Saving Seafood

BOSTON HERALD: ‘Monument’ plan dries up

April 4, 2016 — It turns out there are limits to how far even the Obama administration will go to please the green lobby. The White House has opted not to designate an area of the Atlantic off Cape Ann as a national monument, which would have closed it to commercial fishing and activities such as oil or gas exploration or extraction — permanently.

Gov. Charlie Baker last fall had written to President Obama of his objections to the pending national monument designation for Cashes Ledge and a second area known as the New England Canyons and Seamounts, largely because of the unilateral nature of the decision. Some members of the state’s congressional delegation had also raised concerns.

Commercial fishing is already restricted around Cashes Ledge, an underwater mountain range. The monument designation was expected to make those restrictions permanent, but the White House Council on Environmental Quality told a gathering of fishermen and regulators March 24 that Cashes Ledge is no longer being considered (no decision has been made on the other area).

Read the full editorial at The Boston Herald

Right Whales Congregate in Cape Cod Bay Earlier than Usual

April 1, 2016 — BARNSTABLE, Mass.  – The Division of Marine Fisheries is urging boaters to use caution and be on the lookout for endangered North Atlantic right whales in Cape Cod Bay.

The whales have congregated in large numbers in the Bay earlier than normal. The endangered whales usually do not arrive in the bay until late April.

An aerial survey by the Center of Coastal Studies in Provincetown on Sunday spotted 85 of the whales, which is almost 20 percent of the entire world population.

“If they are there it is definitely food related,” said Erin Burke, a protected species biologist for the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. “And they are feeding right now.”

The whales are feeding at or just below the surface which puts them at risk of being struck by boats. The Division of Maine Fisheries is asking vessel operators in the bay area to reduce speeds to less than 10 knots and to post lookouts to avoid collisions.

Federal and state law also prohibits boats from approaching within 500 yards of a right whale. Operators that find themselves within 500 feet of a right whale should slowly and cautiously leave the area.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: State set to deny extending Cape Wind permits

March 30, 2016 — A state board on Tuesday issued a tentative decision denying the extension of permits that would allow Cape Wind to build an electricity transmission line to connect its proposed offshore wind farm to land, further complicating the beleaguered project’s already grim prospects.

Members of the Energy Facilities Siting Board will meet next week to finalize a decision on whether or not to renew nine state and local permits the board initially granted as a so-called “super permit” to the offshore wind energy developer in 2009. The permits allowed Cape Wind to construct a transmission line through state-owned territory in Nantucket Sound and Hyannis Harbor and across multiple Cape towns.

Cape Wind had initially requested a two-year extension of the permits to May 1, 2017, which is unreasonable because it would not be enough time for Cape Wind to overcome the obstacles the project faces, according to the siting board’s tentative decision.

“At this time, Cape Wind needs a lengthy, almost open-ended extension period,” siting board presiding officer James Buckley wrote in the 26-page document. “An open-ended extension obviously would be unreasonbable. Any extension of the magnitude needed here, especially in light of the minimal investigation and review by Cape Wind for this proceeding, likewise would be unreasonable.”

The decision would be yet another major setback for the project, which has faced stiff opposition since it was first proposed in 2001. Last year, it suffered a major blow when Eversource Energy and National Grid canceled contracts to buy power from the 130-turbine wind farm.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

NOAA Fisheries offering industry-related loans

March 30, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries is accepting applications from commercial fishermen and those in the aquaculture industry looking for a share of NOAA’s $100 million in lending authority designated for fiscal 2016.

The loans, which run from five to 25 years, have market-competitive interest rates.

Eligible applicants include those working in aquaculture, mariculture, shoreside fisheries facilities and commercial fishermen.

Potential uses for the funds among applicants from aquaculture, mariculture and shoreside fisheries facilities include purchasing an existing facility, improvements to an existing facility, new construction and reconstruction.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Northeast Seafood Coalition responds to erroneous statements on Cashes Ledge from Pew Charitable Trusts

The following was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:

March 29, 2016 – GLOUCESTER, Mass. – Earlier today, in a webinar releasing a new report regarding the environmental composition of Cashes Ledge, in response to Cape Cod Times reporter Doug Fraser’s question as to whether there is an imminent threat to Cashes Ledge, The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Director of US Oceans, Northeast, Peter Baker stated:

“..the different areas – Cashes Ledge, the coral canyons, and the sea mounts – have different pressures on them, and different levels of imminent pressures that might be put on them. For instance Cashes Ledge, some of the council members, led by Terry Alexander, who is the president of the Associated Fisheries of Maine and was quoted in a press release last week, put up a motion just last year at the NEFMC to open Cashes Ledge once again to bottom trawling. The other guy, Vito Giacalone, who was quoted in that press release, at a public forum in Gloucester just last month, said that the fishing industry is eager to get in and catch the cod that are in Cashes Ledge. So, certainly the leaders of the groundfish industry have made it clear, recently, that they’re eager and working to get back in there and that at every available opportunity they’re going to try and open up Cashes to bottom trawling again. So I’d say, yes, absolutely, there’s an imminent threat to Cashes Ledge.”

The statement attributed to Vito Giacalone of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, and the description of the motion made by Councilmember Terry Alexander are factually inaccurate. There was never a motion or statement made proposing access to Cashes Ledge.

The problem is the terminology used.  “Cashes Ledge” is often used as verbal shorthand to refer to the large, 1400 square kilometer ‘Mortality Closure’ that includes Cashes Ledge and the surrounding areas and is an artifact of the old effort control system created to protect cod.

What we did say, and will maintain, is that once the old effort control system was replaced with a quota system, we want to be able to access the old mortality closures, including the Cashes Ledge Mortality Closure when such access is appropriate and scientifically justified. These portions of the Cashes Ledge Mortality Closure, despite the name, are not located on Cashes Ledge.

The Northeast Seafood Coalition proposed and supports the habitat management areas developed with government science, included in Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 which was adopted by the New England Fisheries Management Council last June, and are pending approval by NOAA.

We collaborated with the Associated Fisheries of Maine, and with the Fisheries Survival Fund, representing the limited access scallop fleet.  We did not develop our own habitat closed area on Cashes Ledge, but rather embraced the habitat management area developed via the government science.

This habitat area is significantly larger than Cashes Ledge itself, in fact, it completely engulfs Cashes Ledge, all of the kelp forest, and all of the areas displayed in the video and photographs circulated in recent months by proponents of a marine national monument. The protected area includes a surrounding buffer of hundreds of square miles.

We never would propose re-entering an area which we agreed to protect, and especially this area that encompasses Cashes Ledge.  It is simply untrue to say that we stated that we are “eager” to fish within the habitat management area on Cashes Ledge.

Did we say we want to preserve the ability to access portions of the mortality closure such as Cashes Basin and other basins that were not identified as important habitat areas by the science? Yes, we did say that.

We have no way of knowing whether Mr. Baker’s statement was made to intentionally mislead, or simply out of a lack of clear understanding regarding the difference between Cashes Ledge, the habitat management area surrounding Cashes Ledge, and the remaining portions of the previous mortality areas that were artifacts of the old system, but we state unequivocally that it is not true to say we ever proposed accessing the Cashes Ledge habitat management area.

MASSACHUSETTS: NOAA considers major upgrades in Woods Hole

WOODS HOLE, Mass (March 28, 2016) — The old brick buildings, which lack central air conditioning, can be stifling in the summer and drafty in the winter. Most of the offices are cramped, sometimes forcing scientists to work in hallways and beside equipment as loud as circular saws. Their labs, built during the Kennedy administration, offer little space for serious research.

On the edge of Vineyard Sound, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the federal government’s oldest marine research facility and a pivotal player in the region’s fishing industry, is seeking a major overhaul, through long-deferred renovations or a new center elsewhere in the region.

In the coming weeks, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will decide whether it should spend tens of millions of dollars to modernize the aging research center, a renowned institution that has conducted fisheries research in Woods Hole since 1871.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Prosecutors get extension of deadline to indict New Bedford fishing magnate

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (March 28, 2016) — Prosecutors have received an extension of the deadline to indict local fishing magnate Carlos Rafael, a U.S. District Court spokesperson confirmed Friday.

The length of the deadline’s extension was not disclosed.

Rafael, 63, was arrested Feb. 26 on charges of conspiracy and submitting falsified records to the government, after federal authorities raided the Carlos Seafood building on New Bedford’s waterfront.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Why Gulf of Maine waters won’t be a national monument

March 28, 2016 — Despite substantial pressure from environmental groups, Obama administration officials this week said the president won’t declare a national monument in a distinct portion of the Gulf of Maine that features glacier-sculpted mountain ranges and billowy kelp forests.

Over the past year, environmental advocates have lobbied the administration to designate an area known as Cashes Ledge as a national monument, a decision that would have permanently banned fishing around the submerged mountain range.

The ecosystem, about 80 miles off the coast of Gloucester, is home to an abundant array of life, from multicolored anemones to massive cod. Fishermen have opposed the designation and said they were relieved when they learned about the decision in meetings this week with officials with the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Gloucester boat captain in ill-fated Coast Guard rescue drowned

GLOUCESTER, Mass. (March 25, 2016) — The state medical examiner has determined that a Gloucester eel boat captain who died during an ill-fated rescue off Cape Ann late last year had drowned, a finding that brings new scrutiny to the equipment aboard the Coast Guard’s vessels.

David “Heavy D” Sutherland died moments after his 51-foot wooden boat, the Orin C, sank while under tow by the Coast Guard about 12 miles off Cape Ann on Dec. 3. The Coast Guard is investigating why the tow went awry and whether rescue vessels should be outfitted with more medical equipment.

Drowning victims can sometimes be saved if they’re underwater for only a few minutes and receive oxygen immediately, according to emergency medicine experts. But Sutherland didn’t receive oxygen because, unlike ambulances and airplanes, most Coast Guard vessels don’t carry it and crews aren’t trained to administer it, a Coast Guard official said.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

New manual outlines steps for fishermen, communities to take in crisis

GLOUCESTER, Mass. (March 25, 2016) — The concept first began to crystallize in Angela Sanfilippo’s mind about four years ago, when the president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association realized she needed to start putting some things down on paper.

Sanfilippo, both in her roles with fishing-based community groups and her own experience as a wife, daughter and sister of fishermen, had helped develop a series of protocols to help fishermen avoid calamities on the water and help the Gloucester fishing community deal with fishing tragedies when they occur.

“I just thought that we should start putting these things in writing because we’re not going to be around forever,” Sanfilippo said.

Thus was born the idea that burst into reality Thursday when the Fishing Partnership Support Services unveiled its RESCUES manual in an event at the U.S. Coast Guard’s Station Gloucester.

The title of the manual, assembled with assistance from staffers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sea Grant College program and Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is an acronym for “Responding to Emergencies at Sea and to Communities Under Extreme Stress.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times