March 27, 2023 — Blue Harvest Fisheries is temporarily suspending operations at its processing plant in New Bedford, Massachusettsm U.S.A. as part of an overall strategy shift to “realize potential” of its groundfish operations.
The company announced on 24 March it is planning to continue a shift further into the New England groundfish fishery. It said as part of the shift, it was halting operations at its processing plant, laying off 64 employees, the New Bedford Light reported.
March 26, 2023 — An already busy port of New Bedford will be even busier when the full effect of the offshore wind industry hits.
A direct impact on the New Bedford/Fairhaven Harbor is already being felt, and seen, most recently with the demolition of the former Eversource plant chimney to make way for the New Bedford Foss Marine Terminal on the New Bedford waterfront.
With Massachusetts preparing for a fourth round of funding for offshore wind projects, what comes next?
Offshore wind companies, electric companies and local leaders from Greater New Bedford have weighed in on changes that should be made to the process during this next round. Vineyard Wind was the winning bidder in the first round, Mayflower Wind Energy LLC won the second round, and Commonwealth Wind and Mayflower Wind LLC were the winning bids in the third round. Massachusetts is preparing for bid submissions for a fourth round of offshore wind contracts.
March 26, 2023 — Falmouth residents joined others from across Massachusetts in a lively expression of their frustrations and hopes for SouthCoast Wind’s proposed offshore wind farm during a virtual public comment session on the project’s draft environmental impact statement.
Work on the nearly 2,000-page impact statement, prepared by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), began in November 2021.
BOEM’s SouthCoast project coordinator Genevieve Brune presented the statement’s findings to the 71 participants at the session, held online Monday, March 20. The evaluation is required under the National Environmental Policy Act and will guide permitting judgements by state and federal authorities, including the Army Corps of Engineers.
March 26, 2023 — Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute’s 10th anniversary just happens to coincide with 400th anniversary of the nation’s oldest and one of its most storied working seaports at a time when the fishing industry has been snagged by state and federal regulations meant to keep the local fishery sustainable.
A community talk as part of the Gloucester 400+ celebration with 100 people in Kyrouz Auditorium in City Hall on Wednesday showed how the use of advanced molecular techniques at GMGI can be used to support sustainable fisheries into the future.
A team at GMGI has figured out how to identify Atlantic cod which spawn in winter versus those that spawn in the spring. Its staff have used environmental DNA techniques to survey the types of fish found in the Annisquam River, among other things.
GMGI fisheries research scientist Tim O’Donnell talked about how his team’s research may help keep fisheries sustainable so future generations “can also have the privilege of having access to the bounty of the ocean.”
When it comes to fisheries science and management, O’Donnell said, various entities collect data on their local fisheries through classic surveys or by analyzing fish biology. But certain species or areas in the ocean can be hard to study and that can create gaps in the data.
March 23, 2o23 — A 21-year-old North Atlantic right whale known as Porcia was observed in Cape Cod Bay on March 18. The whale was seen swimming with her 2023 calf by her side. And last week, before this first mother-calf pair of the season was spotted, Scott Landry, director of the disentanglement team at the Center for Coastal Studies, estimated there were already between 30 and 40 right whales in the bay.
That means Cape Cod lobstermen are on land, waiting out the whales.
Elsewhere in Massachusetts waters, however, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is running an experiment that gives lobster fishermen exempted fishing permits to work in areas that are otherwise restricted. What they are testing is something called on-demand fishing gear — gear operated via an app to minimize the time that lengths of rope stay in the water.
Landry wants to see “our absolute reliance on rope to harvest our food” go away. But for the time being Cape Cod Bay is not the site of any on-demand gear experiments.
Lobsterman Mike Rego, who lives in Truro, is glad about the cautious approach. He sees the strict closures, though they shorten his season, as too important. “I don’t want to lose four months of my fishing season, but I don’t want to kill a whale either,” he said. “The whales are protected while they’re here. Why jeopardize any of that?”
The North Atlantic right whale is a critically endangered species with only some 340 animals remaining in the world. The majority of those whales feed in Cape Cod Bay during their thousand-mile spring migration from their calving grounds off the coasts of Georgia and Florida to Canada, where they summer.
March 8, 2023 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Wind is expanding its scallop traceability program into its lobster supply, with an aim of developing the technology to help reduce the risk of North Atlantic right whale entanglements.
Northern Wind finalized a partnership with traceability technology company Legit Fish in 2021, enabling full-chain of its North Atlantic scallop supply. That technology, which traces product origin, harvest area, and landing-date – verifiable to government records – will now be utilized in the company’s lobster supply.
March 2, 2023 — With offshore wind farms moving in, the fishing community faces the real possibility of a financial burden from revenue loss, officials say.
A proposed fisheries compensation fund has the potential to alleviate that burden from the likely physical and economic damages they will incur, including gear loss, habitat degradation, loss of essential fishing grounds and other impacts that will cause serious economic challenges to the fishing industry.
The New Bedford Port Authority supports the establishment of a common set of rules and procedures that would apply to the nine Atlantic Coast states that are working together to establish a framework that requires offshore wind developers to offer compensation.
March 2, 2023 — The whaling industry put New Bedford on the map long ago by bringing the city commercial success, but in this day and age the focus has turned to offshore wind, in combination with the fishing industry as a way to drive New Bedford’s economy.
Civic and business leaders are joining Mayor Jon Mitchell in asking that investment in offshore wind be made a priority in Gov. Maura Healey’s statewide economic development plan as New Bedford strives to be a leader in both the offshore wind and fishing industries.
“We’ve been committed to the proposition that the two industries can coexist successfully, but we also know that it has taken a lot of work and will continue to take an awful lot of work,” he said. “We’re convinced that it’s in the interests of our city that we preserve our leading role as America’s leading fishing port and that we also lead on offshore wind.”
In a letter to Healey and legislators from committees focusing on climate and jobs, Mitchell recommends policies and approaches to strengthen the state’s ability to compete for investment the offshore wind industry with other states further ahead.
February 28, 2023 — At the nascent stage of wind farm development in the Gulf of Maine, a webinar last week looked at the possible impacts to marine life, coastal communities and fisheries while acknowledging there are many unknowns to such projects.
The webinar was hosted Thursday by the UMass Amherst Gloucester Marine Station at Hodgkin’s Cove, the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association and the Cape Ann Climate Coalition, with about 90 participants taking part on Zoom.
At one point, the panel was asked about the use of floating turbines out in Gulf of Maine that would be anchored to the seabed, how they might be interconnected and how the power might be cabled ashore.
When asked why wind farm developers were looking at using floating turbines, panelist Tom Nies, executive director of the New England Fishery Management Council of Newburyport, said: “My understanding is the main reason they are looking at floating turbines in the Gulf of Maine is the depth of water, that it’s difficult to create a fixed structure in the deeper water of the Gulf of Maine.”
Nies said it’s presumed such turbines would be designed to withstand nor’easters and regular storms.
Capt. Al Cottone, a commercial fisherman and executive director of the Gloucester Fisheries Commission, said the industry has “a ton of questions that haven’t been answered yet. And I don’t think these questions will be answered in the time frame that was shown earlier in the presentation and it’s very concerning to the industry.”
Cottone presented a map from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of the Gulf of Maine showing the draft “call area” where wind farms might be sited. He showed that area side-by-side with a NOAA Fisheries “heat map” showing fishing activity taken from the vessel monitoring system tracking commercial groundfish vessels in the Northeast fishery. He said areas shown on the VMS heat map overlap with where wind farms might go.
Read the full article at Gloucester Daily Times
February 21, 2023 — Coastal lawmakers presented several pieces of legislation Thursday that would advance Massachusetts’ marine industries while also focusing on wildlife conservation and habitat protection.
The state’s blue economy entails a wide spectrum of jobs from fishermen to tech workers. It’s currently valued at $8.2 billion, according to lawmakers, and between 2009 and 2019, Massachusetts’ blue economy grew by 38%.
The legislation was introduced with the support of the New England Aquarium in Boston, indicating a slightly new and involved role in state policy for the 54-year-old institution.
“Right now, the commonwealth is at a pivotal moment where the blue economy is projected to grow even further,” said Vikki Spruill, president and CEO of the Aquarium, at a press conference to unveil the legislative package. “But the growing industrialization of the ocean combined with the warming waters in the Gulf of Maine is threatening, and in some cases causing significant changes, to our coastal ecosystems.”