Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Seafood Soirée to Benefit New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center

July 2, 2018 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

Enticing seafood appetizers from some of the area’s finest chefs are on the menu for a Seafood Soirée, the first gala fundraiser to benefit the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.

Scheduled for the evening of July 19th at the Wamsutta Club at the James Arnold Mansion, a Seafood Soirée will feature the bounty of the sea with over a dozen dishes prepared by area chefs, as well as handmade desserts; live gypsy jazz by Hot Club Cheese Roll; and live and chance auctions.

“We invite the community to join us for this fun and delectable evening, a showcase of seafood from the nation’s most valuable fishing port,” says Executive Director Laura Orleans. “We are grateful to all our chefs, restaurants, seafood companies, and sponsors for their role in helping us promote the local seafood industry.”

The event is sponsored by BayCoast Bank, Eastern Fisheries, Farm Credit East, SouthCoast Media Group, and the Wamsutta Club at the James Arnold Mansion.

The cocktail hour from 5:30 to 6:30 pm will feature sushi from Turk’s Seafoodin Mattapoisett; shrimp cocktail from Kyler’s Catch in New Bedford; and a cheese platter donated by The Pasta House in Fairhaven.

From 6:30 to 7:30, signature seafood dishes will be offered by the following chefs (committed to date):

  • Clam Chowder donated by Blount Fine Foods;
  • Smoked Eel (or unagi), Deviled Egg, Pea Greens on crostini created by Chris Chronin of Farm and Coast Market, Pandanaram;
  • A red crab dish created by Chefs Arthur Dill and Helder Costa from Chartwells Dining Service at UMass Dartmouth featuring crab donated by Atlantic Red Crab Company;
  • Sea Scallops prepared on site by Eastern Fisheries Executive Chef George Korousos;
  • A Monkfish dish created by Chef Mike Mello of M&C Café featuring monkfish donated by Bergie’s Seafood;
    New Bedford Seafood Paella featuring clams, scallops, mussels & chorizo created by Chef Greg Morton of Morton’s Fork Catering;
  • Mini lobster rolls by Oxford Creamery;
  • A fish dish prepared by Sid Wainer’s Corporate Chef Chris Cordeiro;
  • A seafood dish prepared by the chefs at the Waterfront Grille in New Bedford, newly owned by Lafrance Hospitality.
  • For non-seafood eaters, Wamsutta Club Executive Chef Raymond Fonseca will offer assorted petite quiche, spanakopita, bruschetta, and chicken allouette.
  • Dessert from 7:30 to 8:30 pm will feature handcrafted chocolates by Life is Sweet, hand-painted sugar cookies by Sarah Joy, and coffee and tea.

From 7:30 to 8:30, WBSM radio personality Phil Paleologos will auction items ranging from Red Sox tickets to a scallop dinner for four in the galley of a working vessel. Throughout the evening, guests will enjoy gypsy jazz by Hot Club Cheese Roll, and try their luck at a Fluke and Flounder chance auction. A complimentary glass of Blue Ocean Champagne and a cash bar will round out the evening.

Tickets are $75 per person; proceeds will benefit the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center, the city’s newest museum. For tickets, visit the Center at 38 Bethel Street, call 508-993-8894, or email info@fishingheritagecenter.org. Tickets can also be purchased online at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3437877

New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to telling the story of the fishing industry past, present and future through exhibits, programs, and archives. The Center is free of charge and open Thursday-Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. Visit www.fishingheritagecenter.org for more information.

MASSACHUSETTS: Scanning Day to Preserve Fishing Industry

June 29, 2018 — The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center will host its monthly Scanning Day on Saturday July 14 from 10 a.m. to noon.

Scanning Day is an opportunity for the public to share and preserve a digital image of their fishing industry photographs, documents, and other records for future generations.

The Center invites the public to bring their fishing industry related photographs, both historic and contemporary, as well as documents such as settlement sheets, union books, or news clippings to be scanned.

Staff will scan the materials and record any information the owner shares about each piece. The owner will leave with their originals along with a digital copy  of the scans on a flash drive.

The Center is working to create a digital archive of these materials which will be made available to researchers and the public. These documents will help us to tell the story of the fishing industry. This event is free and open to the public.

Read the full story at WBSM

MASSACHUSETTS: Artist Bob Lavoie salutes working waterfront in Fishing Heritage Center exhibit

June 27, 2018 — New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center’s latest exhibit, “Rigs, Hulls, and Wheelhouses: The Art of Bob Lavoie,” opens July 12, 6 p.m., and runs through Sept. 30.

Lavoie became acquainted with New Bedford’s working fishing boats when he began unloading vessels in high school. His time on the working docks continued while studying at Southeastern Massachusetts University (now UMass Dartmouth), where he earned degrees in graphic design and illustration. He fell in love with the aesthetics of the vessels — the colors, the machinery, the lines.

After a career spent as a graphic designer, illustrator, and art director at Hasbro in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Lavoie felt the need to begin to paint again. He began using the brilliant colors of gouache, a thick, opaque Italian watercolor. When deciding what his subject would be, he went back to something that meant a lot to him — the working fishing vessels of New Bedford and Galilee, Rhode Island.

“I’ve tried to paint them as they are — working boats with the rust, nets, blocks and confusing jumbles of lines that make them beautiful,” Lavoie said in a news release. “These working vessels are disappearing in some ports, being displaced by pristine yachts in the slips and multi-million dollar condos on the docks where once these proud working vessels sailed out into the Atlantic to bring in cod, haddock and scallops that made New England one of the primary fisheries in the world. These paintings are a small attempt to preserve a part of our New England heritage that is fast disappearing.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

DON CUDDY: Late New Bedford scalloper never got justice he deserved

June 25, 2018 — It probably passed unnoticed by most people but an obituary for Larry Yacubian appeared in this newspaper on June 13. He died in Punta Gorda, Florida on May 18. But most fishermen still shake their heads when his name comes up. I don’t know if he died a bitter man. I hope not, although he had every reason to feel that way after the treatment meted out to him by federal law enforcement. Larry was a New Bedford scalloper and boat owner. In December 1998 his boat, the Independence, was boarded by the Coast Guard while fishing offshore and he was accused of fishing in a closed area. What followed can only be described, euphemistically, as a miscarriage of justice. The fines imposed on him by an administrative law judge working on behalf of NOAA were so excessive that he was forced to sell his boat, his permits and the Westport farm that had been in his wife’s family for 350 years — all of this to satisfy the greed of some ‘bad actors’ who considered themselves above the rule of law because they were carrying a badge. This particularly malicious prosecution ran Yacubian, a founder of the Fisheries Survival Fund, out of the fishing business and brought financial ruin on his family.

After a torturous legal process some justice was served when Yacubian was refunded $400,000 and received an apology in 2012 from NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke although that sum did not even cover his legal fees. But the details of this shakedown make exceptionally grisly reading. Yacubian’s case was just one of dozens, but by far the most egregious, uncovered by a special master appointed by the Department of Commerce to investigate excessive fines imposed on our commercial fishermen for relatively minor infractions. Thirteen of these originated from the Northeast Regional Office in Gloucester. Upholding justice was the proffered reason for assessing these fines but plain old money was the motivator. These huge fines went to swell the Asset Forfeiture Fund which allowed NOAA agents in the Office of Law Enforcement to purchase luxury vehicles and boats. It is all well-documented if anyone cares to look it up.

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

MASSACHUSETTS: GOP Senate candidate Geoff Diehl outlines plan to help fishermen

June 22, 2018 — Geoff Diehl made his second visit to New Bedford this week to speak with fishermen.

The state representative and candidate running for U.S. Senate against Elizabeth Warren spoke to about five people within the fishing industry at Pier 3 on Thursday. It came just days after he attended a fishing roundtable discussion at the Whaling Museum, which discussed the groundfishing ban affecting the industry.

This second trip of the week was to unveil a set of guidelines he plans to follow to help fishermen if elected.

They involved repealing the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument Status, keeping Carlos Rafael’s fishing licenses in New Bedford and reducing the regulatory burden.

Diehl suggested establishing a NOAA headquarters in New Bedford to better facilitate discussions between the agency and fishermen in the nation’s most valuable seaport.

“They should at least have a satellite if not maybe move their main offices here,” Diehl said. “I think that would make a lot of sense to have them interact with the actual fishermen.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Senate Candidate Geoff Diehl unveils plan to help fleet

June 21, 2018 — Geoff Diehl, the Republican challenger to incumbent U. S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, would retain Carlos Rafael’s forfeited groundfish permits in New Bedford and would push to repeal the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Monument, according to his plan to help the fishing industry.

Diehl, a state representative from Whitman, is set to release the plan, “A Good Diehl for Fishing,” at campaign stops Thursday in New Bedford, Scituate and Gloucester. The Gloucester event is set for 4 p.m. at the Fishermen’s Monument on Stacy Boulevard.

The Diehl fishing plan also calls for reducing the regulatory burden on commercial fishermen and finding “a balance between the necessary protections to ensure ocean preservation, and continuing to support the growth of a healthy marine industry across the state.”

His plan opposes mandated at-sea monitoring of the Northeast groundfish fleet, calling them “onboard watch dogs,” as well as an “egregious example of government overreach and a crippling cost to the fishermen.”

Diehl said transferring Rafael’s groundfish permits to “ready licenses” in New Bedford rather than dispersing them to other fishing concerns throughout the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery “is critical for maintaining the livelihood of those individuals and for ensuring the survival of the fishing industry now and in the future.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

New Bedford Standard-Times: Time for NOAA to let Sector IX fish again

June 21, 2018 — Seventy-two thousand pounds of grey sole.

That’s the amount of fish that NOAA calculates Carlos Rafael misreported in his illegal groundfish scheme.

Multiple people at a Monday meeting of the New Bedford fishing community cited the number. So after months of NOAA saying it could not let Sector IX fishermen back on the water because it didn’t know how much overfishing took place in the sector dominated by Rafael, now the federal agency knows.

We don’t officially know it from NOAA, however, because the oversight group remains silent, even as the ban on the groundfish sector drags on into its eighth month. We know it because the members of the New Bedford fishing community — the fishermen, the fuel depot owners, the gear suppliers, the settlement houses — are all struggling because of the lost fishing. And they cited the number publicly Monday, based on information from NOAA itself.

“Everyone knows (the money in) the account is overdrawn. How do we get the money back in the bank,” asked Sector 9 attorney Andrew Saunders.

That’s the conundrum. The sector is ready to deduct the 72,000 pounds of grey sole from its fishing effort. But it needs NOAA to tell them to go ahead, and the agency remains silent. As it has for months.

The inaction has caused an estimated 240 jobs lost across the Northeast, estimated SMAST professor Dan Georgianna.

Richard Canastra, the co-owner of the New Bedford Seafood Display Auction, estimated it will take a long time to bring the groundfish industry back in New Bedford after so many months without fishing. It was not a very profitable industry to begin with, but it played a key role in keeping many of the New Bedford waterfront support industries active.

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

New Bedford fishermen, businesses losing out while waiting on NOAA

June 20, 2018 — The wall of windows within the Harborview Room on the top floor of the Whaling Museum provided a look of serenity across the waterfront as the sun shined down on countless fishing vessels.

The conversation within the walls painted a much different picture as those from the fishing industry described the suffocating effects that NOAA’s groundfishing ban has imposed on fishermen and shoreside businesses.

“If something doesn’t happen with groundfishing soon, it’s gone,” general manager of Hercules SLR John Reardon said.

NOAA implemented the ban Nov. 20 and has continued because of an overage calculated at 72,000 pounds of grey sole, according to multiple people who spoke Monday evening.

The overage represents the amount of fish calculated by NOAA that Carlos Rafael misreported. He is serving a 46-month prison sentence, but the NOAA punishment aspect has held many along the waterfront hostage.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: MONTIGNY SECURES BIPARTISAN PROTECTIONS FOR COMMERCIAL FISHING

June 15, 2018 — The following was released from the office of Massachusetts State Senator Mark Montigny:

Senate Assistant Majority Leader and Rules Committee Chairman Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) secured bipartisan legislation today to ensure protections for commercial fishing interests prior to any future increased offshore wind procurement.

His amendment to S2545, An Act to Promote a Clean Energy Future, will require commercial fisheries impacts to be studied and considered prior to any increased offshore wind procurement.

In 2016, the legislature directed the procurement of 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind by 2027. Last month, the Baker Administration announced the first round selection of 800 megawatts of offshore wind development south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Throughout the process, commercial fishermen have raised concerns regarding offshore wind’s effect on navigation and fisheries habitat.

While federal guidelines require input from the fishing industry for offshore wind development, thus far fishermen have raised concerns that those federal guidelines lack specifics. Efforts are now underway through the Massachusetts Fisheries Working Group to build consensus and a detailed study plan.

In the meantime, Montigny’s latest efforts will require the Commonwealth to identify and consider offshore wind effects on commercial fisheries prior to any procurement beyond 1,600 megawatts. It further stipulates that any plan to increase procurement must also identify measures to mitigate fisheries impacts. Montigny filed the amendment, entitled Offshore Wind Effects on Commercial Fishing, to the omnibus energy bill S2545. Working with Senator Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester), Montigny secured the amendment with the support of the bill’s sponsor, Senator Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton) and bipartisan coalition of Senators.

“Offshore wind presents significant economic opportunities for New Bedford and the Commonwealth,” said Senator Montigny, key Senate supporter of the 2016 offshore wind legislation. “However, we must be certain that fishermen who have relied on our oceans for generations to earn a living are heard and that their concerns are seriously and adequately addressed. This decades-old billion dollar industry provides serious job creation and economic output that we must not forget. I look forward to these two industries thriving together along our unique working waterfront in the years to come.”

Read the full release at WBSM

NEW BEDFORD STANDARD-TIMES: Finding new ways to bolster New Bedford’s fishermen

June 15, 2018 — We’re encouraged by recent efforts to boost the local fishing industry. And we’re excited about bigger developments on the way this summer.

Last week, restaurateurs from around New England gathered with aquaculture experts at Johnson and Wales University in Providence. The purpose: to exchange ideas on sustainability in America’s seafood industry.

Derek Wagner, chef and owner at Nick’s on Broadway in Providence, told attendees that he once struggled to get his hands on locally caught seafood — until about 10 years ago.

Frustrated by the lack of information about where his restaurant’s salmon originated, he met with two fishermen out of Point Judith, Rhode Island. Instead of telling them what he wanted for his menu, he asked the fishermen what they wanted to sell: ″What is abundant? What are you having a hard time selling? What do you think people should be eating?”

Wagner pledged to take whatever the local fishermen could provide and “make it delicious.” Now he said he consults with local fishermen whenever he creates a new menu.

Another chef, Bun Lai from Connecticut, told of how he began making sushi with the Asian shore crab — an invasive species found in great abundance along the New England coastline. “They’re absolutely delicious,” he said.

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