Saving Seafood

Quinn Fisheries finalizes deal for six Rafael scallop vessels

September 24, 2019 — The following is an excerpt from a story originally published by Undercurrent News:

Quinn Fisheries, a 33-year-old, New Bedford, Massachusetts-based scallop operation, has closed its deal to purchase six of Carlos Rafael’s 11 scallop vessels and their related permits, sources told Undercurrent News.

The acquisition, which was confirmed by Michael Quinn, the operations manager and co-owner of the company with his father and founder Charlie Quinn, doubles the size of the Quinn Fisheries scallop fleet to 12 total vessels and will cost the company about $40 million.

The new vessels acquired include the Acores, Athena, Apollo, Gypsy Girl, Hera II and the Villa Nova Do II, Michael Quinn said.

Undercurrent News had earlier reported how the Quinns had a deal to buy seven of Rafael’s vessels for nearly $46 million, per an Aug. 29 purchase agreement. The deal later was confirmed by court documents related to a lawsuit filed against Rafael by the Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE), the New Bedford, Massachusetts-based seafood auction.

BASE’s owners Richie and Raymond Canastra attempted to block the agreement as part of an apparent attempt to acquire the same vessels, which also possess several groundfish permits. They argued unsuccessfully that Rafael violated the rules of groundfish sector 7 related to offering other sector members the right of first refusal.

However, Merita Hopkins, an associate judge in Bristol County, Massachusetts, blocked the temporary restraining order requested by BASE, freeing up the Quinns and Rafael to complete their agreement.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Massachusetts meeting could have big consequences for US groundfish harvesters

September 23, 2019 — The financial well being of groundfish harvesters in the Northeastern US could be heavily influenced by a four-day meeting that kicks off in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Monday, the Gloucester Daily Times reports.

Wednesday is the key day, the newspaper advises. That’s when the meeting, held by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) at the Beauport Hotel, is expected to spend an entire afternoon focused on groundfish, including Amendment 23.

Passed by the NEFMC and approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Amendment 23 is to improve the accuracy of multispecies groundfish catch reporting data by setting industry-funded minimum coverages.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Council to review groundfish monitoring issues

September 20, 2019 — The New England Fishery Management Council will convene in Gloucester next week with an agenda that includes a groundfish monitoring measure that ultimately could determine the financial fate of the Northeast groundfish fleet.

The council is set to meet Monday through Thursday at the Beauport Hotel Gloucester. But for groundfishermen throughout the region, Wednesday is the key day.

The entire afternoon is set aside for discussing groundfish issues — including the current draft of Amendment 23, which when passed by the council and approved by NOAA Fisheries will set industry-funded monitoring coverages for the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery.

“We can’t stress enough how important it is for industry, for groundfishermen, to go to the meeting to hear what they might be facing down the road,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition. “Whatever is decided, they will have to pay for it eventually.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

State judge’s order thwarts auction owners’ apparent last stab at buying Rafael vessels

September 19, 2019 — Raymond and Richie Canastra, the long-time owners of the Buyers and Sellers Exchange (BASE), the New Bedford, Massachusetts-based seafood auction, have made another apparent attempt to purchase some of Carlos Rafael’s commercial fishing vessels and again have been thwarted, Undercurrent News has learned.

This time the two brothers’ effort, which involved stepping in front of another buyer, has been done in by a state judge’s order.

Merita Hopkins, an associate judge in the Bristol County, Massachusetts, Superior Court, on Friday vacated her approval, given two days earlier, of a request by BASE for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would have stopped Rafael from selling seven of his 11 scallop vessels to Charlie and Michael Quinn, the father-and-son owners of Quinn Fisheries, a 33-year-old, New Bedford-based scallop operation with six vessels already harvesting, for nearly $46 million.

The move by the Canastras, whose auction handles roughly half of all the Atlantic scallops caught in New England as well as a considerable amount of groundfish, seems to have been a prelude to them making an offer themselves for the boats, which also come with some groundfishing quota.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Trump move to delay Mass. wind farm concerns NY officials

September 19, 2019 — New York State is “watching closely” the federal government’s decision to stall a Massachusetts offshore wind project to review environmental and fishing impacts, a top state official said Wednesday, adding there’s no sign yet that the scrutiny will affect New York’s ambitious offshore wind plans.

“That concern does exist,” Alicia Barton, president and chief executive of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, told business leaders at a Long Island Association meeting in Melville Wednesday. She called the federal review a “significant setback” in the permitting schedule for that project, called Vineyard Wind.

Vineyard Wind in August said it was “surprised and disappointed” by the federal Bureau of Energy Management’s decision to scrutinize the “cumulative impacts [of offshore wind] driven by rapid growth of the industry beyond our project.”

For now, Barton said she had “no reason to believe” New York projects, which are slated to be in service in 2024, would be affected by the federal review. Nor does it appear to delay her expectation that additional leasing areas off New York will be offered by the federal government soon.

Read the full story at Newsday

MASSACHUSETTS: Congressional delegation urges feds to find new lobster markets

September 19, 2019 — As the United States trade war with China continues to take its toll on Massachusetts lobstermen, members of the state’s Congressional delegation, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, are urging the Trump administration to find new markets for American lobster exports.

Sens. Warren and Ed Markey and Congressmen Joseph Kennedy III, William Keating, Stephen Lynch and Seth Moulton wrote a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Monday imploring him assist the local lobster industry.

The lawmakers said that China’s 25 percent tariffs on imported American lobsters has had a “material impact” on the state’s lobster industry, already forcing at least two businesses to close and leaving 250 people out of work.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Governor, local officials celebrate $24M grant for harbor dredging

September 18, 2019 — Since the Port of New Bedford has ranked as the most valuable fishing port in the country for 18 consecutive years, there’s no doubt that it’s an important part of the city and beyond, and with a $24 million state grant for dredging, officials are proud and excited about what this means.

Gov. Charlie Baker Tuesday afternoon called the port “an incredibly important asset” to the community and region and underscored its greater significance.

It landed and processed $427 million of locally harvested seafood last year and processed an additional $275 million in international seafood, among other large statistics, Baker said.

Tuesday afternoon in the Whaling Museum Harbor View Gallery, local and state elected officials, including Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, talked about the listening, collaboration and hard work that helped turn out a $24 million grant for Phase 5 of the city’s dredging project.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Atlantic Herring Days Out Call Information and Notice of Spawning Closures for Western Maine and Massachusetts/New Hampshire in Effect September 23 through November 3, 2019

September 18, 2019 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Commission’s Atlantic Herring Management Board members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts set effort control measures for the Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) fishery via Days Out meetings/calls. These members are scheduled to convene via conference call on October 2nd from 9:30 to 11:30 AM to consider fishery specifications for Quota Period 4. The details of the call are as follows:

Meeting webinar: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/239062933

Join the conference call:

Phone: 1.888.585.9008

Passcode: 853-657-937

Spawning Closures

The Atlantic Herring Area 1A fishery regulations include seasonal spawning closures for portions of state and federal waters in Eastern Maine, Western Maine, and Massachusetts/New Hampshire. The Atlantic Herring Management Board approved a forecasting method that relies upon at least three samples, each containing at least 25 female herring in gonadal states III-V, to trigger a spawning closure. However, if sufficient samples are not available then closures will begin on predetermined dates.

Read the full release here

Lobster industry pinched by tariffs

September 18, 2019 — The trade war with China is putting the squeeze on the state’s lobster industry, and the damage is seeping into other sectors of the seafood economy, lawmakers were told Tuesday.

China has imposed 35% tariffs on U.S. lobsters — and many other food products — over the past year amid rising trade hostilities with the United States.

As a result, U.S. lobster exports to China have fallen off a cliff, dropping by 80% since its retaliatory tariffs went into effect.

The pain is being felt in Massachusetts, the nation’s second-largest market, where lobster sales to China plummeted 62% in the past year, according to state export officials.

“Canada is experiencing a boom in lobster sales as Chinese buyers find alternative markets,” Mark Sullivan, executive director of the state Office of International Trade and Investment, told members of Legislature’s Committee on Export Development on Tuesday. “Cargo planes are coming into Halifax, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick to handle this bump in growth.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Moulton praises local lobsterers for staying at whale rule table

September 17, 2019 — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton on Monday called the Maine Lobstermen’s Association shortsighted for stepping away from the federal plan to increase protections for North Atlantic right whales, saying the defection will dull its membership’s ability to influence the plan ultimately adopted by NOAA Fisheries.

“It limits their involvement in the solution going forward,” Moulton said on a teleconference organized by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “We really want to get everyone on board here and we want to make sure that it’s a solution that works for all the stakeholders. I don’t think you’re going to find any lobstermen that who say they want the right whale to go away.”

Moulton, a primary author of a House bill to help save the endangered right whales, said he believes the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association’s decision to remain at the table as the Atlantic right whale take reduction team thrashes out the final plan for the approval of NOAA Fisheries is the proper one.

“I think part of the reason the Massachusetts lobstermen are at the table to be a part of this process and its agreement moving forward is because they recognize that if this gets even more dire, they may literally be regulated out of business,” Moulton said. “I think the lobstermen in Massachusetts are being really smart. I think right now the lobstermen in Maine are being shortsighted. But we hope to bring them back on board, because ultimately they’re going to be better off having a seat at the table than not.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times