Saving Seafood

Fishing insider embraces new role as Vineyard Wind liaison

September 24, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — In 12 years, research biologist Crista Bank spent a lot of hours at sea aboard local fishing vessels, but never once heard wheelhouse chatter about the industrial-sized wind farms planned a dozen miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

“It wasn’t really a topic of discussion,” said Bank, the new fisheries liaison for offshore wind developer Vineyard Wind. “You would think it would be, something this huge on the horizon.”

Even for her, deep in research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science & Technology, the magnitude of what will be Vineyard Wind’s $2 billion, 106-turbine offshore construction project didn’t sink in until she happened to pass five turbines off Block Island two years ago.

“I saw them, and I was like, really?” Bank said of her reaction.

It may be that head-down, focused attitude of a researcher that allows Bank to empathize with what she says is a similar attitude of many fishermen — scallopers, lobstermen, pot fishermen, gill-netters, squid fishermen, small-mesh draggers, large draggers, inshore and offshore boat captains, charter boat captains, recreational and pelagic anglers — she knows and hopes to meet.

“I sort of see the fishermen’s perspective a lot more,” Bank said “I believe in offshore energy. I believe we need to do it. I have solar panels on my house. I’m totally for renewable energy.” But, Bank said, those turbines will be placed squarely where people make a living.

Bank might be best known now in the region for her fisheries research. But before that, she crewed aboard the tall ship Ernestina and was an onboard fishing vessel observer for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Bank considers New Bedford her home.

“Crista has an excellent track record in cooperative research with the fishing industry,” said Steven Lohrenz, dean of the UMass Dartmouth marine science school. Bank is knowledgeable about fisheries science and about the challenges being faced by fishermen, said Lohrenz, who first mentioned the Vineyard Wind job to Bank. Bank is also personable and a good communicator, he said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

New Bedford shocked by NOAA’s latest move in Carlos Rafael case

September 24, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Jim Kendall sees fingerprints on NOAA’s most recent allegations that go beyond Carlos Rafael and loop 22 of his captains into the agency’s non-criminal civil action.

“I’ll tell you right now, you can print it or not, but I think John Bullard still has his thumb on the scale,” the former fishing captain and executive director of New Bedford Seafood Consulting said.

Kendall backed up his claims by saying, “because I know John. He’s a vindictive SOB.”

Bullard is the former mayor of New Bedford, but in this case more importantly acted as the regional administrator for NOAA when Rafael was criminally indicted, pled guilty and was sentenced. Bullard also imposed a groundfishing ban on Rafael-owned vessels.

Except Bullard retired Jan. 19, about nine months before NOAA filed the updated charging documents on Sept. 10.

“A comment like that is insulting to all the people who do very important and hard work in the enforcement arena,” Bullard said. “They just follow the facts and where the facts lead. The only scales are the scales of justice. Nobody’s influencing. The only thing they are following is the facts.”

Bullard was at the helm when NOAA first filed charging documents on Jan. 10.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard-Times

 

NEW BEDFORD STANDARD-TIMES: Moving NOAA research center to New Bedford is a good idea

September 24, 2018 — Most SouthCoast residents are well aware that relationships between local commercial fishermen and government regulators are frequently tense.

This newspaper alone regularly documents disagreements between them on issues as diverse as how endangered specific fish species are, how effective groundfish catch-share systems are, and who is financially responsible for at-sea monitoring.

Whatever the concern, it’s not surprising when the two groups approach an issue from opposing points of view.

So the city’s proposal to improve dialogue between fishermen and government scientists by bringing them together to coexist on the New Bedford waterfront is a welcome one and one that has the potential to build trust where very little has existed in recent years.

The idea to relocate NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center from Woods Hole to New Bedford was first proposed two years ago, when NOAA announced it would review its aging and increasingly out-of-date Woods Hole facilities and consider new sites. In response, Mayor Jon Mitchell, the Economic Development Council, harbor officials and others sent a detailed letter to then NOAA administrator Kathryn Sullivan to consider the many benefits of moving its research center to the nation’s highest grossing commercial fishing port.

The city’s argument was that by placing both groups in close proximity, NOAA “could at last begin to break down barriers to communication, and repair the distrust that has plagued the relationship between the National Marine Fisheries Service and the fishing industry in the Northeast for decades,” according to the city’s proposal.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

NEW BEDFORD STANDARD-TIMES: BOEM should do ocean study before awarding NY wind leases

September 24, 2018 — Sometimes big issues seem to appear as if out of nowhere.

Residents of SouthCoast may have been feeling that way this week upon learning that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is about to decide on the future of some of the New Bedford scallop fleet’s prime fishing grounds just next month, in October.

Mayor Jon Mitchell and others gave their testimony to BOEM Tuesday about the plans of New York state to award wind turbine leases in a 2,300-square-mile section of ocean known as the New York Bight. The area just happens to be the spot where 40 to 50 percent of the scalloping grounds fished by New Bedford’s fleet are, according to scalloper Eric Hansen.

The federal agency has indicated to developers that 80,000 of the 1.5 million acres contained in the region would be a reasonable turbine size but local officials are worried.

Mitchell called for a scientific study and analysis of where the turbines should go, and recommended against a hasty awarding of leases.

“These decisions are permanent,” he said, explaining that the North Atlantic is far larger and more complex than the areas of Northwest Europe where previous wind turbine studies have been done. There needs to be a hard assessment of the cumulative effects of the wind farms and the locations of the scallops, squid and other species.

In just one area where a lease is being considered, over the last five years New Bedford has taken an annual average of 56 million scallops. That’s a good chunk of the 354 million scallops the city fleet has taken on average over the last five years.

“This is a big deal,” Mitchell told the BOEM officials.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

NOAA seeks $3 million in civil fines against Carlos Rafael

September 21, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — NOAA hasn’t removed Carlos Rafael from its crosshairs. It’s requesting more than $3 million from the fishing tycoon and also took aim at 20 additional Rafael captains in a civil action filed last week, the governing agency told The Standard-Times on Thursday.

NOAA issued superseding charging documents in its civil administrative case involving Rafael on Sept. 10, which added charges and included more respondents than the original document NOAA issued Jan. 10.

The new document seeks to revoke 42 of Rafael’s federal fishing permits, prevent Rafael or his agents from applying for NOAA permits in the future, and increase the total monetary penalties sought from $983,528 to $3,356,269.

NOAA said Thursday that it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

The documents, which are non-criminal, also increased the number of alleged violations of federal fishery laws from 35 to 88 in addition to lassoing 20 of Rafael’s captains into the civil action. The original documents included only two captains. NOAA also is seeking to revoke operator permits of 17 fishing vessel captains for Rafael.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard-Times

 

‘You’re impacting the whole resource’

September 19, 2018 — Fishermen and city officials raised the alarm Tuesday about potential wind turbines in prime fishing and scalloping grounds south of Long Island.

About 55 people attended a meeting with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to discuss the agency’s evaluation of possible offshore wind locations within a 2,300-square-mile portion of the New York Bight, between Long Island and New Jersey.

Scalloper Eric Hansen said 40 to 50 percent of the scalloping grounds fished by New Bedford scallopers is within the area the federal government is considering leasing to wind developers, and if fishing there becomes dangerous, people will fish harder in the remaining places.

“You’re impacting the whole resource,” he said.

Bureau staff said they want to narrow down the areas to be leased for wind turbines, not use the entire space.

“We have no intention of leasing that whole area,” BOEM spokesman Stephen Boutwell said in an interview before the meeting.

But fishermen were skeptical.

“That’s a hope and not a promise right now, from our perspective,” David Frulla, a scallop industry attorney, said in an interview. “We think this is way overboard and needs to be reconsidered. And we’re actively opposing it.”

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell addressed the meeting, calling the potential effect on fishing “very alarming.”

“There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way to allow for the development of offshore wind,” he said.

The federal agency has indicated to developers that 80,000 acres would be a reasonable project size — compared to the nearly 1.5 million acres contained within the four areas under consideration: Fairways North, Fairways South, Hudson North and Hudson South.

The mayor cited government data showing a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of scallops were harvested in the four areas over a five-year period ending in 2016. He said a small fraction of the total acreage would satisfy New York’s renewable energy goals, and that those goals could be satisfied by unused areas off Massachusetts that have already been through this process.

Amy Stillings, an economist with BOEM, said Mitchell framed the conversation well, and research does show a lot of fishing happens in the New York Bight.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center seeks volunteers

September 14, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The Fishing Heritage Center is recruiting volunteers and will host an orientation session from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Oct. 20, according to a news release.

The session will include an overview of the mission and activities of the center as well as an introduction to the commercial fishing industry. A light breakfast will be provided.

In the coming months, volunteers will be invited to participate in a series of insider tours to learn first-hand about the commercial fishing industry.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard-Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford revives push to seize Northeast Fisheries Center

September 13, 2018 — Appealing to the new management team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, elected officials from New Bedford are newly appealing to relocate the Northeast Fisheries Science Center from Woods Hole to New Bedford, arguing the change will help the federal government to more effectively engage with members of an active fishing community.

In a letter Tuesday to Acting Administrator Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, officials cited media reports suggesting that NOAA had ruled out every possible location for the center except Woods Hole in Falmouth.

In asking for reconsideration, they also demanded the federal government release its “business case analysis” of potential locations in the Northeast.

“We believe that that by siting the facility in the undisputed center of the commercial fishing industry on the East Coast, the Administration could at last begin to break down barriers to communication, and repair the distrust that has plagued the relationship between the National Marine Fisheries Service and the fishing industry in the Northeast for decades,” fishing industry and South Coast lawmakers wrote in the letter.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Free film in New Bedford follows Point Judith fisherman on the job

September 11, 2018 — The Dock-U-Mentaries Film Series continues Friday, Sept. 21, 7 p.m., with “Rodman Sykes: A Life in the Fisheries.” The film is part of a series by Markham Starr documenting the commercial fishing port of Point Judith, Rhode Island.

Rodman Sykes is a lifelong commercial fisherman out of Point Judith. He began fishing with his grandfather as a child and has pursued this career his whole life. He discusses his life in the fisheries, how it has changed over time, and what increasing regulatory pressure is doing to the industry against the backdrop of a day aboard the F/V Virginia Marise, catching both groundfish for food and skate to be used as bait by local lobstermen.

Dock-U-Mentaries is a co-production of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park and New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center. Films about the working waterfront are screened on the third Friday of each month in the theater of the Corson Maritime Learning Center, 33 William St., in downtown New Bedford. All programs are open to the public and presented free.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford makes new push for fisheries center

September 12, 2018 — The nation’s top fishing port is renewing its efforts to get the government to move its fisheries center from Woods Hole to New Bedford.

“The fishing industry wants the regulators for the first time ever to be in New Bedford because they see the benefits of good science and cooperative research,” said Ed Anthes-Washburn, the director of the New Bedford Port Authority.

On Tuesday, elected officials, the Port Authority and members of the fishing industry sent a letter to NOAA seeking a new feasibility study, maintaining the city is the best location for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, currently in Woods Hole.

The letter, addressed to Timothy Gallaudet, Ph.D., assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere for the Department of Commerce in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was also signed by representatives of fishing vessels from home ports in New Bedford and Fairhaven and parts of Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Virginia and North Carolina.

This push isn’t entirely new. In March 2016, a letter addressed to NOAA said the agency had a rare opportunity to further the center’s mission and restore its credibility in fishing communities by moving to New Bedford.

NOAA spokeswoman Teri Frady confirmed Tuesday that in the latest study New Bedford was considered as a new location, but Woods Hole is the “preferred alternative” location recommended in the Business Case Analysis.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times