Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center to Reopen and Launch New Exhibit

April 5, 2021 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center will reopen to the public and launch its new exhibit, More than a Job: Work and Community in New Bedford’s Fishing Industry, on Thursday, April 15th.

More than a Job: Work and Community in New Bedford’s Fishing Industry will provide visitors with an introduction to the workings of the fishing industry as well as explore themes including labor history, immigration, sustainability, and the changing nature of work and community. This exhibit will feature a replica working deck, scallop dredge, galley table, bunks, historic and contemporary images and footage, and more than sixty audio clips sharing the many voices of the fishing community.

Funding for More than a Job: Work and Community in New Bedford’s Fishing Industry is provided by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and significant support from Bristol County Savings Bank. Major in-kind support for this exhibit was provided by Fairhaven Shipyard and Blue Fleet Welding.

Located in the nation’s most valuable fishing port, New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to preserving and presenting the story of the commercial fishing industry past, present, and future through exhibits, programs, and archives. Beginning April 15th, the Center is open Thursday-Sunday, 10:00am-4:00pm. Admission is free. To schedule a small group tour of the new exhibit or to learn more about the exhibit, contact
programs@fishingheritagecenter.org or call (508) 993-8894.

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford to Open Vaccination Center for Seafood Workers

April 2, 2021 — New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, joined by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Congressman Bill Keating, and members of the New Bedford City Council and state legislative delegation, announced Wednesday that the City of New Bedford has established a waterfront vaccination center on Tichon Avenue to vaccinate essential seafood industry workers.

The site is located at the former Environmental Protection Agency Dewatering Facility on the waterfront, recently turned over to the New Bedford Port Authority by the EPA. It will launch in the coming weeks with additional vaccine supply and through a partnership with the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center.

The waterfront vaccination center will be operated as a partnership between the City and the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center which will staff the vaccination site. The Greater New Bedford Community Health Center recently received an award of nearly $4 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration as part of the American Rescue Plan to support its work, including direct receipt of vaccine, which makes possible the operation of this site.

Read the full story at WBSM

Communities, companies taking steps to get COVID vaccine to seafood industry workers

April 2, 2021 — Later this month, an old U.S. Environmental Protection Agency facility on the waterfront in New Bedford, Massachusetts, will be teeming with seafood industry workers taking the next step toward the industry’s – and the nation’s – recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thanks to nearly USD 4 million (EUR 3.4 million) in funds from the recently enacted American Rescue Plan, the facility will become a COVID-19 vaccination site. A release from the city indicates it will handle up to 125 inoculations an hour and potentially up to 1,000 people daily, and the focus will be on fishermen and others in the commercial seafood industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: Virtual Dock-u-mentary Discussion from New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center

April 2, 2021 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center’s Dock-u-mentaries film series continues with a virtual discussion of the film, The Long Coast.

The event will take place over ZOOM at 7:00pm on Friday, April 16th and will feature a discussion with Robyn Metcalfe, the Executive Producer of The Long Coast. To join the ZOOM Meeting, use the link, bit.ly/AprilDock.

Visitors are asked to watch the film on their own as we will not be screening the film during the Zoom meeting. Register at the following link to receive access to watch the film, bit.ly/WatchLongCoast. Register by April 15th to receive access before the discussion on April 16th. Once you receive the link, you will have 48 hours to watch the film.

In a series of lyrical portraits, The Long Coast illuminates the stories of Maine’s seafolk, those whose lives and livelihoods are inextricably connected to the ocean. This atmospheric film shows the beauty, intimacy, and uncertainty that coastal dwellers face in rooting their lives in the ocean, particularly as human actions — from overfishing, to aquaculture, to warming seas — confront Maine and its people with profound change. Learn more at thelongcoast.me.

Please contact Hannah at programs@fishingheritagecenter.org with any questions.

Dock-u-mentaries are presented by New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center and New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. Thank you to Zapalac Advisors for funding this event.

MASSACHUSETTS: Vaccine site for seafood workers to open next weekend in New Bedford

April 1, 2021 — Meat processing plants have experienced some of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks of any workplace in the country. Officials feared the same would be true of the New Bedford’s fish houses.

Last spring, Mayor Jon Mitchell’s administration passed an emergency order that set strict safety protocols for seafood companies and other manufacturers, threatening fines of $300 per day against companies that fail to provide PPE and enforce social distancing.

And on Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the mayor and other public officials introduced plans for a new vaccine clinic targeting the workers who kept America’s most valuable fishing port operating during the pandemic.

“This center is about protecting our essential workers,” Warren said. “It is about treating our fishermen with respect. It is about treating our food workers with respect.”

Read the full story at The Public’s Radio

MASSACHUSETTS: Sen. Warren returns to New Bedford, touting $3.9M for waterfront vaccines

April 1, 2021 — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren made her first visit to New Bedford in more than two years on Wednesday, touring a new federally funded vaccination center and expressing gratitude to essential workers in the food sector.

Warren joined Mayor Jon Mitchell to inspect a waterfront building that the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center is turning into a vaccination site designed to serve employees in the nearby fish processing plants. It will begin offering Johnson & Johnson doses on April 10.

“This center is about protecting our essential workers,” Warren said. “It is about treating our fishermen with respect. It is about treating our food workers with respect.”

The Community Health Center has received a $3.9 million grant under the newly enacted American Rescue Plan Act that will help cover the cost of the vaccination site. The building where the shots will be administered is on Hervey Tichon Avenue, and was recently given to the city by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which had been using it for the Superfund cleanup of New Bedford Harbor.

“This center is a way of saying thank you, and opening up vaccinations so they are here, for the people who have been here for the rest of America over the past year,” Warren said.

Read the full story at WPRI

MASSACHUSETTS: Virtual Fisherpoets Round Robin from New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center

March 30, 2021 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center will host a virtual event, Women in the Workplace, Women on Deck: A Fisherpoets Round Robin, on Thursday, April 8th at 7:00pm. This event will be live-streamed to the Center’s Facebook page. These fisherpoets will share stories, poems, and music related to their experiences in the fishing industry and community. This event will be led by Moe Bowstern and will feature Tele Aadsen, Meezie Hermansen, Alana Kansaku-Sarmiento, Meghan Gervais, Billie Delaney, and Melanie Brown plus others to be announced. For more details on this event including performer bios, please visit the Center’s online calendar at fishingheritagecenter.org/programs/calendar.

This event takes place on the Fishing Heritage Center’s Facebook page as a Facebook Live event. Watch by visiting the Center’s Facebook page at 7:00pm EDT on Thursday, March 8th, facebook.com/NBFishingHeritageCenter.

Women in the Workplace, Women on Deck: A Fisherpoets Round Robin is supported by a Bridge Street Scholarship from Mass Humanities. This program is part of Women’s Work, the Center’s series about women’s roles in commercial fishing which is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Women’s Fisheries Network, Mass Cultural Council, and the New Bedford, Fairhaven, Dartmouth, Westport, and Mattapoisett Cultural Councils.

The program takes place on April’s AHA! Night and is free and open to the public.

MASSACHUSETTS: Casting a wide net: Vaccinating New Bedford’s fishing workforce is a tall task

March 26, 2021 — Sitting behind a plastic barrier, a masked volunteer with Centro Comuntario de Trabajadores (CCT) helped two seafood processing workers register for the COVID-19 vaccine Monday afternoon. In another room, two more workers signed a form to be helped next.

On Monday, fishing industry workers — many of whom go out to sea for lengthy stretches and with ever-changing schedules — became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Massachusetts.

According to a report from the New Bedford Port Authority, more than 6,200 people worked directly in the harbor’s commercial fishing and seafood processing industry in 2018.

Adrian Ventura, executive director of CCT, said through interpreter Lisa Knauer that their goal is to register 25 seafood processing workers per day for the vaccine.

Ventura and a representative from Fishing Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to the health and safety of commercial fishermen, said the biggest challenge to getting the thousands of fishing industry workers vaccinated will likely be one of logistics.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford heritage center to highlight women’s roles in fishing industry

March 10, 2021 — Years before the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center was established, the city’s annual two-day Working Waterfront Festival in 2007 focused on women and their role in the commercial fishing industry.

Laura Orleans, executive director of the center who was involved in the festival planning, said a man on the planning committee had asked if the festival would be all about fishermen’s wives, as that was what he thought about women in the industry.

Women who are married to fishermen serve an important role, but they have many other roles, Orleans said. They own and captain boats, process fish, study fisheries as scientists, make fishing gear, do the bookkeeping, serve as observers for fisheries management and act as some of the strongest advocates for the industry.

This reality will be the focus of the center’s new project, “Women’s Work: At Sea, On Shore, At Home, In the Community.” Programming starts this month and will culminate in a new exhibit on women scheduled to open late this summer.

Read the full story at Wicked Local

MASSACHUSETTS: Wind Farm Off Martha’s Vineyard Near Approval

March 10, 2021 — The following is an excerpt from a segment that ran on NBC Boston:

On Monday, the U.S. Department of the Interior completed Vineyard Wind’s environmental impact assessment. With the completion of this assessment, Vineyard Wind has edged closer to completion. Groups representing the seafood industry from across the Atlantic coast have expressed concern that it may lead to restrictions on large portions of valuable fishing grounds.

“There’s proposals all up and down the East Coast to occupy massive acreage of ocean bottom. So, that’s going to be a problem for fishermen,” said Eric Hansen, a local scallop fisherman from New Bedford.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell expressed that “it will take a lot of communication over the next several months to make sure that the wind farm and the fishermen can safely co-exist.”

Watch the full video here