Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Markey in New Bedford Dumps on Trump Offshore Drilling Move

September 14, 2020 — Fresh off a Democratic primary win, Sen. Ed Markey made a stop in New Bedford Saturday where he blasted a recent Trump move to enact a 10-year ban on offshore drilling for oil and gas – but only in three Republican-controlled southern coastal states.

“He’s fishing for votes in Florida, instead of protecting the fishing industry of Massachusetts,” said Markey to those gathered near the city’s hurricane barrier and harbor walk. “He knows he is not going to win up here in Massachusetts, and as a result is willing to endanger the fishing and the tourism industry.”

President Donald Trump last Tuesday announced a new moratorium on oil and gas extraction off the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, but did not say why he chose those three states. An existing moratorium covering Florida’s gulf coast will stay in place, and Trump extended that ban to the Atlantic coast.

“This protects your beautiful gulf and your beautiful ocean, and it will for a long time to come,” the president said during a signing ceremony in Jupiter, Florida. “Who would have thought? Trump is the great environmentalist.”

Read the full story at WBSM

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishermen can apply for COVID-19 relief

September 14, 2020 — Massachusetts commercial fishermen should soon be receiving their applications for the $11.8 million in federal fishery assistance funds to help offset economic damage to the industry from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state Division of Marine Fisheries said it began sending out the applications on Wednesday to commercial fishermen at the addresses listed on their DMF-issued permits. Completed applications and appeals must be postmarked no later than Oct. 10.

The $11.8 million set aside for commercial harvesters is part of the $28 million Congress allocated to the Massachusetts seafood industry in March in the $300 million CARES Act to mitigate the financial woes caused by the unrelenting pandemic.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

New Bedford’s Mariner Seafood files Chapter 11, True North aims for stalking horse bid

September 14, 2020 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Mariner Seafood filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, 14 September, with Cooke Aquaculture’s True North Seafood lined up as the stalking horse bidder for its assets.

Court documents filed by Mariner Seafood acknowledge the company defaulted on its revolving USD 10 million (EUR 8.4 million) loan from Wells Fargo, and that the company had been exploring options such as selling assets or facilitating an equity investment to improve its cashflow and repay its debt.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: Cape fishermen aid food banks with, what else – chowder

September 11, 2020 — Every New Year’s Eve, fisherman Bill Amaru makes clam chowder for about 200 people at Chatham’s Masonic Hall for First Night. He takes it very seriously, adds just the right spices – and a lot of butter.

But this year, on account of COVID-19, he won’t be making that chowder. He’s part of a more ambitious chowder undertaking — with the main ingredient haddock, in a project also born out of the pandemic.

Nearly 20,000 18-ounce containers began rolling out to food banks across the state a few weeks back, with a big goal accompanying those small containers: Feed America’s hungry and keep local fishermen at sea.

Amaru is among the Cape’s fishermen out catching the haddock.

“If in the first year we can deliver 100,000 pounds of chowder to food banks while guaranteeing fishermen a fair price and a steady buyer that would be an amazing win-win,” said Seth Rolbein, director of Cape Cod Fisheries Trust, a unit of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen Alliance, in Chatham.

The even bigger hope is that the initiative, launched with philanthropic support from Catch Together, could expand into federal food programs run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

Vineyard Wind sets up Nantucket benefit fund

September 9, 2020 — The following was released by Vineyard Wind:

Vineyard Wind, the offshore wind farm project moving ahead 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, has reached a “Good Neighbor Agreement” with the Town of Nantucket and leading nonprofits on the island to create the Offshore Wind Community Fund. The agreement “makes changes to the wind project to lessen its visual impacts” and establishes a fund “that will support projects that benefit the entire Nantucket community,” wrote legal counsel Greg Werkheiser of Cultural Heritage Partners in the announcement.

According to a joint press release from the two entities, the fund will “will support local initiatives to combat the effects of global climate change, enhance coastal resiliency, and protect, restore, and preserve Nantucket’s cultural and historic resources.” Vineyard Wind has agreed to provide an initial $4 million, when construction financing is obtained for its first project, to seed the fund, which will be administered by the Community Foundation for Nantucket, with additional funds to be added with “subsequent projects” and through accepting contributions from other wind developers and philanthropists. An advisory committee will be overseen by CFNan with representatives from the town, Maria Mitchell Association, Nantucket Preservation Trust, and Vineyard Wind.

Cities take council to task over monitoring recommendation

September 8, 2020 — You may have noticed that we’ve written a bit lately about the monitoring measure — Amendment 23 — being considered by the New England Fishery Management Council to set future monitoring levels for sector-based groundfish vessels.

It’s a hot item. Conservationists are all for it. Local fishermen say it could spell the death knell for the industry. The council is expected to take final action on the measure at its September meeting.

The cities of Gloucester and New Bedford — the state’s historic commercial fishing fiefdoms — weighed in. Not surprisingly, they are fervently against the council’s preferred option, which would put monitors on every trip by every sector-based groundfish vessel — at an average cost of about $700 per day per boat.

“Monitoring in any fishery is an important component to fisheries management,” the city of Gloucester stated in its comments to the council. “But the New England Fishery Management Council’s preferred alternative of 100% at-sea monitoring on the groundfish sector program is excessive and in complete disregard of the socio-economic disruptions and extreme hardships that will be imposed on fishermen, their groundfish sectors and their communities.”

And it goes on from there.

So there you go. The battle lines are drawn.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts Fishermen, State Leaders Fighting At-Sea Monitoring Proposal

September 8, 2020 — Massachusetts fishermen are not sitting back quietly as the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) considers a policy shift that would require 100% at-sea monitoring of commercial groundfish vessels. Fishermen, along with some state leaders, are raising concerns and making their opposition to the measures known.

Amendment23 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan would require groundfishing vessels to implement 100% at-sea monitoring or a combo of at-sea monitoring and electronic monitoring. And while the goal of the proposal is to improve catch accountability in the fishery, fishermen argue that it’s “overly burdensome and unnecessary.” In addition, with no vaccine available for COVID-19, there are also continued concerns about being able to properly social distance while at sea.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Carlos Rafael moved to ‘community confinement’

September 4, 2020 — Convicted New Bedford fishing scofflaw Carlos Rafael has been transferred within the federal Bureau of Prisons to “community confinement” in a move that could be the first step toward his return to society once his sentence is completed.

The Bureau of Prisons confirmed on Wednesday that the 68-year-old Rafael, known far and wide as “The Codfather” when he ruled the New Bedford docks with his seafood empire, was transferred on June 24 to community confinement overseen by the bureau’s Residential Reentry Management Office in Philadelphia. He is about 33 months into his 46-month sentence for massive cheating within the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery,

The bureau said community confinement means Rafael either is in home confinement or at a residential reentry center — or halfway house — managed by the Residential Reentry Management Office in Philadelphia. It declined to state specifically where Rafael is.

“Carlos A. Rafael is still serving his sentence,” Emory Nelson, a bureau spokesman, stated in an email response to to the Gloucester Daily Times. “His projected date of release from the custody of the BOP is March 4, 2021.  For privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not release information on an individual inmate’s conditions of confinement.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Lawmakers Oppose 100% At-Sea Monitoring Plan for Fishing Boats

September 4, 2020 — In a new letter to regulators, a group of Massachusetts lawmakers say a proposal to require at-sea monitors on every commercial groundfishing boat for every trip could put independent fleets and vessel owners out of business.

“We should be supporting this industry. Not drowning it in burdensome increased costs and regulations. I stand with our local fishermen, and urge the Council to reject this ill-advised proposal,” said Senator Mark Montigny today.

The New England Fisheries Management Council is considering Amendment 23 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. It would require groundfishing vessels to implement 100-percent at-sea monitoring or a blend of at-sea and electronic monitoring. The goal is to improve catch accountability, but fishermen argue the proposal would be too costly without accomplishing the stated goal.

Since the commercial groundfishery was declared a federal disaster in 2012, revenues have declined, the letter states. Businesses do not have the revenues to absorb the added costs. Piling more costs on the industry at this time will favor larger vessels and those with larger catch allocations, forcing smaller vessel owners out of business, the lawmakers argue.

Read the full story at WBSM

NMFS, fishermen partners launch ‘plan C’ survey in Gulf of Maine

September 3, 2020 — With their regular fisheries surveys thwarted by covid-19 precautions, researchers from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and a pair of Massachusetts fishing vessels have embarked on a three-week longline survey to compensate with new technology.

The 50-foot Mary Elizabeth out of Scituate and the 40-foot Tenacious II homeported at East Dennis have carried scientists on the Gulf of Maine longline research survey for six years, collecting data at 45 stations, according to a description of the program from NMFS officials.

The effort targets areas of rough bottom, where fish typically hide and are hard to sample with trawl gear. Covid-19 has complicated fisheries surveys off every U.S. coast, with NMFS cancel\ling many regularly scheduled 2020 research cruises over crew health and safety concerns.

That trend likewise closed the usual spring window for the Gulf of Maine longline survey.

“When it was clear we’d not be able to do our usual spring survey, we looked for ways to make the best of it,” said Anna Mercer, chief of the Center’s Cooperative Research Branch.

Read the full story at National Fisherman