Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Companies adapt to State Pier closure

November 21, 2025 — Businesses are moving to adapt after a report forced the closure of most of New Bedford State Pier.

MassDevelopment, the state agency that manages the pier, closed most of the property after receiving an engineering review by Bellingham-based Childs Engineering dated Nov. 14. The review found that many of the timber piles holding up the pier have deteriorated.

The necessary repairs are at the south wharf and most of the east wharf. Most of the north wharf is already closed for repairs. Only the northeastern portion of the pier remains suitable for service.

“Based on the current condition of the piles and bracing, the pier is structurally incapable of supporting pedestrian loading or any equipment or storage on either the South or East Face,” the review says.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

UMass Dartmouth, New Bedford Port Authority to study effects of wind industry on commercial fishing

November 13, 2025 — Researchers from UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science & Technology plan to study how the commercial fishing and wind energy industries coexist off the coast of Massachusetts. The goal is to address one of the major uncertainties in trying to manage offshore fisheries and offshore wind – how to safely fish near a windfarm.

The project will track the behavior and position of fishing vessels and their gear in areas near offshore wind farms. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is funding the research with a $419,000 grant.

Read the full article at Ocean State Media

MASSACHUSETTS: Scallopalooza brings New Bedford’s heritage to life

November 7, 2025 — As a crowd of fishermen, their families, and curious onlookers formed, there was something unmistakable in the air: pride. It was the kind that comes from generations of families who have braved the ever-changing weather on the North Atlantic, built a city on the back of hard work, and brought home some of the best scallops in the world.

For one day this past summer, the nation’s top-earning fishing port reminded everyone exactly what New Bedford was built on.

“When we started talking about Scallopalooza, my intention was simple: to celebrate our fishermen,” said Stacy Alexander-Nevells, a board member of the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center (FHC) and manager of Atlantic Shellfish, her family’s business. “It is a hard, thankless life that only those who live it can truly understand. You’d be surprised how many people right here in our local community don’t really know what it takes to bring those scallops to the dock.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

New Bedford agency, researchers to study commercial fishing within wind farm

November 5, 2025 — In the years leading up to the installation of the first turbine off the coast of Massachusetts, government officials, scientists and fishermen convened in conference rooms and Zoom calls to discuss and debate what the fishing industry’s future could — and would —  look like amid grids of steel towers.

An oft-uttered phrase was “coexistence” — a realistic goal to those backing offshore wind development, but a laughable suggestion to some fishermen. Accepting there would be impacts, other terms like mitigation and financial compensation peppered the conversations — tools to address effects on fishermen who will tow in and around the arrays as they’re erected, and once they’re operational.

Now, with more than 120 towers standing off the New England coast as of this month, the stakeholders involved can finally put their hopes, doubts, and hypotheses to the test.

The New Bedford Port Authority and UMass Dartmouth School of Marine Science & Technology (SMAST) are partnering up for the first of its kind study in the U.S. that will measure how commercial fishing boats and their varied gear — dredges, pots, trawls, and so on — behave and operate within wind farms. The collected data, they say, can answer some unanswered questions, and inform how coexistence between the two industries can be achieved or improved.

“This project gives us the opportunity to address one of the major uncertainties in managing the interaction of offshore wind farms and fisheries,” said Steven Cadrin, professor of fisheries oceanography at SMAST.

The research project is funded by a $420,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and comes at a time when other studies that would have examined offshore wind’s impacts on commercially fished species and other marine interests, like whales, have been terminated by the federal government.

The final details have not been ironed out, but the testing may be conducted within Vineyard Wind or Revolution Wind (both projects have 80% to 90% of their turbines installed).

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Awaits CDC Study of Offshore Wind Industry Impact

November 5, 2025 — There is potentially a lot at stake for the City of New Bedford, its rich fishing industry, and offshore wind power development. While some believe fishing and support for offshore wind can coexist in the same port city, others are not so sure.

Kennedy Calls for Federal Review

Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate the potential harms of offshore wind farms, some proposed and some under construction off the coast of Massachusetts and elsewhere in the Northeast.

Read the full article at WBSM

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford State Pier businesses to be displaced. Repairs could take up to 4 years.

October 28, 2025 — The state will close State Pier’s south wharf and most of the east wharf within weeks for significant repairs that will cause the displacement of virtually all water-dependent businesses. Repairs could take up to four years.

However, MassDevelopment President and CEO Navjeet Bal said the agency is working on short-term options with Seastreak Ferries and Cuttyhunk Ferry to be able to maintain some level of operations from the pier.

There is a space that’s safe and it’s hoped they can be supported from there, Bal said. Seastreak is currently closed for the season.

Why is the pier closure happening?

Bal said an engineering review of the pier found that the south wharf and most of the east wharf required significant repairs or replacement, necessitating the closure within weeks.

She noted that the north wharf has been closed since 2019 because of needed repairs, and MassDevelopment will be soliciting reconstruction bids for it in the near future.

Read the full article at the Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Mayor of New Bedford urges NOAA to approve proposal allowing scallop permit stacking

October 20, 2025 — The mayor of the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A., is calling on NOAA Fisheries to allow full-time scallop vessels to stack two permits on one vessel.

Mayor Jon Mitchell, in a letter sent to NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler, called on the agency to allow for permit stacking in order to help protect the industry. Mitchell’s letter said he has reconsidered his position on the matter, as the scallop fishery continues to face limited days at sea.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

New Bedford Mayor Urges NOAA to Advance Targeted Scallop Permit-Stacking to Keep Fleet Working

October 17, 2025 — Mayor Jon Mitchell today wrote to Eugenio Piñeiro Soler, Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries, setting forth his position on a proposed rule that would allow full-time, limited-access scallop permit holders to “stack” two permits on a single vessel. New Bedford has been the nation’s highest-value fishing port for 23 consecutive years, since 2001. As the Mayor writes, “the Atlantic sea scallop fishery is one of America’s highest grossing commercial fisheries and is concentrated in New Bedford,” giving the city “a singular interest in policies that govern the allocation of scallop permits.”

Background and changing circumstances

Three years ago, the mayor opposed a proposal that would have authorized leasing of limited-access scallop permits. In his view then, it went further than necessary to address over-capitalization and risked inexorable industry consolidation, costing shoreside jobs and diminishing returns to single-boat owners and their crews, while failing to sufficiently engage the small businesses most exposed. He now notes that changing circumstances have prompted him to revisit his position, given the continued tightening of effort controls and their knock-on effects throughout the fleet and waterfront.

Why the industry needs relief

“The continued decline in available days-at-sea and closed area trips for limited-access permit holders has forced a broad reckoning in the industry that the traditional assignment of one permit per boat is antiquated. It has resulted in scallopers remaining in port for nearly eleven months a year on average – hardly an efficient use of a multi-million-dollar business asset,” the mayor writes. Building on that point, the mayor cites the practical consequences in port: prolonged vessel idling has increased congestion on municipal piers, reducing safety for fishermen; and by cutting average-boat revenues, it has constrained reinvestment in vessels, raising additional safety concerns.

What’s different now

“The new proposal is being advanced by a different group of proponents, who went back to the proverbial drawing board to fashion a more measured approach. In its broadest terms, the proposal would not allow the leasing of permits, but it instead would allow the transfer of permits between two vessels of similar size and common ownership. In practice, this would enable one boat to fish for approximately twice as long in any given year,” the mayor wrote.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com