wind Power Survey If Fishermen Won’t

March 24, 2021 — The state is telling Monhegan Island-area lobstermen to remove fishing gear from the path of a survey vessel — or the Marine Patrol will. That’s after the Department of Marine Resources determined that there is enough gear in that area to prevent the vessel from doing its work.

The 150-foot Go Liberty is surveying possible routes for an electricity cable that would stretch from a planned floating wind turbine developed by New England Aqua Ventus to the mainland. Earlier this week, lobstermen protested the effort at sea, and in some cases sailed near the survey ship.

In text and email messages sent to lobstermen Wednesday morning, DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher says he has been directed to ask the state Marine Patrol to move gear away from the route if the vessel is unable to continue its work. He also says DMR is working with the vessel to make sure it keeps its operations within a defined pathway.

Keliher and other officials in Gov. Janet Mills’ administration did not immediately return requests for comment.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Maine lobstermen crack a good year despite virus

March 24, 2021 — Maine’s lobster catch dipped slightly last year as fishermen dealt with the coronavirus pandemic, but the final totals were better than some feared.

Fishermen caught more than 96 million pounds of lobsters in 2020, the Maine Department of Marine Resources said Wednesday. That total broke a string of nine consecutive years in which harvesters brought at least 100 million pounds of lobsters to land.

Maine is by far the biggest lobster fishing state in the country, and the harvest is central to the state’s economy and heritage. Members of the industry feared at the outset of the pandemic that it would be difficult to equal previous years’ hauls because of the toll of the virus on the economy and the workforce.

However, the 2020 catch would have been a state record as recently as 2010. A boom in annual lobster catch began more than a decade ago.

Fishermen were selective about when they went fishing last year to avoid bringing too much product to land when demand was lower, said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

MAINE: Fishermen didn’t violate rules in dispute with wind developers, state says

March 24, 2021 — State marine regulators are providing an update on a dispute between fishermen and the developers of a wind energy project off Monhegan Island.

The flashpoint has been recent activity by a 150-foot vessel contracted by the developers, New England Aqua Ventus, to survey possible routes for a cable running between the project and the mainland.

Project officials said Monday that fishermen appeared to be putting gear in the vessel’s way, bringing their boats too close, and thus forcing survey operations to be suspended. The Department of Marine Resources said Tuesday that when marine patrol officials radioed to fishing boat captains that they needed to stay a safe distance from the survey vessel, the captains complied.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine fishermen demonstrate against offshore wind plan

March 24, 2021 — From afar it looked like a flag-waving boat parade, but an offshore procession Sunday of fishing vessels off the mid-Maine coast was a protest against plans for an undersea power cable and offshore wind turbine.

Organized by captains on short notice, the demonstration involved more than 80 boats trailing the route of a proposed export cable from a floating turbine site south of Monhegan Island to South Boothbay.

The 12-megawatt project by New England Aqua Ventus and the University of Maine would be a demonstration project for the feasibility of floating turbine technology – which would be necessary for developing wind power in the deepwater Gulf of Maine.

Fishing advocates contend the developers need to be more transparent in planning, but protesters said there are immediate issues with gear conflicts.

“The boat hasn’t been staying in the survey route, and there’s been some issues with gear loss,” Dustin Delano, a Friendship lobsterman and and organizer, told the Portland Press Herald.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MAINE: Lobstermen Circle Survey Vessel As Wind Protests Escalate

March 24, 2021 — Protests over wind energy development off the coast of Maine changed course today. Several fishing boats reportedly circled a survey vessel off Monhegan Island, and federal and state law enforcement responded.

Lobsterman Larry Reed posted video on Facebook Monday morning of the Go Liberty, a 150-foot survey vessel, as it appeared to draw near lobster buoys in the water.

“He’s gonna tow right though that lobster gear with no concern. He’s got gear out towing, no concern whatsoever for our livelihoods,” Reed said in the video.

The U.S. Coast Guard says it sent boats from its Boothbay Harbor station to assist the state Marine Patrol on the scene, which is in state-administered waters. Company officials say the survey vessel was forced to stop operations to ensure safety. Fishermen say that Coast Guard and Marine Patrol boats monitored the situation, and by afternoon the vessel continued its work.

The flashpoint is a single-turbine, floating platform wind project under development by New England Aqua Ventus, in a collaboration between private industry and the University of Maine. The Go Liberty was contracted to survey potential routes for an electricity cable between the turbine and the coast.

Read the full story at Maine Public

AMERICAN AQUAFARMS CEO: Aquaculture can play a big role in Maine’s economy and climate change response

March 23, 2021 — Maine is setting the stage with its response to climate change, the need for greater sustainability and environmental stewardship.

Aquaculture plays an important role in all three.

The United States imports about 90 percent of the fish eaten in the country. Those imports ship consumer dollars out of the country, while also having a direct impact on the environment from the transportation required to deliver the food.

With wild fisheries under pressure from overfishing and warming oceans, aquaculture provides an opportunity to produce food closer to the people who will eat it and in a controlled and sustainable way.

That’s why American Aquafarms has proposed a new aquaculture facility along the working waterfront in Gouldsboro with pens located in Frenchman Bay.

We believe that this project will produce salmon safely and sustainably, while helping to fight climate change and creating good jobs for Maine people.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: 100 fishing boats gather off Monhegan in protest of offshore wind development

March 23, 2021 — Fishermen in nearly 100 boats from the midcoast gathered in waters near Monhegan Island on Sunday to protest the development of offshore wind energy infrastructure, including an array of wind turbines proposed by the state.

Boats came from towns including South Bristol, Boothbay, Port Clyde, Tenants Harbor, Vinalhaven, Friendship, Spruce Head, Monhegan and Owls Head, Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, told Mainebiz in a subsequent email.

The Brunswick association is an industry-based nonprofit that supports and advocates for Maine’s community-based fishermen. The protest was organized by the fishermen themselves, not by an industry association, he noted.

“We fully support their efforts,” he added.

Martens continued, “Fishermen and waterfront communities throughout Maine are increasingly concerned at the speed at which offshore wind development is taking place in Maine. Maine has funding to create a full roadmap to better ensure that our fisheries and fishing communities are respected and protected, yet we seem to be full steam ahead on putting 700-foot industrial structures out on the ocean.

“We need clean energy, but just because wind is renewable, doesn’t mean it’s green and it doesn’t mean it is the right choice for Maine.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Wind developer accuses fishing boats of disrupting Maine offshore survey

March 23, 2021 — The seabed survey for a cable that would connect the planned offshore wind turbine near Monhegan Island to the mainland was disrupted Monday morning by three fishing boats that circled the survey vessel, according to New England Aqua Ventus, the project’s developer.

The action led the crew of the 144-foot R/V Go Liberty to suspend operations for an unspecified period, New England Aqua Ventus said.

“It was creating an unsafe situation until it’s resolved,” Dave Wilby, a project spokesman, told the Portland Press Herald.

The incident follows a protest Sunday by more than 80 lobster boats that lined up between Monhegan and Boothbay Harbor to call attention to their concerns about potential wind power development off the Maine coast.

Lobstermen fear that the ongoing survey project and the test turbine that would follow it will disrupt fisheries and undermine a traditional industry that is a vital economic engine for coastal Maine. But the project also is critical to Maine’s ambitions of jump-starting a new clean-energy sector.

After years of planning, a collaboration between the University of Maine and New England Aqua Ventus would link a turbine south of Monhegan to the mainland power grid in South Boothbay via a 23-mile underwater cable. The 12-megawatt test turbine would be the first commercial-scale project in the nation and help demonstrate the viability of floating offshore wind energy.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Maine lobstermen protest Monhegan-area wind project

March 22, 2021 — More than 80 lobster boats lined up between Monhegan Island and Boothbay Harbor on Sunday to protest a seabed survey for a planned offshore wind turbine near Monhegan.

Lobstermen fear that the ongoing survey project and the test turbine that would follow it will disrupt fisheries and undermine an industry that serves as a vital economic engine for coastal Maine. After years of planning, a collaboration between the University of Maine and New England Aqua Ventus would link a turbine south of Monhegan to the mainland power grid in South Boothbay via a 23-mile underwater cable.

Earlier this month, three vessels began surveying the seabed along that route to study the potential impact of a cable on the ecosystem and area industry. But lobstermen say the survey boats have already begun to disrupt their operations by cutting lines and disturbing buoys.

“The boat hasn’t been staying in the survey route, and there’s been some issues with gear loss,” Dustin Delano, a lobsterman from Friendship who helped organize the protest, said this weekend.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Maine’s baby eel fishermen hope for normalcy in 2021

March 22, 2021 — Maine’s baby eel fishermen are hopeful for a more stable season in 2021 as they seek one of the most valuable natural resources in New England.

The fishermen seek the eels, called elvers, so they can be sold as seedstock to Asian aquaculture companies. They are then raised to maturity and sold as food, such as sushi.

Maine has the only significant fishery for the eels in the U.S., and they sometimes fetch more than $2,000 per pound.

The season starts Monday, just over a year after the coronavirus pandemic upended the 2020 season. Prices for the eels plummeted last year because of disruption to the worldwide economy caused by the early stages of the pandemic.

The price of elvers to fishermen fell from $2,091 per pound in 2019 to $525 last year. The industry suffered because eels are almost exclusively a restaurant product, and the pandemic shuttered restaurants the world over, said Mitchell Feigenbaum, an elver dealer.

But the recovery of the economy in China, a major buyer, bodes well for this season, Feigenbaum said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times