Saving Seafood

Striped bass population in trouble, new study finds

February 8, 2019 — Striped bass, one of the most prized species in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic Coast, are being overfished according to a new assessment of the stock’s health — a finding that will likely trigger catch reductions for a species long touted as a fisheries management success.

The bleak preliminary findings of the assessment were presented to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a panel of fisheries managers, on Wednesday. The full analysis was not available. Its completion was delayed by the partial government shutdown, which sidelined biologists in the National Marine Fisheries Service who were working to complete the report.

But, noted Mike Armstrong of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, who also chairs the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management Board, the final results “will likely be the same when [the report] comes out.”

The board asked its technical advisers to estimate the level of catch reductions needed to bring the stock above management targets at its May meeting, when the stock assessment is expected to be ready for approval.

“We know it is going to be pretty drastic,” said John Clark of the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife, a member of the board.

The findings of the assessment were a bit of a surprise. Though the overall population was known to be declining, striped bass are often considered a signature success for fishery management.

The overharvest of striped bass, also called rockfish, sent their population to critically low levels in the early 1980s, eventually leading to a catch moratorium. The population rebounded, allowing catches to resume, and by 1997 the population recovered to an estimated 419 million fish aged one year or more.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

ASMFC Indefinitely Postpones Action on VA Compliance with Atlantic Menhaden Amendment 3 Chesapeake Bay Reduction Fishery Cap

February 7, 2019 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board postponed indefinitely action to find the Commonwealth of Virginia out of compliance with the provisions of Amendment 3 to the Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, specifically the Commonwealth’s failure to implement the Chesapeake Bay reduction fishery cap of 51,000 mt. This action is contingent upon the Chesapeake Bay reduction fishery not exceeding the cap. If the cap is exceeded, the Board can reconsider the issue of compliance.

In making its decision, the Board took into account the fact that reduction fishery harvest within the Chesapeake Bay has been below the cap level since 2012, including 2018 harvest. During its deliberations, the Board commended Virginia Commissioners on their efforts to monitor landings and work with the Commonwealth’s General Assembly to seek full implementation of the provisions of Amendment 3. While the Bay cap was established as a precautionary measure given the importance of menhaden as a prey species, additional information stemming from the development of ecological-based reference points (ERPs) may be informative to the Bay cap issue. Accordingly, the Board will consider action to modify the Bay cap after it completes action on ERPs, anticipated for 2020.

MARYLAND: Expo to highlight aquaculture, new equipment, gear

January 18, 2019 — The annual commercial fishing and aquaculture expo, the only one in the Mid-Atlantic region, kicks off at the Ocean City convention center on 40th Street this weekend.

The Maryland Watermen’s Association will host its 45th annual East Coast Commercial Fishermen’s and Aquaculture Trade Expo with more than 4,000 people expected throughout the three-day event, Jan. 18-20.

“The show was created to expose all the latest and newest equipment and gear, and what’s going on as far as regulations and requirements on commercial fishing,” Event Coordinator Victoria Brown said.

Last year, around 4,000 people attended the show.

Read the full story at Ocean City Today

A calico lobster turned up at a Maryland fish market. The chances of finding one: 1 in 30 million

January 15, 2019 — He spared her life and named her Eve. Now instead of a lobster pot she’s going to live in an aquarium.

The owner of a fish market in suburban Washington was sifting through his daily seafood delivery from Maine in late December when he came across a curious find: a lobster with a speckled, orange-and-black shell. It turned out to be a rare calico lobster.

The odds of catching one are about one in 30 million.

The owner of the Ocean City Seafood market in Silver Spring, Maryland, who wants to be identified only as Nicholas, didn’t want to send the crustacean to a restaurant to become someone’s dinner. So he set her aside.

“He didn’t know why she was special,” said Rita Montoya, a spokeswoman for the market. “He just formed a bond with her.”

Read the full story at CNN

Oyster farming bills brewing in Virginia, Maryland legislatures

January 10, 2019 — Jockeying has already begun in Virginia over legislation to determine the fate of the state’s coal ash pits, and new oyster-related measures are in the works in both Maryland and Virginia as the two states’ lawmakers begin their annual legislative sessions today.

In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam last week declared his support of legislation that would require coal ash produced by the state’s power plants to be removed from unlined pits and either recycled or deposited in safer, lined landfills.

The byproduct of coal-fired electricity generation, the ash is laced with heavy metals and has been linked to cancer, respiratory problems and other illnesses. An estimated 30 million tons are being stored at sites near Chesapeake Bay tributaries.

Dominion Energy, which owns the sites, estimates that such a cleanup would cost billions of dollars. The Richmond-based company has long advocated leaving the ash where it is, capping it with a layer of soil and a synthetic liner. Legislators have delayed that plan for the last two years, though, amid opposition from environmental groups.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Chesapeake Bay health worsened in 2018 for the first time in a decade, report says

January 9, 2019 — For the first time in a decade, the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay declined, dropping from a C- to a D+ in an annual State of the Bay report issued Monday.

Culprits in the decline include increased runoff from rainstorms in 2018 that were rendered more intense by a changing climate and continued failure in some jurisdictions to curb nutrient and sediment loads.

This is especially true in Pennsylvania, which consistently fails to meet most of its bay cleanup commitments, and where the chronically polluted Susquehanna River delivers half the bay’s freshwater.

“Simply put, the bay suffered a massive assault in 2018,” Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told reporters. “The bay’s sustained improvement was reversed in 2018, exposing just how fragile the recovery is.”

Adding to the assault, Baker said, are plans by the Trump administration to roll back clean water and clean air regulations that will directly impact the watershed.

Trump plans to overturn an Obama-era rule and reduce federal oversight for vast sections of the nation’s waterways and wetlands, and also ease federal restrictions for coal-fired power plant emissions. About a third of the nitrogen that reaches the bay comes from airborne sources, said Baker, some from as far away as the Midwest.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

MARYLAND: 2019 Chesapeake Environmental & Economic Summit

January 3, 2019 — The following was released by the Clean Chesapeake Coalition & Delmarva Fisheries Association:

The Clean Chesapeake Coalition (CCC) and Delmarva Fisheries Association (DFA) are teaming up to host an informational summit for new and returning Maryland General Assembly legislators. Three panels will focus on the economic and environmental challenges that face working farmers and watermen of Maryland amid ongoing Chesapeake Bay water quality improvement efforts. For too long, those who rely on the bounty of the land and water have been demonized when discussion turns to environmental issues. Despite the fact that these groups form an integral part of the fabric of our economy, culture and heritage, their members are often left out of the conversations about public management and regulations that affect their livelihoods. CCC & DFA are joining together to share with our State representatives and local officials sustainability plans that are based on scientific research, demonstrated success and concern for the welfare of all of the inhabitants around the nation’s largest estuary. We advocate for solutions that bring stakeholders together to engage their skills and resources in efficient and fiscally responsible ways.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

11:00 Welcome – Opening Remarks -Honorable Boyd K. Rutherford, Lt. Governor

11:15 Panel 1: Agricultural Issues including BMPs, State-Funded Farming Initiatives, Poultry Regulations

12:00 Light Food and Refreshments

12:30 The Conowingo Factor video showing

12:45 Panel 2: Water Quality in the Chesapeake Bay including MDE’s WQC for Conowingo Dam relicensing, MES’s Conowingo Sediment Characterization and Innovative Reuse Project, Clean Water Commerce, Phase III WIPs

1:30 Panel 3: Sustainable fisheries management including recent Oyster Stock Assessment, shell replenishment, oysters as BMP for pollution reduction

2:15 Recognition Awards

Fisheries on both VA, MD legislative agendas for 2019

January 3, 2019 — Oysters will be on the legislative menu in Maryland in 2019, while Virginia lawmakers will have menhaden on their plates. But for legislators gathering in both states in January, many of the environmental issues confronting them will be leftovers from previous years.

In Annapolis, environmentalists hope to capitalize on an infusion of dozens of newly elected legislators to push through bills that have failed to gain traction in years past. In Richmond, activists face a different situation, seeking to make headway in an election year, with all of the legislative seats up for grabs.

Here are some of the environmental issues lawmakers in each state can expect to face.

Maryland

Oysters: In the wake of a troubling scientific assessment of Maryland’s oyster population, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is seeking legislation to protect the five Bay tributaries selected for large-scale restoration from being reopened to harvest and to lay out a framework for the development of a new fishery management plan for the species.

A Department of Natural Resources stock assessment found in November that the number of market-size bivalves last season was half of what it had been 15 years earlier, and that the shellfish were being overfished in roughly half of the state’s waters. The assessment had been ordered by the General Assembly in 2017 after the DNR moved to open some state oyster sanctuaries to supplement a faltering commercial harvest. Lawmakers blocked the DNR move until the assessment was complete.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

For decades, scientists thought sturgeon had vanished from Maryland waters. They’re delighted to be wrong

January 3, 2019 — When David Secor started his career at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory almost three decades ago, one of his first projects concluded that the Atlantic sturgeon had all but disappeared from polluted Maryland waters.

The population of the massive fish — often 14 feet long — that once swam with dinosaurs plummeted in the 1900s amid rising demand for their eggs, better known as caviar. Overfishing devastated the species for the same reason caviar is such an expensive delicacy: Sturgeon roe is scarce because females don’t produce it until they’re at least 9 or 10 years old. Even then, the fish don’t spawn every year.

So Secor and other biologists were shocked and then intrigued when, over the past decade, watermen and recreational fishermen started spotting what looked unmistakably like sturgeon flopping and splashing around the Nanticoke River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. One even landed on the deck of a fisherman’s boat.

Read the full story at the Carroll County Times

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