Saving Seafood

Years later, Alaska receives $56 million for salmon fishery disaster

June 22, 2018 — Almost two years after Gov. Bill Walker requested federal funding to counterbalance a devastating blow to Alaska salmon, the government answered, to the tune of over $56 million in disaster relief money.

As to who will actually be on the receiving end of that money, however, is not yet known.

That disaster was the 2016 Southest Alaska Pink Salmon Fishery, which came under average of more than 4 million salmon, racking up losses of an estimated threshold of 35 to 80 percent.

Back in 2016, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said that due to the salmon tanking and a 36 percent loss in total revenue, it allowed the National Marine Fisheries Service to consider disaster relief funding.

The full amount, $56,361,332 in disaster funding, will go to the affected fishermen and stakeholders. The money is taken from a $200 million pool in the budget nine fisheries disasters declared across the country and neighboring areas partially as a result of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

The last time Alaska got money for such disasters was back in 2014, when it took $20.8 million damaged by low Chinook salmon runs in the Yukon and other areas during 2012.

There still remains the question of who among those affected by the fishing disaster will actually get a share in the $56 million, and just how big that share will be.

Wednesday, Alaska’s delegation celebrated the news of that relief payout in a news release, saying, “These dollars are vital to Alaskans and their families who were hit hard by the 2016 pink salmon fishery disaster.”

Read the full story at KTUU

SAVE Act gets boost

June 22, 2018 — A statewide association of commercial lobstermen has thrown its weight behind a $50 million federal bill to protect North Atlantic right whales with targeted research that emphasizes collaboration.

The group intends to work with the International Fund for Animal Welfare to develop a pilot program to test buoyless gear this summer, according to Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Beth Casoni.

“Massachusetts lobstermen are currently the leaders in the world for the conservation of right whales, and the association proudly supports the SAVE Right Whale Act of 2018,” Casoni wrote in an email.

Filed in Congress on June 7, the legislation would allocate $5 million annually in grants through 2028 for conservation programs, and the development of new technology or other methods to reduce harm to right whales from fishing gear entanglements and ship collisions. Grants could promote cooperation with foreign governments, affected local communities, small businesses, others in the private sector or nongovernment groups.

A grant program that is specific for right whale conservation and research will allow “the continued collaborative research needed for safe, realistic and viable outcomes for all that depend on the stocks’ success,” Casoni said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Trump’s plan to overhaul government would give Interior and EPA more power

June 22, 2018 — The White House on Thursday unveiled a radical overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, including many of the agencies managing energy and natural resources.

The Trump administration’s ideas for revamping which agencies are tasked with certain energy and environmental responsibilities — such as managing the nation’s fisheries and flood infrastructure — are part of a broader reorganization plan that calls for sweeping changes such as merging the Labor and Education departments.

But the reorganization effort calls for a level of consolidation that Congress, which would need to approve the plan, is unlikely to sign off on.

It has long been the goal of many conservatives to streamline federal work on energy and environmental issues. Many Republican candidates for president have even promised to eliminate entire departments, such as when Rick Perry suggested during the 2012 race to shutter the Energy Department, which he now runs, and when Donald Trump in 2016 once called for closing the Environmental Protection Agency.

But President Trump’s latest plan is much smaller in scale than any of those campaign-trail promises.

In fact, instead of asking for the eradication of the EPA, the president’s proposal calls upon the agency to take on even more work. Under the plan, the EPA’s Superfund program would absorb portions of hazardous site cleanup programs run by the Interior and Agriculture departments. However, at the same time the EPA would also reduce or otherwise “recalibrate” its oversight of state-run pollution-control programs.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

What’s next in the offshore drilling debate? Hint: It involves fish.

June 22, 2018 — Environmental groups are keeping a close eye on the National Marine Fisheries Service to see whether the federal agency will grant permits that would likely pave the way for seismic testing off the Atlantic coast, including North Carolina.

“Seismic airgun blasting is the first step toward oil and gas drilling and could lead to catastrophic consequences. … (If approved), this is an investment in offshore drilling,” said Diane Hoskins, Oceana’s campaign director for offshore drilling.

The steps to seismic testing in the South Atlantic include approval of the incidental harassment authorizations by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which could then be followed by approval of the permits from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

According to NOAA’s website, the public comment period for proposed seismic permits in the Atlantic closed last July. The comment review and final determination process typically takes, according to the site, one to three months.

“We are working through about 17,000 public comments as expeditiously as possible, but will take the time necessary to ensure that they are all appropriately addressed and that our final decision is based on the best available science,” Kate Brogan, a National Marine Fisheries Service spokeswoman, wrote in an email.

Read the full story at Star News

ENVIRONMENTALISTS SUE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IN TAMPA OVER OFFSHORE DRILLING

June 22, 2018 — Earthjustice, on behalf of three conservation groups, sued the Trump administration Thursday (June 21) alleging that it failed to complete a legally required consultation about offshore drilling’s harms to threatened and endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico.

The National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are required under the Endangered Species Act to complete a consultation with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on its oversight of oil and gas operations that could impact threatened and endangered species. The last time the agencies completed a consultation, called a biological opinion, was in 2007, three years before the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster which led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, according to Earthjustice.

With the lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Tampa, the Gulf Restoration Network, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity are challenging the agencies for unreasonably delaying completion of a new consultation and seeking a court order to compel them to complete it within three months. A new biological opinion likely would result in additional safeguards to prevent further harm to sea turtles, whales, and other threatened and endangered species from oil and gas operations in the Gulf.

Read the full story at the Tampa Bay Reporter

Suit: Offshore drilling done in absence of required report

June 22, 2018 — Three conservation groups said in a lawsuit filed Thursday that federal wildlife agencies have failed for years to complete required consultations and reporting on the effects that oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could have on endangered species.

The suit comes more than a decade since the last such report was done, and more than eight years since the huge 2010 BP oil spill, the groups said.

The Gulf Restoration Network, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity released a copy of their lawsuit as it was being filed in U.S. District Court in Florida. Defendants named are the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The suit says the Endangered Species Act requires those agencies since 2007 to consult with the agencies overseeing Gulf drilling and to publish an opinion on the possible effects of such drilling on endangered species, including various species of whales and sea turtles.

Such consultations and reporting haven’t been conducted since well before the 2010 explosion of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, a disaster that spilled millions of gallons into the Gulf, the lawsuit says. It added that the result is that hundreds of offshore oil and gas projects have been approved based on outdated information.

The lawsuit seeks an order requiring completion of a consultation in 90 days.

After the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which also killed 11 rig workers, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement decided a new consultation was needed and asked the two agencies to begin work on one in 2010, the suit says.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Coast Guard busts Keys fishing vessel with shark fins

June 20, 2018 — A Coast Guard crew from Station Islamorada stopped a commercial fishing vessel in the Upper Keys Tuesday morning that was loaded with dismembered sharks and 11 fins.

Federal law has prohibited the practice of shark finning — where the fin is cut off the shark and the rest of the body discarded — since 2000.

The 40-foot vessel, the Miss Shell, was stopped near South Sound Creek, which is near John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Murray. The initial stop was for improper display of navigational lights, according to a Coast Guard press release.

Crew from a Coast Guard patrol boat, which included an officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, boarded the Miss Shell and found the fins and shark carcasses.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has taken over the investigation into the case. There is no immediate information about arrests.

Read the full story at the Florida Keys News

 

Judge rules for Oceana in California anchovy dispute

June 20, 2018 — Just how many anchovies are there off the northern coast of California and are there enough to fish commercially?

Environmental activist group Oceana and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) have different answers to those questions, and a federal judge’s ruling recently favored Oceana’s view, reducing opportunities for California fishermen.

At issue is the science that NMFS relied on in reaching a 2016 decision to set the total allowable catch (TAC) for northern California anchovy at 25,000 metric tons. The agency set that limit — even though landings typically only total less than a third of that, 7,300t — judging the stock’s maximum sustainable yield to be 123,000t, and calculating an acceptable biological catch of 100,000t. The TAC was set, conservatively, the agency said, at a fourth of that level.

However, after the 2016 rule was adopted, Oceana sued NMFS in federal court arguing that the rule violated principles established in the the Magnuson-Stevens Act because the agency failed “to articulate the scientific basis for this catch limit”.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

AIS awarded $47m contract to monitor fishing in Northeast US

June 19, 2018 — The US National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has tapped AIS Inc., a Marion, Massachusetts-based company, to monitor fishing in the Northeast US for the next five years, the company said in a press release. The contract is worth $47 million.

The job will entail employing 80 to 100 observers riding on commercial fishing vessels all along the northeastern coast of the US, from Maine to North Carolina, covering 10,000 sea days per year, the company said. All observers must have a bachelor of science degree in biological or ecological services and pass a three-week training to test before becoming certified.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Jellyfish numbers on the rise along US beaches

June 18, 2018 — If you’re heading to the beach this summer like millions of other Americans, scientists are recommending to be on the lookout for jellyfish.

More than 1,000 people were stung on a Florida beach just this week, and it is possible incidents may increase.

Allen Collins, a research zoologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, says there have been more blooms of jellyfish in different parts of the world, but scientists are unsure if this is a worldwide event.

“When conditions are right for them to make jellies, they produce the jellyfish in vast quantities,” Collins said. “People have studied the jellyfish in certain areas quite well and there are instances where it does look like there’s one particular region is having greater numbers of jellyfish. In the literature sometimes people describe it as a global phenomenon and on that we’re just not sure.”

Jellyfish blooms are known to occur every 20 years, but Collins says warmer oceans, agriculture runoff, commercial fishing and the creation of artificial reefs may have an impact on increased numbers of the animals in recent years.

Collins also said places like the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea are prime places for jellyfish blooms. He also noted that there are thousands of different species of jellyfish and countless others that have yet to be discovered.

The majestic creatures are some of the oldest life forms on the planet, having existed for hundreds of millions of years. With no eyes and limited ability to move through water, marine biologists say it’s important recognize the habitat of the animals and know what to do when you encounter them at the beach.

Read the full story at Fox News