Saving Seafood

Feds: Fish firms owe workers $203K in damages

April 14, 2017 — Kristian Kristensen and his two Harbor Loop companies — Cape Ann Seafood Exchange and Zeus Packing — must pay more than $200,000 in liquidated damages to 132 employees in a settlement over violations of overtime and record keeping.

The U.S. Department of Labor said an investigation by its wage and hour division unearthed violations from October 2011 through September 2014. The probe determined Kristensen and the companies owed $203,998 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages. Liquidated damages are monetary compensations for a loss or a person’s rights or property, awarded by a court judgment.

The Labor Department said the defendants paid the back wages in 2015, but refused to pay the damages and civil penalties assessed for the violations.

The Labor Department then filed suit in March 2016 in U.S. District Court in Boston to recover the unpaid amounts.

“After almost a year of litigation and negotiation, the defendants agreed to settle by consent judgment,” the Labor Department said in a statement. Kristensen did not return calls from the Times seeking comment Thursday afternoon.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Endangered whales visit Cape Cod in record number

April 13, 2017 — More than 100 North Atlantic right whales, including two mother-calf pairs, were spotted in Cape Cod Bay on Sunday, breaking a record for previous sightings, according to the Center of Coastal Studies.

An aerial survey team researching the rare marine mammal took thousands of photos of the 112 animals, which were scattered across two-thirds of the bay from the Cape Cod Canal to Provincetown, where there was a large concentration of the animals, according to Charles “Stormy” Mayo, right whale habitat expert at the center. There are 524 North Atlantic right whales in the world, according to the Center.

The number of right whales spotted may still increase, as researchers analyze the photographs taken during the flight, according to the center.

This year, only three right whale births were recorded, and two of those calves were spotted Sunday with their mothers, Mayo said. The number of calves has dropped precipitously during the past 10 years, from a high of 39 in 2009, according to data from the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

“It’s a pretty special situation that this many whales and arithmetically two-thirds of the calf population was here in Cape Cod Bay,” Mayo said. “The people who fly in our airplanes, who are trained researchers, said all 112 animals had their mouths open.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Troubled waters, heartfelt stories in ‘Sacred Cod’

April 13, 2017 — Of the two sacred emblems of Massachusetts — the bean and the cod — the cod gets all the glory but the bean is certainly more environmentally secure.

For centuries fishermen from Gloucester have relied on cod — and the world has relied on them to provide it — but recently scientists have determined that the fish stocks are being depleted at an unsustainable rate and soon there will be no more cod to fish. The fishermen protest that because of the regulations imposed on them, soon there will be no fishermen left to do the fishing.

Andy Laub, Endicott College’s Steve Liss, and Boston Globe reporter David Abel’s thoroughly researched, reasoned and surprisingly moving documentary “Sacred Cod,” premiering Thursday at 9 p.m. on Discovery, gives time to both sides. They offer warm, robust, and sympathetic portraits of these Gloucestermen with their powerful work ethic, fierce love of family, and faith in the American Dream. And they also thoughtfully and thoroughly present the point of view of the bureaucrats and scientists who are trying to do what’s best with the information they have. Emerging as heroes are those willing to consider both sides and seek new solutions.

On one level, the debate comes down to point of view. Based on their extensive research and analysis, the scientists of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency studying the problem and issuing regulations, say that the cod stock has declined to a fraction of what it must be to remain sustainable. The fishermen take a more empirical and anecdotal approach; they say that the figures are wrong, that from their experience plenty of cod are still out there. One fisherman takes John Bullard, NOAA’s regional administrator, on a fishing trip. The trawling net disgorges a mountain of fish. “There it is, the elusive cod!” the fisherman scoffs. He tells Bullard that he has just caught his entire annual quota in 45 minutes.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

MASSACHUSETTS: How Did ‘The Codfather’ Rise? Some Say Fishing Rules Pull Up Big Fishermen

April 12, 2017 — While Carlos Rafael waits to hear his fate, some wonder whether there could be another “Codfather.”

Critics say fishing industry regulations pave the way for bigger and more corrupt fishing enterprises.

But, some, like Janice Plante of the New England Fisheries Managment Council, disagree with those who blame the regulatory system, insisting the rules don’t “make somebody a criminal.”

Joining Morning Edition is Niaz Dorry, of the Gloucester-based Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance. She explains why she believes Rafael’s success is connected to fishing industry rules.

Read the full story and listen to the radio piece at WBUR

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Worries About What Happens To ‘The Codfather’s’ Fishing Permits

April 11, 2017 — Down on the docks of the Whaling City, everyone knows him as “Carlos.”

“I’ve been working for Carlos for 12 years now,” says Richard Mauzerolle of Weston. “Sometimes he should watch out who he’s talking to,” he adds with a laugh, referencing the IRS sting that landed Carlos Rafael guilty on 28 counts in late March. “But he’s a good guy.”

The fall of New Bedford fishing boss Carlos Rafael could be a big blow for the city’s port. And if his fishing permits are forfeited and end up in another state, it could hurt Massachusetts as a whole.

What happens to Rafael’s boats — and the permits attached to them — will be decided by a federal judge. And people in New Bedford want them to stay in the city.

‘He’s One Of My Main Livelihoods’

Mauzerolle is in the spray foam business — he insulates holds on fishing boats owned by Rafael. He’s one of hundreds of people who work with the man known as “the Codfather,” who gives Mauzerolle about a third of his business.

“He’s one of my main livelihoods right down in the area, so it’d be a shame to have him lose anything,” says Mauzerolle, standing in front of his box truck with a massive Donald Trump sign stuck to the side. Rafael, he says, has “brought this fishing industry back to where it’s supposed to be down here.”

In 2004, Rafael spoke to an archivist at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford about how he amassed so many boats, highlighting the importance of diversifying between scallops and groundfish.

Read the full story and listen to the radio report at WBUR

Reality check for commercial fishermen

April 11, 2017 — Don’t put the injured on the raft first, they can slow down the evacuation.

Don’t stow survival suits below decks.

Don’t leave port without a Nerf football.

This was some of the wisdom imparted to a group of 35 commercial fishermen gathered at Coast Guard Station Menemsha on a gray, windy Thursday morning, where, appropriately, a storm front was bearing down on the Vineyard.

It was day one of two training days for commercial fishermen — along with sailors, harbormasters, and shellfish constables — provided by Burlington-based Fishing Partnership Support Services (FPSS).

The focus of the day one was safety and survival. Participants rotated among six training modules: man overboard procedure, firefighting and flares, survival suits, helicopter hoist operations, flooding and pump operations, first aid and CPR, and life raft equipment.

“Part of the success of this program is that it’s very hands-on,” Ed Dennehy, FPSS Director of Safety told The Times. “They will put out an actual fire. They will put on survival suits and get into the cold water. They control flooding and leaks in a simulator provided by the Coast Guard.”

FPSS has been providing this training all over New England, primarily in Massachusetts, for the past 11 years. The program has been so successful, it has spread beyond New England to New York.

Read the full story at the Martha’s Vineyard Times

Fishing for Derelict Gear in Cape Cod Bay

April 11, 2017 — The Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) has begun its “Fishing for Derelict Gear in Cape Cod Bay,”  a project funded by the NOAA Marine Debris Program to identity, remove, document, and properly dispose of lost, abandoned or derelict fishing gear.

Side-scan sonar surveys have been conducted off of Provincetown, Truro, Sesuit and Sandwich, with additional surveys planned for the Chatham area. The surveys identify areas where lost gear exists and assists with documentation and recovery.

Commercial fishing vessels from each area will be enlisted to deliver divers to certain locations so they can document the lost gear as it rests on the ocean floor, and to recover the gear by towing a small grappling hook in targeted locations.  Once returned to shore, the derelict gear will be sorted for recycling, disposal, or return to rightful owners. The first recovery work will take place in Provincetown on April 8th at MacMillan Pier.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Today

MASSACHUSETTS: Poached fish served up by Gloucester food pantry

April 11, 2017 — About a half-dozen times a year, the folks at The Open Door in Gloucester receive a phone call — or even a knock on their Emerson Avenue door — to see if they’re interested in some donations of fresh seafood.

The offers don’t arrive from entrepreneurial fishermen or someone looking to unload a bunch of seafood off the books.

The offers come from the Environmental Police. And the answer is almost uniformly yes.

“Generally, they call, but sometimes they just show up,” said Julie LaFontaine, The Open Door’s executive director. “Our mission is to alleviate the impact of hunger in our community, so when we have the opportunity of receiving free food — especially something as healthy and beneficial as locally caught, fresh seafood, we take it and then we distribute it through our food pantry.”

The Environmental Police have made a practice of donating seized seafood — or seafood unable to be returned to the water — to social service agencies, such as food pantries, shelters, veterans organizations and the like.

“It something that we’ve been doing since before I even came on the force and something that we do all the time, distributing this fresh seafood in communities up and down the coast,” said Environmental Police Maj. Patrick Moran, who is in his 33rd year on the force. “Mostly, it’s donations of fresh fin fish.”

But not always.

In late March, the Environmental Police donated dozens of lobsters to the Veterans Transition House in New Bedford, which serves homeless and at-risk veterans and their families in the southeastern region of the state.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

UN official visits Woods Hole to recruit scientist advocates

April 11, 2017 — Standing in a high-ceilinged work bay on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Quissett Campus, United Nations General Assembly President Peter Thomson was surrounded by sophisticated ocean sensors, robot gliders and moorings that towered overhead, bristling with technology.

“As a young boy in Fiji, I read my National Geographic, and saw the photos of Woods Hole and bathyscaphe sailing out of here, and this has always been a place where I thought, at least there’s some place where the good science is going on,” Thomson told scientists and media Friday at a briefing held during his tour of the institution’s facilities.

Thomson said he came to WHOI to ask that the organization send scientists to the upcoming UN Ocean Conference, which will be held June 5-9 in New York City.

“I’m an advocate, I’m not a scientist,” Thomson said. “It’s very important to me if I can seduce these guys at Woods Hole to come down and play an active role.”

WHOI Director Mark Abbott embraced Thomson’s request.

“It is a recommitment of a lot of things we do and we will be an active participant,” Abbott said.

WHOI is already involved in international research and projects, and had a program that sponsored scientists from around the world doing research at the institution, he said.

Thomson is a career civil servant and diplomat, has been his country’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York since 2010, and served as the Fijian Ambassador to Cuba until he was selected as President of the General Assembly this year.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Gloucester Times: Good news arrives for Gloucester waterfront

April 10, 2017 — Gloucester’s fishing and waterfront communities received some good news on several fronts this past week.

First came the news that Massachusetts’ maritime economy grew faster than the state’s economy as a whole from 2005 to 2015.

The analysis, done by by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Public Policy Center, said the segments of the maritime economy that performed best over the prescribed decade include tourism and recreation — the largest employer, though a smaller contributor to wages and GSP — and marine transportation and technology — which accounts for only 13 percent of employment but 35 percent of the maritime economy’s total wages. 

Those are segments Gloucester is and should continue working to build upon. 

The city’s new harbormaster and assistant harbormaster are working to find more transitional mooring for tourists arriving by boat and setting up best protocols and seasonal boating pricing.

It is also considering setting up visitors center downtown. The center, which would be on the second-floor of the American Legion Hall on Washington Street,would serve visitors who may not get to the city’s main visitors center in Stage Fort Park.

Gloucester was also recently awarded nearly $3 million in Massachusetts Life Sciences Center state grants to the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute, Gloucester High School and O’Maley Innovation Middle School. 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times