May 30, 2024 — In the Bendiksen family kitchen, framed photos of the fishing boats they have owned hang on the wall. For Captain Reidar Bendiksen and his wife, Kirsten, these boats are like family members.
The most cherished memories of the Bendiksens’ lives — the day they first met, the births of their children — are deeply intertwined with the fishing industry.
May 29, 2024 — Retired engineer John Ryan spent hours and hours at the hurricane barrier taking thousands of photographs of fishing vessels going in and out of New Bedford Harbor.
When his family found thousands of slides and photographs among his things after his death, they didn’t know what to do with them. When co-curator Phil Mello learned of this, he suggested the family take them to the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.
When archivist Connor Gaudet started his position at the Fishing Heritage Center, his priority was to get Ryan’s photograph collection in its new online database
Read the full article at the Standard-Times
May 28, 2024 — On April 26, a nearly 500-foot stretch of dock owned by top executives at Eastern Fisheries collapsed into the New Bedford harbor. It was the second such collapse in just six months — the first of which hospitalized two workers and has since caused significant challenges for some businesses operating at the port.
The sudden dock collapses have left waterfront business owners and city officials asking: what are the causes, who is responsible, and is it safe to operate heavy machinery on the busy but dilapidated northern wharf?
The city says the aging port needs an overhaul. It’s a challenging feat. Facing the costs, the Port Authority has sold some properties in recent years, transferring the burden of expensive repairs to the companies that use the infrastructure. But the patchwork of public and private properties along the northern wharf makes it difficult to carry out one comprehensive overhaul.
“This latest incident highlights the need for long-term solutions to aging infrastructure at different points in the port. Such solutions will require time and significant outside funding,” Gordon Carr, director of the New Bedford Port Authority, wrote in a statement to The Light. “The Port Authority continues to take its role in such an effort seriously and will support businesses and property owners in pursuing these solutions as we are able.”
May 21, 2024 — In a recent update, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries have issued a warning.
The organization states that the endangered North Atlantic right whales are approaching extinction. An Unusual Mortality Event was declared for North Atlantic right whales in 2017, and currently includes 139 individuals (40 dead, 34 seriously injured, and 65 sub lethally injured or ill). The primary causes of the UME, according to the NOAA are entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes in both U.S. and Canadian waters, which are long-standing threats to the recovery of the species.
In the same warning, the NOAA issued an update believing that a right whale off the coast of Massachusetts is dead.
May 14, 2024– A new “boat-to-table” seafood restaurant proposed for State Pier would employ 125 at peak season and bring thousands of people downtown.
That’s according to Servedwell Hospitality owner Steve Silverstein, who is proposing the new 6,500-square-foot restaurant that would seat 300, and feature roof-deck dining and two bars.
It would represent a $5 million investment by Servedwell Hospitality.
Silverstein made one of the seven presentations Monday night of what’s being proposed for the eight-acre State Pier’s redevelopment.
The meeting at the New Bedford Whaling Museum was hosted by MassDevelopment, the state’s development finance agency and land bank, which manages the state-owned property.
A MassDevelopment review committee will review the proposals and make recommendations.
The committee could recommend accepting the proposals in total or partially – none of which are mutually exclusive – or reject them all. Leases for successful RFPS could run up to 35 years.
May 13, 2024 — After a storm wiped out Luke Sebesta’s Dartmouth aquaculture business in 2022, he was looking forward to purchasing 20,000 seed oysters this spring to get it back up and running. But this March, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries announced new restrictions on shellfish beds in parts of Buzzards Bay. Now, his re-opening of his Nonquitt oyster farm — Buzzards Bay Oysters — is at a “standstill.”
“It’s making me question whether it’s even worth it,” he said.
On March 12, the state announced new regulations of the shellfish beds surrounding the New Bedford and Fairhaven wastewater treatment plant outfalls — the main discharge pipes for treated sewage. These changes are part of a statewide effort to expand the areas around these pipes that are closed to shellfishing — called “buffer zones” — to comply with requirements in the National Shellfish Sanitation Program.
These buffer zones are based on computer modeling of how treated sewage flows from treatment plants out of these pipes, and dilutes and disperses into its receiving waters near shellfish beds. They are meant to protect consumers from the risk of getting sick when eating shellfish grown near a wastewater treatment plant, if it fails and dispenses untreated sewage into the water.
Roughly 90,000 acres of Buzzards Bay shellfish beds, stretching from Dartmouth to Mattapoisett, changed from fully approved to conditionally approved as a result of the computer modeling. That means oyster growers using these beds could now be shut down for seven to 21 days after episodes of “rainfall or seasonally poor water quality or other predictable events.”
State officials say the change is a necessary concession. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended closing down more than 103,000 acres of beds across Buzzards Bay, based on its modeling. The state says the new classification plan protects public health, keeps growers open, and complies with requirements in the National Shellfish Sanitation Program.
May 10, 2024 — Offshore wind is key to Massachusetts meeting its decarbonization goals, particularly the state’s Clean Energy and Climate plan, which commits to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Mass. Clean Energy Center, a state agency established to boost the clean energy sector, anticipates that nearly 60 percent of all electricity in the state will be generated by wind by that year.
Cape Cod fishermen are watching the developments closely, according to Aubrey Ellertson Church, policy manager at the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. In an email to the Independent, she said that local fishermen’s primary concern is whether the location of the wind farms would push them out of their traditional fishing areas and into other already-fished areas, increasing competition among boats.
May 8, 2024 — On a tour of New Bedford Harbor on Tuesday, the administrator of the federal department that oversees federal programs to improve and modernize the nation’s maritime network saw for herself the progress on the city’s North Terminal and plans for Leonard’s Wharf.
Rear Admiral Ann C. Phillips, U.S. Navy (Ret.), administrator of the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration, met with Mayor Jon Mitchell, New Bedford Port Authority Executive Director Gordon Carr and other officials for an update on the federally funding projects.
The North Terminal is nearly completed, and Mitchell said work on Leonard’s Wharf has started with actual construction expected to begin in January 2025.
Phillips said it’s exciting to see that the North Terminal is almost completed, and welcomed the opportunity to tour the harbor and see for herself how the federal funding is making a difference.
May 7, 2024 — After a storm wiped out Luke Sebesta’s Dartmouth aquaculture business in 2022, he was looking forward to purchasing 20,000 seed oysters this spring to get it back up and running. But this March, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries announced new restrictions on shellfish beds in parts of Buzzards Bay. Now, his re-opening of his Nonquitt oyster farm — Buzzards Bay Oysters — is at a “standstill.”
“It’s making me question whether it’s even worth it,” he said.
On March 12, the state announced new regulations of the shellfish beds surrounding the New Bedford and Fairhaven wastewater treatment plant outfalls — the main discharge pipes for treated sewage. These changes are part of a statewide effort to expand the areas around these pipes that are closed to shellfishing — called “buffer zones” — to comply with requirements in the National Shellfish Sanitation Program.
These buffer zones are based on computer modeling of how treated sewage flows from treatment plants out of these pipes, and dilutes and disperses into its receiving waters near shellfish beds. They are meant to protect consumers from the risk of getting sick when eating shellfish grown near a wastewater treatment plant, if it fails and dispenses untreated sewage into the water.
Roughly 90,000 acres of Buzzards Bay shellfish beds, stretching from Dartmouth to Mattapoisett, changed from fully approved to conditionally approved as a result of the computer modeling. That means oyster growers using these beds could now be shut down for seven to 21 days after episodes of “rainfall or seasonally poor water quality or other predictable events.”
May 6, 2024 — Locations for offshore wind development have been selected off the Outer Cape.
The Biden administration this week published the location of eight areas proposed for lease in the Gulf of Maine, a body of water that runs from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia.
Wind energy developers will have the opportunity to bid on the leases in a future auction.
Six of the areas lie off the coast of Massachusetts and two off New Hampshire and Maine.
The closest to Cape Cod starts 25 miles off the Outer Cape. For comparison, that distance is about the same as the distance from Hyannis to Nantucket Harbor.
Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio