Saving Seafood

New scallop catch limits could ease tensions in northern Gulf of Maine

March 1, 2018 — New limits on the amount of scallops that can be harvested in part of the Gulf of Maine should help ease tensions between smaller boats from Maine and larger scallop vessels from Massachusetts during the upcoming federal scallop season, which is expected to get under way on April 1.

With the new rules, fishing boats that are restricted by the number of days-at-sea they can operate — the vast majority of which are based in Massachusetts — for the first time will have to adhere to catch limits in the Northern Gulf of Maine federal fishing area, which runs from roughly three miles from shore out to about 50 miles.

Boats with federal permits that restrict the number of days they can fish but which are allowed to fish anywhere along the East Coast cumulatively can catch only 65,000 pounds of scallops this year in the northern Gulf of Maine. In addition, only days-at-sea vessels that are participating in approved research projects will be allowed to fish in the area.

Prior to this year such boats faced no catch limits for scallops in the northern gulf and did not have to participate in research projects. Smaller Maine boats permitted only for the northern gulf have been limited to catching 200 pounds a day and, as a group, 70,000 pounds a year.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Massachusetts: Trump’s offshore drilling plan panned at hearing

March 1, 2018 — Opponents of offshore drilling on Tuesday blasted President Donald Trump’s proposal to open up the New England coast to oil and gas exploration, saying the plan threatens the state’s fishing industry, coastal economies, public health and delicate marine life.

Officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held a informational event about Trump’s plans in the Sheraton Hotel in Boston on Tuesday, but they only took written testimony from the public. They set up booths with experts to answer questions and a broadcast a video with information about the proposal.

Opponents staged a protest in another function room. Some wore lobster and shark costumes. Others held signs that read “Drilling is Killing.” A giant inflatable whale was displayed.

“Opening up our coast to offshore drilling would be terrible for Massachusetts,” Emily Norton, chapter director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club, told a packed room of opponents. “We will be fighting this with everything we’ve got, in the courts, on the streets and at the ballot box.”

Democratic attorneys general from a dozen coastal states — including Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey — have written Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke protesting the drilling plan. Tuesday’s hearing was one of dozens scheduled across the country through the end of March.

Democratic governors along both coasts unanimously oppose drilling, as do a number of Republican governors, including Massachusetts Gov. Charles Baker. Baker is scheduled to meet with Zinke on Sunday to discuss offshore drilling while he’s in Washington for the National Governors Association’s winter meeting.

Baker wrote to Zinke last year expressing concerns about the impact of oil exploration along the outer continental shelf on the state’s fishing industry and marine resources and ecosystems. He also noted the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop offshore wind resources.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Gov. Charlie Baker, Massachusetts congressional delegation asks Trump administration to scrap offshore drilling plan

March 1, 2018 — Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and all 11 members of the state’s congressional delegation urged the Trump administration this week to back away from its plan to open new areas off the United States’ East Coast to oil and gas drilling.

Baker, a Republican, joined Massachusetts congressional Democrats in calling on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to not include Massachusetts waters in the administration’s five-year drilling plan, which seeks to open areas from Florida to Maine for oil and gas exploration purposes, in a Tuesday letter.

Noting that the North Atlantic has largely not been eligible for oil and gas drilling for more than 30 years, Baker and Massachusetts congressional lawmakers said they “unequivocally” oppose efforts to open the area up for such exploration, as proposed in the administration’s National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing program for 2019 to 2024.

The lawmakers stressed that the Outer Continental Shelf’s resources and uses “are critically important to the health and well-being of Massachusetts;” support local, state and national economies; and “are intrinsic to the social fabric and heritage of our coastal communities.”

Baker and the Massachusetts congressional delegation offered, for example, that the state’s marine economy generated a total economic impact of more than $17.3 billion in output in 2015. That included revenue from tourism, marine trades and the fishing and seafood sectors, the lawmakers said.

The Port of New Bedford, they added, “continues to be the number one port in the U.S. for landings value, while Massachusetts ranks third in the nation for fisheries landings values and fifth for volume.”

Beyond the economic impact, Baker and Massachusetts lawmakers argued that the waters of the state’s coast are a vital habitat for endangered marine species and have significant potential for sustainable renewable energy, like wind power.

Read the full story at MassLive

 

NOAA leader looks to cultivate culture of collaboration

March 1, 2018 — As debuts go, Mike Pentony’s first day on the job as the regional director for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office was a corker.

The federal government marked his ascension on Jan. 22 as only the federal government can — shutting down all but the most essential government services as a consequence of the usual congressional mumbley-peg.

“My first action was to come in and proceed with the orderly shutdown of government operations,” Pentony said recently during an interview in the corner office on the uppermost floor of GARFO headquarters in Gloucester’s Blackburn Industrial Park.

The respite was short-lived. The shutdown lasted a day. When it was over, the 53-year-old Pentony began his new job in earnest as the leader of the regional agency that manages some of the most historically productive — and at times contentious — fisheries in the United States.

It is, as his successor John K. Bullard would attest, a monumental task, working on a canvas that stretches geographically along the Eastern seaboard from Maine to North Carolina and west to the Great Lakes.

But the geographical sweep pales in comparison to the scope and density of the regulations Pentony is charged with enforcing.

There is the crisis of cod in the Gulf of Maine, the alarming demise of the North Atlantic right whales, the malfeasance of cheaters such as New Bedford fishing kingpin Carlos Rafael and a myriad of other issues that affect every fishing community within his purview.

There is incessant wrangling over habitat protections, the usual tug-of-war between environmentalists and conservationists on one side and fishermen on the other. It is a drama with a disparate cast of characters and Pentony is convinced the only way to address extraordinarily intricate problems — usually requiring even more intricate responses — is by forging a collaborative spirit.

“I want to try to develop a culture, not just within GARFO and the agency, but within the region, both mid-Atlantic and New England, where we’re all partners with a collective goal of healthy fisheries and healthy fishing communities.” Pentony said. “The problems and challenges are so huge that we’re only stronger if we’re working together.”

He also understands, given the varying degrees of conflict that exist among fisheries stakeholders, that achieving that collaboration will be far more difficult than contemplating its benefits.

“There’s always going to be people that find it easier to stand outside the circle and throw stones than to get inside the circle and work,” Pentony said. “If they stand outside the circle and just shout about how everything is wrong, that generally doesn’t do much to solve the problem.”

Campaign of engagement

Pentony served under Bullard as assistant regional administrator for sustainable fisheries starting in 2014. He was asked what advice his predecessor gave him.

“He told me there are a lot of people cheering and hoping for your success,” Pentony said. “Not just me personally, but if I’m successful, then the regional office can be successful and the agency can be successful. And if you tie that success to our mission, then our success would mean healthy, sustainable fisheries, healthy and sustainable resources and healthy and sustainable fishing communities.”

Pentony made his fishery management bones as a staff member at the New England Fishery Management Council prior to joining NOAA Fisheries in 2002. That experience, he said, instilled in him a solid faith in the ability of the council system to ultimately arrive at the best decision once all implications are considered.

“I’ve been involved with the council process for 20 years,” Pentony said. “It’s not perfect. But I have a ton of respect for the work and effort council members put into being informed and working through what I think is unique in the federal regulatory process. We have this incredibly unique process that engages stakeholders.”

Pentony didn’t even wait for his first official day in the big chair to begin his own campaign of engagement.

The Friday before his official starting date, he traveled to the Yankee Fishermen’s Cooperative in Seabrook, New Hampshire, to meet with David Goethel — a frequent critic of NOAA Fisheries — and other New Hampshire fishermen to give them a sense of how he plans to approach the job.

Later that day, he had lunch in Gloucester with Vito Giacalone and Jackie Odell of the Northeast Seafood Coalition. He’s also traveled to Maine to breakfast with Maggie Raymond of the Associated Fisheries of Maine and met with New Jersey fishing companies and processors while in the Garden State on personal business.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Gloucester Times: Government must listen on ocean drilling

March 1, 2018 — Opponents of drilling for oil and gas in the offshore waters of New England are legion, and they have plenty to say.

If only they could find a way to get their government to listen.

What was touted earlier this year as a public hearing on the proposal by the Bureau Ocean Energy Management was anything but Tuesday. The event, which had been postponed and seen its location shift a handful of times, could be better described as an infomercial. There were business expo-style booths aplenty at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, and even a promotional video touting the plan.

But if you wanted to let government leaders know in person how you felt about drilling into the seabed, you were out of luck — the bureau was accepting written comments only. It’s a common tactic used by officials to stifle public debate. By accepting written comments, you can pretend you’ve listened to the people without having to actually face them in an open, public and often messy forum.

And folks in these parts are demanding to be heard on the Trump administration’s plan to open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore waters to oil and gas exploration. When it was announced a few months ago, the proposal garnered immediate praise from the giant energy conglomerates who seem to have the president’s ear on issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline to so-called “clean coal.” Every other interest, meanwhile, came out against the plan. Republicans and Democrats — including Gov. Charlie Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey — are united in bipartisan opposition. The commercial fishing industry and the environmental lobby, which have been bitterly at odds over the last 30 years, are standing side-by-side.

“Opening up our coast to offshore drilling would be terrible for Massachusetts,” Emily Norton of the Massachusetts Sierra Club said Tuesday. “We will be fighting this with everything we’ve got, in the courts, on the streets and at the ballot box.”

Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken, who cut her political teeth opposing drilling as a member of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association (she is still the group’s vice president), noted a single leak from an oil well in an offshore fishing area “could devastate us all.”

She’s right. It would be the end of New England commercial fishing, which is less an “industry” like the oil and gas behemoths and more a loose confederation of small businesses ranging from shoreside bait and ice providers to marine repair yards to the boats themselves, the oceangoing equivalent of a mom-and-pop store. Together, however, they comprise a $7 billion-a-year piece of the economy.”

And that’s not taking into account Massachusetts’ recreational fishing and tourism businesses, which rely on clean water and pristine beaches to attract visitors.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Ugly delicacy? Industry touts weird looking Monkfish

March 1, 2018 — Now serving sea monsters.

That’s the message from members of the fishing industry, environmentalists and regulators who are trying to convince U.S. consumers to eat more of a particularly weird looking creature from the deep — monkfish.

Monkfish have been commercially fished for years, but recent analyses by the federal government show the monster-like bottom dweller can withstand more fishing pressure. However, U.S. fishermen often fall short of their quota for the fish.

A lack of reliable markets for the fish and convoluted fishing regulations make it difficult to catch the full quota, fishermen said. Nevertheless, the U.S. government is upping harvesters’ limits for monkfish for the next three years.

Some New England fishermen switched to targeting monkfish in recent decades when traditional species such as cod began to decline, said Jan Margeson, a Chatham, Massachusetts, fisherman who made such a switch himself. He said the availability of monkfish represents an opportunity for the industry.

“It is healthy. We can’t even catch the quota,” he said. “We had to find an alternative species once groundfish died years ago.”

Monkfish, also known as goosefish, are predatory fish that camouflage themselves on the ocean bottom and can grow to be about 5 feet long. With a gaping maw and uneven, jagged teeth, its appearance is the stuff of nightmares.

Read the full story at ABC News

 

Massachusetts: NOAA’s ban suffocating shoreside industry in New Bedford

March 1, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The hits keep coming from NOAA’s groundfishing ban with financial losses spreading to businesses that support New Bedford’s fishing fleet.

“No one ever really paid attention to our shoreside businesses,” manager of Reidar’s Trawl Gear and Marine Supply Tor Bendiksen said. “We’re the last of the group. We all remember when there was companies like ours up and down this entire coast. The only reason that we’ve all survived in New Bedford is because we had not only groundfishing but we have the scallop industry to support us. But this one little incident with how important groundfish is has put us all to our knees.”

It’s been three months since NOAA installed a groundfishing ban on Sector IX, which halted operations of about 80 fishermen.

Though, the collateral damage of the ban extends beyond fishermen.

Virginia Martins, the president of Sector IX, also is the president of Bay Fuel, which has sold more than 1 million fewer gallons of gas this year compared to past sales.

John Reardon, also a board member and general manager at Hercules SLR, said sales of safety marine equipment is down 50 percent since the ban.

Bendiksen, a Sector IX board member, said sales at Reidar’s are down 30 percent. Reidar’s, which employs 14 people, manufactures fishing nets. In the past, a fisherman’s net would be in his shop at least once a week. Since November, they’ve done three total.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Massachusetts: Senate candidate Geoff Diehl talks with SouthCoast fishing industry

February 28, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Geoff Diehl cruised around the Port of New Bedford in an RV Tuesday that maneuvered in and out of small entrances and exits. The red, white, and blue mobile home featured the slogan of the Republican U.S. Senate candidate, “The Real Diehl,” as he looked to learn the reality of the fishing industry in the area.

“If I’m going to be voting on any legislation that affects any industry,” Diehl said, “I better darn well be listening to the people who work in that field.”

Diehl made four stops in the area, which began with Mayor Jon Mitchell and concluded with a meeting with three members on the board of Sector 9 as well as the sector’s lawyer.

He spoke with the sector for more than a half hour as the members provided details of ban installed by NOAA that’s prevented about 80 fishermen from groundfishing since November.

“This thing that happened here showed how tragic it is for the support businesses,” Tor Bendiksen, manager of Reidar’s Trawl Gear and Marine Supply, said.

Diehl questioned what incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Warren has done to facilitate discussions between NOAA. The sector said it’s only met with U.S Rep. Bill Keating’s office, while it’s incurred challenges trying to meet with the Warren and Sen. Ed Markey.

“This is one of the most important industries in Massachusetts,” Diehl said before promising to look into the issue immediately.

Following Diehl’s meeting with Mitchell, the current state representative serving Plymouth’s 7th District stopped at New England Marine Engineering and Supply Inc. There, he spoke with President Paul Nosworthy, who emphasized that fishermen aren’t destroying the ocean.

“They’re blaming it all on the fishermen,” Nosworthy said. “But when you stop and you think about what the chemical companies and the sewer treatment guys, what they’re putting in the ocean is killing, literally killing (marine life).”

From North Front Street in New Bedford, Diehl crossed the the port and even waited in a bridge closure delay before discussing commercial fishing with Patrick Hughes II at Blue Harvest Fisheries in Fairhaven.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Massachusetts: Cape Cod drilling protesters dress to express

February 28, 2018 — BOSTON — They came dressed to make a public statement.

Brewster’s Christopher Powicki’s bearded face poked out of a plush full-length lobster costume. Kevin O’Brien of Boston was head-to-toe great white shark, and Don Mallinson of East Falmouth wore a cardboard tricorn hat — think homemade “Cheesehead” — with each side bearing an anti-oil and gas drilling message like “Exxon Valdez, Deepwater Horizon, New England.”

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management didn’t allow oral testimony at its public meeting Tuesday at the Sheraton Boston Hotel on a Trump administration proposal to open New England’s ocean waters to gas and oil exploration and extraction. While speakers lining up to give testimony at public hearings has been a familiar sight for other controversial proposals, like the defunct Cape Wind project, that practice ended for the bureau five years ago under the Obama administration.

That didn’t stop people from making their voices heard Tuesday. A costumed, sign-bearing crowd jammed into a conference room a floor above the agency’s public meeting rooms to listen to representatives from a panoply of environmental organizations, more than 20 nonprofit organizations, state elected officials, and others, speak in opposition to exploration and drilling anywhere off the New England coastline.

Their concerns ranged from the effects on everything from plankton to whales of seismic testing, which is used to pinpoint likely oil and gas deposits, and the possible effects of an oil spill on fisheries, marine life and our valuable coastline and tourist economy.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

Massachusetts: Promise of jobs, revenue not muting foes of offshore drilling

February 27, 2018 — BOSTON — The Trump administration proposal to open new tracts of ocean to the oil industry could create “hundreds of thousands of jobs,” according to an offshore energy group whose president said the plan is part of a “larger push to increase the global competitiveness of America and to spur jobs and economic growth at home.”

But the prospect of drilling off the Massachusetts coast also brought together advocates on Monday who are often at loggerheads but are now pulling in the same direction, against the Trump administration’s plans.

Decades ago, when oil exploration at George’s Bank last occurred, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) joined together with the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives to fight the proposal, ultimately prevailing, and those groups and others are hoping for a repeat this time around.

“It was a remarkable moment,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel at CLF, who said it is “ridiculous” that the idea has resurfaced.

“We knew this would not die completely,” said Angela Sanfilippo, of the Fishermen’s Wives, who said she saw the devastation an oil spill can bring to a fishing community when she visited New Orleans after Deepwater Horizon spewed fuel into the Gulf of Mexico eight years ago.

CLF often supports regulations on fishing that the industry opposes, but the two groups — and others — were on the same side for Monday’s event, organized by U.S. Sen. Ed Markey one day before the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s hearing on the offshore drilling proposal in Boston.

The public meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. at Sheraton Boston Hotel is a “sham” because officials there will not take live testimony from the public and the meeting location was moved multiple times, according to Markey.

“We cannot allow George’s Bank to become Exxon’s Bank,” Markey said at Monday’s event, held at the New England Aquarium. The Trump proposal is an “invitation to disaster,” he said.

The Trump administration has proposed opening up waters to drilling and oil exploration, allowing companies to tap into some of the estimated 89.9 billion barrels of oil sitting undiscovered beneath the continental shelf. The idea has pitted food providers against fuel providers.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times