Saving Seafood

Troubling questions, concerns raised about off-shore wind farms

August 22, 2019 — Oceanographer Jon Hare listed the effects of offshore wind development on the marine environment.

There’s disturbance to the sea floor during installation of turbine platforms. Noise from pile-driving and other activities. Increases in boat traffic. Lighting of the project site. Dredging for electric cables.

The impacts can be far-reaching.

“Putting a pile into the sediment in essence is habitat alteration,” said Hare, a science and research director with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “You’re taking relatively smooth, unconsolidated sediments and converting it to hard structure, converting that habitat into something else.”

Although Hare didn’t name Vineyard Wind during a seminar on Wednesday, or talk about the company’s 84-turbine wind farm proposed in waters south of Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, the potential impacts he detailed speak to some of the reasons why NOAA has raised concerns about the project, which has led to further scrutiny of the application by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

Wind turbines and radar mix poorly

August 22, 2019 — As budding offshore wind development brings the U.S. to the brink of a new chapter in energy production, questions remain as to how radar interference caused by wind turbines will be diminished or eliminated.

Vineyard Wind’s 84-turbine wind farm, slated for an Atlantic lease area about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, effectively had the rug pulled out from underneath it August 9, when the Department of the Interior announced the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) would hold off signing a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and re-examine potential impacts posed by the project. Radar was not specifically cited as something the feds would take a second look at. However, weather and aeronautical radar are all well-documented as being adversely affected by wind turbines, and a handful of studies show marine radar is also hampered by wind turbines. Fishermen who spoke with The Times said they already work in an inherently dangerous industry, and offshore radar interference has the potential to exacerbate that danger.

Technological measures to lessen radar interference from turbines are being researched and slowly implemented in the U.S. and Europe. However, none appear to be folded into the construction plans for Vineyard Wind. In its Revised Navigation Risk Assessment, Vineyard Wind borrowed from a 2009 U.S. Coast Guard review for the never-realized Cape Wind project, and stated for its own project, “impacts to radar should not negatively impact a mariner’s ability to safely navigate in the [wind development area]; even so, Vineyard Wind will work with stakeholders to identify potential mitigation measures, as necessary.”

Read the full story at the MV Times

Lobstermen seek help in protecting right whales

August 22, 2019 — Commercial lobstermen urged federal regulators Wednesday to take Canada to task for its failure to protect North Atlantic right whales and to remember that local lobstermen carry a heavier burden of regulation than others in U.S. waters.

“We as lobstermen do not want to see harm come to the right whale,” Plymouth lobsterman Tom O’Reilly said at a public forum at Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School, the eighth in a series of meetings held this month on revisions to the plan to reduce the risk to whales posed by fishing gear. “We have done so much as an industry to try to prevent this.”

The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association believes Canada can do more, as can other coastal areas in the Northeast. “We’re still at the table today,” said Beth Casoni, the association’s executive director, despite what the fishermen see as a heavier regulatory burden.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MAYOR MITCHELL DISCUSSES NOAA LEGAL SETTLEMENT WITH CARLOS RAFAEL

August 22, 2019 — Mayor Jon Mitchell is expanding on his comments on the settlement reached this week between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the imprisoned “Codfather” Carlos Rafael.

As part of the settlement, Rafael will have to give up all commercial fishing by December 31, 2019, and all scalloping by March 31, 2020. In addition, Rafael is ordered to a $3,010,633 civil monetary penalty and relinquish the seafood dealer permit issued to Carlos Seafood by September 1.

According to NOAA, Rafael I is required to sell his fishing vessels and permits and will be allowed to keep the proceeds. Free to sell his licenses to whomever he pleases, Rafael has indicated that he intends to keep all of them in New Bedford.

Read the full story at WBSM

MASSACHUSETTS: Vineyard Wind project gains bipartisan support from federal lawmakers

August 22, 2019 — A bipartisan call for federal officials to move quickly on permits for the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project came Monday from the state’s congressional leaders along with colleagues from Louisiana.

“We believe it is possible for multiple industries to coexist in mixed use regions offshore,” the lawmakers said in their letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. “We urge your departments to work together to find a solution that will address concerns raised by stakeholders, protects the environment, and allows the Vineyard Wind project to remain viable.”

The call from federal officials echoes the intent of a rally held Thursday at Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable, where conservationists joined with other Vineyard Wind supporters — such as union members, business people and faith groups — in a call for a break in the logjam.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Blue Harvest tipped as likely buyer of Carlos Rafael’s groundfish fleet

August 22, 2019 — Blue Harvest Fisheries, a US scallop and groundfish supplier backed by private equity Bregal Partners, is believed to have moved to the front of the pack in the chase to nab the 32 groundfish permits and 19 related draggers owned by Carlos Rafael in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Quinn Fisheries, a longtime area scalloper, appears a lock, meanwhile, to land Rafael’s 11 scallop permits and related vessels, as previously reported.

The competition is on to acquire Rafael’s sizable commercial fishing operation following the civil settlement announced on Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Politicians Call for Action on Offshore Wind Project

August 21, 2019 — Massachusetts congressional leaders are asking federal officials to move quickly on permits for the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project.

Vineyard Wind has signed contracts to sell 800 megawatts of power a year to three Massachusetts electric utilities. The company planned to begin construction later this year off the Massachusetts coast.

A final environmental impact statement and a record of decision on the company’s plan was expected Friday.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Carlos Rafael was a seafood kingpin, until fake Russian mobsters took him down. Now he’ll never fish again.

August 21, 2019 — Carlos Rafael was made on the waterfront. For decades, the balding seafood magnate haunted the docks and early morning fish auctions in New Bedford, Mass., where he had gone from gutting fish as a high school dropout to controlling one of the largest fishing fleets in the United States. Though he estimated his net worth at somewhere between $10 million and $25 million, he still walked the creaky, bait-scented wharves in flannel shirts and worn jeans every day, barking out commands and alternating between foul-mouthed English and rapid-fire Portuguese as he chain-smoked Winston cigarettes and monitored the day’s catch.

That all changed in 2016, when federal authorities revealed that Rafael was at the center of a sprawling criminal investigation involving fake Russian mobsters, fraudulent haddock and duffel bags of cash. Now 67, Rafael will never fish commercially again, according to the terms of a settlement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that was announced Monday. It’s the latest chapter in the downfall of the man known as the “Codfather,” who is serving nearly four years in federal prison, and, under the new settlement, owes the government more than $3 million in fines.

Under the circumstances, getting out of the fishing business was the right choice, Rafael’s attorney, John Markey, told The Washington Post. But it also amounts to a significant sacrifice for the seafood tycoon, who wasn’t yet ready to retire. Up until the day Rafael reported to prison, Markey said, he still went to work on the docks each day at 6 a.m., driving a 10-year-old pickup truck.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

NOAA settlement with Rafael clears path for big scallop, groundfish vessel selloff

August 20, 2019 — Now that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has settled its civil claims against Carlos Rafael and 17 of his former fishing captains, look for the wheeling and dealing to intensify for his 43 scallop and groundfish permits and a related 30 fishing vessels.

Almost two years after a federal judge sentenced Rafael to pay $300,000 in fines and restitution and spend 46 months in prison for 28 different criminal counts, including repeatedly lying about his catch to authorities and evading taxes, the 67-year-old, so-called “Codfather” of New Bedford, Massachusetts, reached an agreement on Monday to determine what civil penalties he might also pay.

NOAA budged little from the $3,356,269 it said in September 2018 that it would seek from Rafael, hitting him with a $3,010,633 civil money penalty. However, rather than revoking Rafael’s many limited access permits, as some in the fishing sector desired or even expected, NOAA has given him until Dec. 31, 2020 — about 16 months — to sell them along with the many fishing vessels he owns or controls through transactions reviewed and approved by the agency.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Update: Carlos Rafael to be banned from fishing, pay $3 million; captains also face penalties

August 20, 2019 — New Bedford fishing magnate Carlos Rafael will permanently give up all commercial fishing by March 31 and pay a $3 million penalty to settle the federal government’s civil claims against him, federal fishing authorities said Monday.

Allegations against the self-proclaimed “Codfather” included dozens of counts of misreporting groundfish species, underreporting groundfish, and other fishery violations related to scalloping, gear and restricted areas.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it settled with Rafael and his fishing captains Monday in an administrative proceeding.

Rafael is sitting in federal prison at Federal Medical Center Devens, where he reported in November of 2017 to serve a 46-month sentence for falsifying fishing quota, cash smuggling and tax evasion in a separate criminal case.

His attorney in the civil matter, John Markey, said that considering what an appeal would require, Rafael believes the settlement is the right thing to do for him, his family, and the captains and crews of his vessels.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times