May 13, 2020 — Maryland’s seafood industry is taking a big hit from the coronavirus pandemic, but millions in financial relief is on the way.
Maryland’s congressional delegation announced Tuesday the state fishing industry will receive $4.1 million through the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Tribes, commercial fishing businesses, charter/for-hire fishing businesses, qualified aquaculture operations, processors and other fishery-related businesses are eligible for this relief.
May 11, 2020 — The Seafood Harvesters of America (SHA) has written US senators Marco Rubio (a Florida Republican) and Ben Cardin (a Maryland Democrat) — the chairman and ranking member of the Small Business Committee respectively — to fix what the group believes was “an oversight” that’s now blocking fishermen from taking full advantage of the small business loans made available in the recently passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
In a letter sent Thursday, SHA, a group that represents 18 US fishing-related trade associations, seeks to allow “fishing businesses to include payments to fishing vessel crew members reported as fishing boat proceeds on Form 1099- MISC as eligible payroll costs under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)”.
The PPP refers to the new program that authorized up to $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses to pay their employees during the COVID-19 crisis.
“We believe it was an oversight that fishing vessel crewmember wages cannot be considered in the fishing business’s PPP loan application as submitted by the vessel owner or captain, and hope it can be easily fixed as [the Department of] Treasury completes their final rule for the PPP,” wrote Robert Dooley and Leigh Habegger, SHA’s president and executive director, respectively.
May 6, 2020 — Fisheries along the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia are, like many other fisheries in the country, facing an economic crisis as restaurant shutdowns cause decreases in demand.
The region’s two most iconic fisheries – blue crab and oysters – are both being hit by COVID-19-based restaurant closures that caused a rapid drop in demand. Restaurants account for 70 percent or more of the demand for the two species, with retail channels unable to make up the demand gap.
May 1, 2020 — Crab season is off to a slow and foreboding start around the Chesapeake Bay, with many crabmeat processors crippled by an inability to import seasonal workers and by watermen worried they’ll be unable to sell all they can catch as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Chilly, windy weather limited commercial harvests of blue crabs through much of April, the first full month of the season. Warming spring weather usually brings better fortunes, but those in the business of catching or picking crabs say they fear for their livelihoods amid the double whammy that’s hit the Bay’s most valuable fishery.
“It’s kind of a really scary situation,” said Bill Sieling, executive vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, which represents Maryland companies. “It just doesn’t look good.”
Read the full story from the Chesapeake Bay Journal at Patch.com
April 23, 2020 — With the aid of lawmakers, seafood businesses in Maryland, Virginia, Alaska and North Carolina last month won federal approval of an additional 35,000 visas for non-immigrant workers, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.
Within days, the coronavirus pandemic began shutting down businesses, including restaurants and retail outlets the seafood industry supplies.
Some seafood operations let employees go, while others have hired fewer people than they would in a more typical season.
John Martin, owner of the Martin Fish Co. in Ocean City, Maryland, told Capital News Service that a large percentage of the firm’s business is in the retail sector, including market and restaurant sales. Due to the virus, Martin Fish has been able to open its retail store.
April 9, 2020 — Thousands of people are recruited to Maryland each year to become the crab pickers, landscapers, caregivers and others whose work is essential for maintenance of the state’s seasonal economy.
While some H-2B visa holders will be out of work due to not being designated essential in the fight against COVID-19, others are part of essential supply chains that must continue to function. But at a time when the U.S. government is warning against all international travel, these frontline workers are risking their health and finances without the same protections Americans are afforded, migrant workers’ rights experts say.
“It’s an illness attacking everyone and anyone,” said Sulma Guzmán, policy director for Centro de los Derechos del Migrante Inc., a Maryland migrant rights advocacy organization. “To be a migrant worker that is leaving their home communities, their family, and coming to the U.S. to work, medical catastrophe would be very, very bad.”
About 450 visa-holding workers are needed by Maryland seafood processors this year, but employers have worried federal visa caps would keep them from getting enough workers. Those who still chose to come to the U.S. started their six-month work contracts April 1.
March 27, 2020 — Watermen have no restaurants that can buy their catches. Help for farmers who want to install runoff controls has been sharply curtailed. Streams throughout the region are missing their annual spring cleaning. And many students are losing their chance to experience the Chesapeake Bay firsthand.
The impact of the novel coronavirus, barely on the radar only a few months ago, is rippling through the Chesapeake Bay region, with impacts felt from Pennsylvania farm fields to Eastern Shore oyster grounds. While some impacts are minor, such as the postponement of meetings and cleanup events, others could become significant if the COVID-19 crisis lingers, potentially creating another setback for Bay pollution control initiatives.
While some point to slivers of positive news — air pollution is down — the near-shutdown of business activity is likely to slam state budgets in coming months, and possibly years, at a time when they had hoped to significantly increase spending on the Bay cleanup.
March 27, 2020 — The Chesapeake Bay’s seafood industry has been especially hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, as buyers dry up for oysters and prices plummet for fish and crabs.
Watermen say they’ve given up on the final weeks of the oyster season, as restaurant and raw bar closures have deprived them of lucrative markets for their catch.
“It’s very drastic,” said Robert T. Brown Sr., president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association. “I’ve seen things bad, but I’ve never seen them like this before.”
Oyster farmers say they’re idled for the same reason, though some are trying to eke out some direct sales to consumers. Ted Cooney, founder of Madhouse Oysters on Hooper’s Island on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, said sales suddenly stopped at a time when they’re usually selling 100 or more boxes of bivalves every week.
March 20, 2020 — Responding to employers’ calls, including those of crab meat processing companies in Virginia and Maryland, the federal government announced March 5 that it would release an additional 35,000 temporary visas for foreign workers.
That still may not be enough to quench the Chesapeake Bay seafood houses’ demand for temporary workers, according to the trade group that represents the industry. And they may still arrive too late to help much or perhaps get stuck on the other side of the border, as the United States today closed its Mexican border for unessential travel because of coronavirus concerns.
Several seafood company owners and watermen had implored the Trump administration to issue 64,000 more visas, the cap set by Congress.
Jack Brooks, co-owner of J.M. Clayton Seafood Co. in Cambridge, MD, and president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, said he expects a worker shortfall, despite the government’s action.
March 4, 2020 — Maryland and Virginia seafood industry leaders say they won’t have enough workers to process crabs this season unless the federal government once again raises its cap on temporary foreign workers.
Federal immigration officials announced last month that they had doled out the national limit of 33,000 work visas, which are in effect for six months beginning April 1. That was far short of the nearly 100,000 slots that employers had sought to fill.
In Maryland, seafood processors say they received roughly one-third of the 450 visas they need for this season, which also kicks off April 1. The shortage, they warn, could force some of the affected processing plants to close their doors for this season, with the possibility that they might never reopen because their customers and suppliers will have moved on.
Several dozen watermen, crab industry leaders and local elected officials gathered March 2 inside a picking house on Hooper’s Island in rural Dorchester County, MD, to passionately plea for the Trump administration to release 64,000 more visas, the limit set by Congress on how many can be added.