Saving Seafood

Top U.S. ports for a quarter century

November 21, 2024 — For the 25th consecutive year, Dutch Harbor, AK, and New Bedford, MA, ranked as the top U.S. fishing ports for volume and value in 2022.

Nationwide, commercial landings that year were 8.4 billion pounds valued at $5.9 billion, down by 2.6 percent and 11 percent ($632 million), respectively.

Those are two of the top takeaways from the annual Fisheries of the United States report released this month by NOAA Fisheries. The data show a downward press almost across the board from Covid-driven impacts as the global pandemic waned in 2022.

The easy-to-read, 23-page report provides a national snapshot of U.S. commercial fisheries, aquaculture, seafood processing, imports and exports, market trends, and per capita consumption.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS: Cuban-born net maker shares his journey from Havana to New Bedford’s working waterfront

November 15, 2024 — When he had his chance, Cuban-born net maker Miguel Sanchez escaped his home country, jumping from a Cuban fishing boat aboard a ship heading to Canada.

The young law student escaped to start a new life, far away from Cuba and its oppressive dictatorship, the only member of his family to escape.

Sanchez left Havana abruptly on March 24, 1996, before heading to Canada, arriving in Nova Scotia on April 15, 1996.

A year ago, after spending more than 20 years in Nova Scotia, he got a call to work at Reidar’s Manufacturing on the New Bedford waterfront. His skills as a net maker were in demand.

Read the full article at the The Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford oral history exhibit tells the stories of immigrants in the fishing industry

November 11, 2024 — “Casting A Wider Net,” a new exhibit exploring the stories of Cape Verdean, Vietnamese, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Guatemalan and Salvadoran members of New Bedford’s working waterfront in their own words, will soon open to the public.

The exhibit opens Thursday, Nov. 14, at 6 p.m. on AHA! Night at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center at 38 Bethel St. The exhibit will remain on display through May 31, then travel to locations throughout the community.

Anyone interested in learning more about this project is encouraged to explore the exhibit and meet with the program participants from 6 to 8 p.m.

All of the community ethnographers are expected to be on hand to answer questions along with some of the people who shared their stories through the interview process.

Read the full article at The Standard-Times

Fishermen celebrate Trump: ‘Government has crucified this industry’

November 8, 2024 — Fishermen on the New Bedford waterfront met the news of a second Trump term with vengeful enthusiasm on Wednesday morning. There was hope that the president-elect would scale back regulation, stop offshore wind development and open new fishing grounds — breaking the slump of declining revenues and ushering in a period of relative prosperity for the industry.

Donald Trump gained significant support throughout the South Coast in the 2024 election, narrowing the margin of his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden in the region. Trump didn’t win New Bedford, where Vice President Kamala Harris held a margin of 2,688 votes. But the city’s fishermen have dug in with their support for President-elect Trump.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishermen, fleet owners hope Trump helps their industry

November 6, 2024 — New Bedford fishermen fly many flags. There is the American flag; the skull and crossbones flag. There are flags expressing resistance to offshore wind development. And there are many — many — flags for former President Donald Trump.

But one flag is rarely hoisted on the New Bedford waterfront.

“I have yet to see a Harris-Walz flag on a fishing vessel,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney representing the industry’s Sustainable Scalloping Fund.

The South Coast already has the densest concentration of Trump supporters in an otherwise deep blue state. But if a pollster were to survey a specific two-mile stretch of paved riverbank — the Port of New Bedford — they would find an especially vivid shade of red. Among New Bedford fishermen and fleet owners interviewed by The Light, there are three types of voters: those who strongly favor Trump; those who are skeptical but reluctantly favor Trump; and those who didn’t want to share their opinion.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Port of New Bedford cites ‘grave concern’ about new offshore wind area

October 25, 2024 — The city’s Port Authority published a letter to offshore wind regulators Wednesday, raising “grave concerns” over a 13.4 million acre tract of ocean recently opened to wind farm developers in the Central Atlantic that could put up to $2 billion in commercial fishing revenue at risk.

“BOEM has painted with too broad a brush,” New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell wrote in the letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). “We believe that the new Mid-Atlantic call areas must be cut back from existing scallop and other fishery access areas, which still would leave ample room for nearby states to achieve their offshore wind capacity goals.”

In August, BOEM began soliciting proposals for offshore wind developers to lease 13.4 million acres of ocean off New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. It is the second of such sales in the Central Atlantic and the fifth offshore wind lease sale held during the Biden-Harris administration. The first lease sale in the Central Atlantic was completed also in August, yielding nearly $93 million from developers Equinor Wind US and Virginia Electric and Power Company.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: Is New Bedford the top commercial fishing port in the United States?

October 15, 2024 — New Bedford takes great pride in its port, and its scallopers account for a significant portion of its value.

It’s proven that the Port of New Bedford has great value.

New Bedford still ranks as the top commercial fishing port by value as recently as 2022, according to figures released by the National Marine Fisheries Service, Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, known as NOAA Fisheries.

New Bedford had landed $443.2 million worth of seafood in 2022, again placing it at the top of NOAA Fisheries’ revenue list.

That’s thanks in large part to all the scalloper landings in New Bedford contributing to the port’s value. Scallop landings accounted for 84 percent of the value.

Read the full article at the Standard-Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford opens expanded North Terminal, years in the making, to support port industries

October 10, 2024 — New Bedford celebrated the opening of the North Terminal expansion Tuesday on the city’s waterfront.

The expansion is one of the main elements of a decade-long redevelopment plan for the Port of New Bedford, and it aims to serve multiple industries, including commercial fishing and offshore wind.

The project added about 5.5 acres to the terminal and 660 feet of new bulkhead along the water. The bulkhead is now 965 feet long.

Federal, state, and local officials gathered at the terminal for a ribbon cutting.

Gordon Carr, executive director of the New Bedford Port Authority, said the expanded terminal will strengthen the port’s competitiveness.

Read the full article at CAI

MASSACHUSETTS: $42M New Bedford waterfront port project could attract commercial fishing, offshore wind

October 10, 2024 — There’s a maritime version of the old Mark Twain adage to buy land because they’re not making any more of it.

New Bedford Port Authority Executive Director Gordon Carr said it goes something like this: “Waterfront industrial property needs to be preserved at all costs because they’re not making any more of it.”

He added with a smile, “And while I tend to agree with that, today, welcome to New Bedford — because we did make more of it.”

The remark drew applause from the crowd gathered under a tent at 242 Herman Melville Blvd. on the New Bedford waterfront Tuesday to celebrate the completion of the North Terminal Extension Project.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times