Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: CLT Marine proposal of ‘Boat people doing boat stuff’ on New Bedford State Pier

July 22, 2024 — Ed Anthes-Washburn is very familiar with the Port of New Bedford.

His background includes 11 years with the New Bedford Port Authority, the last six as port director.

Today, he’s the managing director of Coast Line Transfers, or CLT Marine, which is one of the seven firms seeking to become part of the New Bedford State Pier’s redevelopment.

CLT is a commercial marine service provider to the expanding offshore wind industry, as well as the marine industry in the Northeast.

Their focus is on crew-transfer vessels, as well as offshore supply vessels, and they provide support to marine services in southern New England.

Proposing use of existing Buildings 1 and 2

In simple terms, Anthes-Washburn said during a presentation hosted by MassDevelopment in May, “We’re boat people who want to do boat stuff on the east face” of State Pier.

MassDevelopment, the state’s development finance agency and land bank, manages the state-owned, 8-acre pier.

A MassDevelopment review committee is evaluating the proposals.

The seven proposals before the committee could be approved together, separately or denied altogether. A decision deadline has not been announced.

Read the full article at South Coast Today

MASSACHUSETTS: Inside look at the plans for State Pier

July 16, 2024 — A marine industrial hub. A “boat-to-table” restaurant. A public fish auction hosting culinary seafood experiences.

These are just a few of the proposals submitted in May to MassDevelopment to redevelop a central but “underutilized” strip of New Bedford’s waterfront: the State Pier. After many false starts and a bitter power struggle between state and city politicians, each side has expressed relief that the long-awaited overhaul is moving forward.

“I want to salute the business community for mobilizing to shake up the static condition of that pier,” Mayor Jon Mitchell said, speaking in May at a gathering for businesses to present their development proposals to MassDevelopment, state legislators and the public. “You have the city and the port authority’s full support on this.”

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: The Codfather’s 2nd act: ‘I’m the bank now’

July 10, 2024 — Carlos Rafael made an offer the bank couldn’t refuse.

It was February 2021, and Rafael, the infamous New Bedford fishing mogul known as “the Codfather,” was serving out the final stretch of an almost four-year prison sentence. He and his two daughters placed a $770,000 bid to acquire the Merchants National Bank building in downtown New Bedford.

The historic sandstone building with tall, arched windows and an ornate ceiling no longer functions as a commercial bank. It’s vacant, and there is no money locked behind its heavy, iron vaults. But for the 71-year-old Rafael — flush with more than $70 million in cash from the court-mandated sale of his fleet and barred from ever again involving himself in the commercial fishing industry — acquiring the bank set the stage for a second act.

Three years after his release from prison, Rafael, still banned from owning fishing vessels, has embarked on a different business venture: a multimillion-dollar real estate financing operation sprawling across New Bedford and its suburbs.

“I’m the bank now,” Rafael said in a recent interview, leaning back in his dark leather office chair in his South End industrial warehouse. The wall behind him was adorned with paintings of Catholic saints, multiple sketches of Tony Montana (Al Pacino’s gangster protagonist in “Scarface”) and a sea-green miniature replica of one of the three-dozen fishing vessels once part of his fabled fleet.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: New England Wind bid now has federal approval. What could that mean for New Bedford?

July 8, 2024 — Avangrid, Inc. — one of the entities connected to the offshore wind farm project known as Vineyard Wind 1 — announced this week that its Construction and Operations Plan, or COP, for the New England Wind 1 and 2 offshore projects now has “full federal approval.” If one or both are selected to move forward, Avangrid has plans to bring an industry-first to New Bedford, according to the company.

In its announcement, Avangrid, Inc. called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval “a critical milestone” that “largely completes the federal, state, and local permitting process for Avangrid’s 791 Megawatt New England Wind 1 project.” New England Wind 2 is contingent upon a version of the plans in which New England Wind 1 also moves forward. Another version accounts for New England Wind 1 moving forward alone. Decisions on proposals for the next round of wind projects involving Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut should be made by state officials sometime in August, according to Avangrid’s release.

“New England Wind 1 is the only project in the solicitation that has all federal, state, and local permits; the ability to start construction in 2025; and deliver power by 2029,” the release reads.

Read the full article at The Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Mayor Jon Mitchell responds to work being halted on Northern Edge scalloping grounds

July 3, 2024 — The New England Fishery Management Council has decided to halt work on opening the Northern Edge scalloping grounds to commercial fishermen.

Back in April, Mayor Jon Mitchell before the board in Mystic, Conn. and said that making these areas available would benefit the industry greatly, to create a “key new source of scallops.”

“While there are multiple species that are harvested by New Bedford fishing vessels, scallops are the prime drivers of economic activity within the Port of New Bedford,” he said.

“The fishermen of New Bedford know this, and they take great care in maintaining the resource and recognize the strategic long-term importance of managing the biomass,” he continued.

Read the full article at ABC 6

MASSACHUSETTS: Statement from New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell on NEFMC decision on Northern Edge

July 3, 2024 — The following statement was released by New Bedford, Massachusetts Mayor Jon Mitchell:

“I am disappointed by the New England Fishery Management Council’s decision last week after scant public notice to reverse itself and halt further discussion of the opening of the Northern Edge scallop access area. The decision comes less than three months after the Council voted to advance the opening of the Northern Edge, which was grounded in more than a decade of research showing that scallops are abundant in the area. Halting work on the Northern Edge so abruptly is an affront to scallop fishermen who were given every reason to believe that the council was working toward a fair, long-term solution.”

Police seize 3,000 pounds of illegal haddock in New Bedford

June 26, 2024 — Massachusetts Environmental Police (MEP) seized more than 3,000 pounds of illegally harvested haddock from a New Bedford processing plant on Thursday in the first commercial-scale bust of the groundfish season, MEP officials said.

Acting Col. Patrick Moran said he was carrying out a routine foot patrol inspecting processing plants on the New Bedford waterfront when he discovered what appeared to be undersized fish in an assembly line ready to be filleted. He ordered the processing plant to temporarily cease operations as he measured the fish, determining about 3,000 of the 11,000 total pounds of haddock were under the legal limit of 16 inches.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford State Pier proposal makes fishing a destination attraction. What to know.

June 25, 2024 — One of the seven proposals for New Bedford’s State Pier is really a two-fer.

It’s a joint proposal from Buyers and Sellers Exchange seafood and New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.

They say their $15 million proposal will promote economic growth and education, wrapped up in a destination-style attraction.

BASE, the seafood auction house founded in New Bedford in 1994, would off-load the incoming catch at the Pier, and then hold its daily seafood auctions before the scallops and fish are sent on their way to myriad outlets.

All in view of the visiting public.

Read the full article at the Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: For Bendiksen family, ‘Sea Stories’ are stories of their lives

May 30, 2024 — In the Bendiksen family kitchen, framed photos of the fishing boats they have owned hang on the wall. For Captain Reidar Bendiksen and his wife, Kirsten, these boats are like family members.

The most cherished memories of the Bendiksens’ lives — the day they first met, the births of their children — are deeply intertwined with the fishing industry.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford’s fishing heritage is online, thanks to this archivist and ‘history detective’

May 29, 2024 — Retired engineer John Ryan spent hours and hours at the hurricane barrier taking thousands of photographs of fishing vessels going in and out of New Bedford Harbor.

When his family found thousands of slides and photographs among his things after his death, they didn’t know what to do with them. When co-curator Phil Mello learned of this, he suggested the family take them to the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.

When archivist Connor Gaudet started his position at the Fishing Heritage Center, his priority was to get Ryan’s photograph collection in its new online database

Read the full article at the Standard-Times