Saving Seafood

Maine begins scallop fishing area closures for ’18-’19

January 2, 2019 — Maine fishery regulators are shutting down a couple of scallop fishing areas for the first time this season.

Maine’s home to some of the most lucrative scallops in the country, and the state maintains the population of the shellfish by closing some areas to fishing over the course of the season. The Maine Department of Marine Resources says it’s closing Machias and Little Machias Bays for the rest of the season.

The closures went into effect on Dec. 30.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Miami Herald

Coast Guard crews in Maine to be paid Monday after all, despite shutdown

December 31, 2018 –After a last-minute intervention by Sen. Susan Collins, employees of the Coast Guard, including hundreds in Maine, will receive their pre-shutdown pay Monday on schedule.

Previously, the employees had been told they would not be getting their second paycheck of the month because of the partial shutdown of the federal government.

A spokesman for Collins said she contacted the White House on Friday afternoon to urge an immediate fix to the payment issue, and a few hours later was told that Coast Guard members would now receive pay for their pre-shutdown work.

“Good news for the Coast Guard!” Collins, a Republican, tweeted at 8:26 p.m. Friday. “White House staff called to tell me CG members will receive their paychecks as did other federal employees. I continue to work to end the shutdown, but this will provide immediate relief to CG members & their families.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

There’s new hope for Mainers fighting to save working waterfronts

December 31, 2018 — In Maine’s decades-long fight over working waterfront, developers have consistently held a distinct cash advantage over fishermen.

That hasn’t changed, so advocates for ensuring that enough Maine piers and wharves remain available to preserve the state’s embattled maritime workforce have adopted new tactics. And there’s hope the state could free up more cash soon for working waterfront preservation.

When Portland’s city council earlier this month enacted a six-month moratorium on non-marine-related development along the city’s working waterfront, even The New York Times paid attention.

The moratorium resulted from a signature-collecting effort for a referendum that would seek to reinstate a requirement that all new projects in the waterfront zone be water-dependent, a rule that would effectively block new construction of hotels, restaurants and offices, which have proliferated in the area in recent decades.

Among other developments, the petition was triggered by a $40 million development project — four-story hotel, retail shops, office space and a parking garage — proposed for Fisherman’s Wharf.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

Governors, attorneys general join fight against seismic testing

December 28, 2018 — North Carolina’s Attorney General Josh Stein, along with attorneys general from Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Virginia and New York have moved to take their own action stop the proposed use of airguns to survey the Atlantic Ocean floor for oil and gas.

“North Carolina’s beautiful coastline supports tens of thousands of jobs and billions in economic activity,” said Stein in a statement. “That is why I am fighting this move to take our state one step closer to offshore drilling. I will continue to do everything in my power to protect our state’s coast.”

A lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, and federal officials was filed last week in South Carolina by a coalition of local and national non-governmental organizations.

“In moving to intervene on the side of the organizations, the attorneys general are seeking to file their own complaint on behalf of their respective states,” according to the announcement.

The seismic testing surveys is one step closer to allowing offshore drilling, “An action that would result in severe and potentially irreparable harm to our coastline and its critically important tourism and fishing economy,” the release continued.

Five private companies applied in 2014 and 2015 to the U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, for permits to use air guns for seismic testing to search for oil and gas on the Atlantic Ocean floor.

Read the full story at The Outer Banks Voice

Maine lobster industry partnering with state prisons to address workforce woes

December 21, 2018 — There is ample opportunity to be had in Maine’s USD 1 billion (EUR 876 million) lobster industry for those who are eager and interested in the work.

That was the overarching message shared with a group of inmates at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, Maine, U.S.A. on 7 December, during a kickoff session for a new training program aimed at readying incarcerated Mainers with the skills, knowledge, and abilities to potentially land a job in the lobster industry upon release from prison.

Established through a collaboration between the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association and the Maine Department of Corrections, the certificate-earning program is comprised of a series of workshops focused on supply chain dynamics, lobster handling, packaging and shipping, and warehouse and plant safety.

Around 45-55 offenders were in attendance during the initial information session hosted in Windham earlier this month, which saw local lobster businesses such as Cozy Harbor Seafood, Ready Seafood, and Inland Seafood conduct presentations on the career paths and possibilities available within the industry.

Representatives from the companies, alongside Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association Executive Director Annie Tselikis, spoke to the attending prisoners about the troubles they’ve been facing beyond bars trying to build their workforces. Low unemployment rates and changes to the H2B visa program have presented challenges for hiring as far as lobster companies are concerned in today’s booming economy, explained Tselikis.

“It is hard for us to quantify how many jobs need to be filled right now. There are positions posted that go unfilled, forcing companies to attempt to fill by personal connections,” Tselikis said.

“There are a wide variety of positions that are required and that we need in order to be successful in our business, and we’re looking to you guys as trying to help us as we’re continuing to grow our industry,” she added, addressing a room of over 40 offenders during the second of two informational sessions held at the medium-security prison facility on 7 December. “There is great opportunity for expansion within our industry based on demand for this product that we’re experiencing in the marketplace.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New England States Fear Increased Mercury Contamination As EPA Considers Weakening Rules

December 18, 2018 — Scientists are speaking out about what they say have been “remarkable improvements” in curbing mercury emissions under Obama-era regulations that are now under threat by the Trump administration.

Mercury is a toxic chemical most commonly associated with coal-burning power plants. Because they are downwind from coal-burning states, Maine and the rest of New England have traditionally had higher-than-average rates of mercury contamination, and scientists say a proposal to weaken emission rules could impede progress.

The coal industry considers the 2011 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, known as MATS, the most expensive air pollution regulation ever implemented and responsible for the closure of dozens of coal plants around the country. Acting Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler is a former coal lobbyist, and now the EPA is proposing to weaken MATS by heavily weighing costs to the industry.

The EPA maintains that the Obama administration was indifferent toward that side of the equation. But scientists say the agency is downplaying the health and environmental benefits of the rule across the country.

“The reductions in emissions of mercury in the U.S. since 2006 have decreased about 85 percent,” says Dr. Charlie Driscoll, a professor at Syracuse University who spoke to reporters in a teleconference on Monday.

Most of the emissions Driscoll’s referring to came from coal-fired power plants, and he says much of the reason for their reduction can be attributed to the MATS rules.

“We’ve seen decreases in mercury in air, in atmospheric deposition, in water, in soil and we’ve seen declines in both freshwater fisheries in the U.S. in mercury as well as marine fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean,” he says.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that is especially harmful to children and developing fetuses, which is why the Maine Bureau of Health has a freshwater fish consumption advisory for pregnant women, nursing mothers and kids under 8.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Portland Press-Herald: Aquaculture wrong target for protests

December 17, 2018 — Forty years ago, Belfast was probably best known for poultry processing. Rendered chicken fat slicked the water in the harbor, and feathers flying in the wind were jokingly called “snowstorms in July.”

The industry collapsed in the 1980s, and the city has since remade itself as a community that takes environmental sustainability seriously.

So, it’s no surprise that Belfast is the preferred site for a Norwegian company looking to build a state-of-the art, land-based aquaculture facility, which requires clean, cold water to raise salmon from eggs to adulthood. And it’s also no surprise that the project is under fire by some local activists who say that it’s too big and would destroy an unspoiled wooded area.

Read the full story at The Portland Press Herald

Why some Maine coastal communities are up in arms about aquaculture

December 10, 2018 — From oyster farms to cultivated seaweed and farm-raised salmon, aquaculture is often described as essential to the economic future of Maine’s fisheries in the face of a changing ecosystem. Warming waters from climate change are pushing lobster farther Down East and have shut down the shrimp fishery, and threats such as ocean acidification and invasive green crabs are harming Maine’s natural fisheries.

But opposition to several proposed projects suggests the hardest part of getting into aquaculture might be getting past the neighbors. All along the coast, neighbors argue that pending aquaculture ventures will create too much noise, use too much energy, attract too many birds and obstruct their opportunities for boating or lobstering. One questioned whether an oyster farm would make it hard for deer to swim from one point of land to another.

In Belfast, abutters to the land where Nordic Aquafarms hopes to put in a giant land-based farm to raise salmon have filed a lawsuit against the city, which they say hastily and secretly approved a zoning change the company needed to move forward.

In Brunswick, opponents of a proposed 40-acre oyster farm have hired not just attorneys, but a public relations expert, Crystal Canney, in the hopes of persuading the Department of Marine Resources not to approve the lease.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Proposed reduction in herring harvest could affect lobster catch

December 10, 2018 — Fishermen who harvest herring, one of the most important baitfish on the East Coast, are likely to see a dramatic reduction next year in the amount they are allowed to catch. The change could have major implications for the lobster business.

The commercial fishery for herring is a major industry in the Atlantic states, where the small fish is important as lobster bait and is also eaten by people. Herring has been under the microscope of regulators and conservation groups recently after a scientific assessment said earlier this year that the fish’s population has fallen in the past five years.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it wants to cut the annual catch limit from nearly 110 million pounds this year to less than half that in 2019. The agency said in a statement that the deep cut is needed to prevent overfishing.

This year’s herring quota was also cut back in August. The loss of so much herring will be a challenge for America’s lobstermen, who are based mostly in New England, said Kristan Porter, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Westerly Sun

Maine fisheries groups support DMR Commissioner Keliher

December 10, 2018 — Who says miracles don’t happen?

In what must be a first in modern history, virtually every commercial fishing organization in Maine joined together to urge Governor-elect Janet Mills to keep Patrick Keliher on the job as commissioner of Marine Resources after she takes office in January.

First reported in the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s Landings, shortly after the election, the MLA, Downeast Lobstermen’s Association, Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, Maine Aquaculture Association, Alewife Harvesters of Maine, Maine Elver Fishermen Association and the Independent Maine Marine Worm Harvesters Association signed a letter to Mills voicing the organizations’ unanimous support for the current DMR commissioner.

“Commissioner Keliher has the relationships, knowledge of the industry landscape and major issues to effectively lead Maine’s seafood sector into the future,” the fisheries groups told the governor-elect.

As of late this week, DMR spokesman Jeff Nichols said Keliher had “no comment at this time” regarding the industry’s endorsement.

Governor Paul LePage appointed Keliher to his job in January 2012, some six months after the departure of the Governor’s initial appointee, Norman Olsen, in July 2011.

Over the past seven-plus years, Keliher has overseen the implementation of a number of tough conservation and enforcement programs in several fisheries including the 10-year rotational management plan for scallops, the introduction of magnetic swipe cards to track landings in the elver fishery and federally mandated gear changes by lobstermen for the protection of endangered whales. He also pushed the Legislature for stronger powers to discipline fishermen who violate Maine’s fisheries laws and DMR rules.

His experience with fisheries regulatory groups was a significant factor in the groups’ recommendation.

“Many of the most impactful decisions that affect the Maine commercial fishing industry are made by regulatory agencies outside of Maine through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS),” the writers told Mills.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American