Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Offshore wind quietly reaches a milestone with arrival of survey ship in New Bedford

August 16, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — With no fanfare whatsoever, the offshore wind energy industry in New Bedford reached a significant milestone last weekend with the arrival of the Denmark-based Research Vessel Ocean Researcher at the Maritime Terminal in the South End. The ship represents the first offshore wind-related activity to take place at the $113 million, state-funded terminal, specifically designed to support the industry.

The arrival capped a week of good news for the offshore wind energy industry in Massachusetts, with the highlight being Gov. Charlie Baker’s signing of a law that mandates the production of at least 16 megawatts of offshore wind power in the next decade, the first law of its kind in the nation. The mandate greatly improves New Bedford’s positioning as a harbor for servicing the towers and shipping their components.

The 22-year-old RV Ocean Researcher, all 226 feet and 1,936 tons of her, tied up at the Maritime Terminal, which otherwise is vacant, the sole exception being a new scrap metal operation.

The ship had just completed a 17-day trip from Hull, England, where she is registered, said Lauren Burm, spokesman for the Danish company DONG, or Danish Oil and Natural Gas, known in the United States as Bay State Wind, Inc. She was speaking at an informal event near the ship’s temporary home at the terminal.

A statement issued by Burm quoted Mass. Clean Energy Center interim CEO Steve Pike as saying, “We welcome DONG Energy as the first — but not the last — offshore wind customer to use the terminal. As this industry emerges, it will bring economic activity like this to the City of New Bedford, the South Coast and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center seeks volunteers

August 15, 2016 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. – The Fishing Heritage Center is looking for volunteers to help with day to day operations and will launch an extensive training for those volunteers beginning in September. The Center, which opened to the public on June 25th, is dedicated to telling the story of the fishing industry past, present and future through exhibits, programs, and archives.

Beginning in September, volunteers will be invited to participate in a series of “insider” fieldtrips to learn first-hand about the fishing industry. Fieldtrips will include visits to the seafood auction, a processing plant, a gear shop, a shipyard, dockside vessel tours, and more. The training will also include lectures by fishermen, fisheries scientists, maritime authors, and other industry experts.

Volunteer opportunities include: welcoming visitors, staffing the reception area and gift shop, engaging visitors with the exhibits, assisting with educational programs, conducting research, and helping with special events.

For those with a fishing industry connection, we hope you will share your industry skills and knowledge with visitors by leading walking tours, demonstrating skills such as net mending, knot tying, or model boat making, or talking with school groups or the public about your work and life.

Volunteers are needed during Center operating hours (Thursday-Sunday 10-4) and for occasional evening programs and special events. Volunteer hours are flexible and can be scheduled according individual availability and particular areas of interest. The Center is located at 38 Bethel Street, in the heart of the National Park. The Center is wheelchair accessible and free off-street parking is provided to volunteers.

MASSACHUSETTS: OffshoreMW enlists Jim Kendall as fishing industry rep

August 15, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD — An offshore wind developer hired a longtime local fisherman as its fisheries representative Friday, and another developer’s survey boat could arrive at the Marine Commerce Terminal on Saturday, as the offshore wind industry continues to ramp up on SouthCoast after Monday’s signing of landmark energy legislation in Boston.

Erich Stephens, executive vice president of New Jersey-based wind power developer OffshoreMW, said longtime local fisherman and industry advocate Jim Kendall will be OffshoreMW’s fisheries representative. Kendall, now executive director of New Bedford Seafood Consulting, is a former scalloper with more than 50 years of experience in the industry.

“His job is to make sure we’re hearing from the fishing industry,” Stephens said.

Stephens said OffshoreMW previously hired Kendall several years ago, to provide guidance as the company looked at potential lease areas for turbine development in federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard. OffshoreMW now is one of three companies with leases in that region of ocean waters.

Kendall said the new, contract agreement was finalized Friday.

“My main concern is trying to minimize any impacts on the fishing industry, and anything that’s going to either disrupt their work or endanger them,” Kendall said.

Stephens said the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is requiring offshore wind developers to have both a fisheries representative, who speaks for the fishing industry, and a fisheries liaison, who speaks for the wind power company. Stephens said OffshoreMW’s liaison role will be filled in the short-term by Rachel Pachter, the company’s senior permitting adviser.

Monday on a State House lawn, after Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law requiring utilities to purchase contracts for at least 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind power between 2017 and 2027, Stephens said OffshoreMW would begin survey work Sept. 1.

He expanded on that Friday, saying a geophysical survey could take three to four weeks, and potentially be followed by a two- to three-week geotechnical survey. The surveys will be conducted by a boat that works out of New Bedford, Stephens said.

A survey boat for Denmark-based DONG Energy, known locally as Bay State Wind, is expected to arrive even sooner — Saturday, potentially, at the Marine Commerce Terminal in the city’s South End.

That boat, the RV Ocean Researcher, will be the first offshore wind-related vessel to arrive at the $113 million, state-funded terminal, designed to be a staging area for the offshore wind industry that now is becoming a reality.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: UMass Dartmouth, Iceland sign partnership to maintain fishery

August 9, 2016 — DARTMOUTH, Mass. — UMass Dartmouth has established a new partnership with the Republic of Iceland intended to advance marine science and marine-related biotech research and commercialization, the university announced Monday.

Representatives of Iceland visited SouthCoast in 2015 to display and demonstrate some of the products Iceland is making utilizing the parts of fish that might typically be discarded in New England.

The result is 95 percent utilization of cod, said the announcement. Cod are abundant in Icelandic and Norwegian waters.

According to Dr. Brian Rothschild, dean emeritus of the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), the products being manufactured can be something as familiar as cod fish oil to leather pocketbooks made with fish skin.

He said the method is similar to the old expression about Russia, “that they used to process everything in the pig except the squeal.”

Utilization of fish waste in New Bedford to make fish meal was curtailed decades ago after complaints about odor; Rothschild said today’s technology almost eliminates that.

UMass Dartmouth spokesman John Hoey said that the collaborations with Iceland, including faculty and student exchanges, will be mainly with the College of Engineering, concentrating on biofuels for example, and SMAST, the School for Marine Science and Technology, which is more oriented toward fisheries management and surveys.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: FISHING HERITAGE CENTER OFFERS FREE ADMISSION THROUGH AUGUST 31

August 5, 2016 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

New Bedford, Mass.— The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is pleased to announce free admission for the remainder of the month of August.

The Center’s inaugural exhibit From Boat to Table presents all aspects of the industry from the time a keel is laid on a vessel to the time the catch is landed and brought to market. A variety of interactive components include a net mending activity, dress up area, and Eastern Rig style pilothouse designed and built by Fairhaven Shipyard with electronics provided by Furuno USA.  The Center worked with Chris Danemayer and Neal Mayer of Proun Design to take the exhibit from concept to fabrication. A team of volunteer carpenters have assembled many of the exhibit components.

Additional displays include a list of over 300 waterfront nicknames compiled by industry veterans Paul Swain and Jim Dwyer over the past 50 years; a knot tying activity station created by Paul Vieira; and photographs of vessels taken by the late John “Choo Choo” Ryan.

The Center’s gift shop is stocked with books by local authors, maritime music CD’s, nautical jewelry, and unique crafts, many created by fishermen and others in the industry.

The Fishing Heritage Center is located at 38 Bethel Street, in the heart of the City’s historic district, and is open Thursday through Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and from 5:00-9:00 p.m. on AHA nights (the second Thursday of each month). Free off street parking is available in the lot adjacent to the Center.  The facility is wheelchair accessible.

Connecticut Lawmakers, Proposed Atlantic Monument Met With Opposition From Commercial Fishermen

August 5, 2016 — The following is excerpted from a story published yesterday by the Hartford Courant:

A plan announced Thursday that would designate a unique undersea area 150 miles off the New England coast as the nation’s first Atlantic marine national monument was met with immediate opposition from commercial fishermen.

Connecticut’s congressional delegation, as well as environmental and educational groups, want President Barack Obama to preserve the “New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts” area, which lies along the continental shelf.

The proposal would dramatically restrict commercial fishing in that area and is drawing fierce opposition from commercial fisherman like Stonington’s Bobby Guzzo, who owns and operates two boats.

“That’s just the government trying to take all our water,” Guzzo said Thursday from aboard his fishing vessel. “I’m dead set against it.”

Joseph Gilbert’s Empire Fisheries operates four fishing boats out of Stonington, and he also has problems with the proposed undersea sanctuary. “Fishermen are conservationists, too,” Gilbert said, explaining that he believes the proposal “is well intentioned” but simply “goes too far” without considering the impact on commercial fishing operations and supplies of fish for consumers.

“A lot of these areas are protected already,” Gilbert said.

Commercial fishing groups such as the National Coalition for Fishing Communities argue that there already exist federal laws and regulatory commissions that are set up to protect valuable marine resources like those within the proposed marine sanctuary.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is responsible for regulating fishing in the region, is also opposed to creation of a protected marine monument off New England’s continental shelf. Commercial fishing organizations warn that the plan would hamper fishing for red crab, swordfish, tuna, as well as off-shore lobster fisheries.

Jon Mitchell, mayor of New Bedford, Mass., New England’s most important fishing port, has also objected to the proposal, as has Maine Gov. Paul LePage.

Read the full story at the Hartford Courant

SMAST wins patent on 3D counting, measuring fish on deck of a boat

July 20, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD — A newly patented 3-D photograph system developed at the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology soon may greatly add to scientists’ knowledge about ocean fish populations, the school announced Tuesday.

The device, the work of now-retired dean Dr. Brian Rothschild and graduate student Glenn Chamberlain, includes two digital cameras and a reference frame.

Using a common technique called stereo photogrammetry, the device essentially uses 3-D images to map the surface of the fish. The reference frame will permit the monitoring not only of the number of fish, but their size. The fish can be on the deck, or in a net, and the data obtained can be stored permanently, Rothschild said.

“The concept is very simple,” Rothschild said, and the parts are easily obtainable commercially; the two cameras cost about $500, he said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Project will record oral histories of the local fishing industry

July 18, 2016 –NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center has received a prestigious Archie Green Fellowship from the Library of Congress to support a year-long effort to document shore-side workers in New Bedford and Fairhaven, center officials said,

The center received support for “Workers on the New Bedford Waterfront.” Folklorist and Director Laura Orleans, working with anthropologists, Madeleine Hall-Arber and Corinn Williams, oral historian, Fred Calabretta and photographer, Phil Mello will conduct a large ethnographic field project interviewing approximately 60 shore-side workers involved in the local commercial fishing industry.

The project will focus on recording oral histories about rarely documented occupational skills, knowledge, and trades including: marine electronics and engine repair; fish processing, packing, and trucking; the design and manufacture of fishing gear; work in ice plants and on fuel barges; offloading of fish and scallops; the seafood auction, settlement houses; and shipyard work, the center said in a news release.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishing Heritage Center receives Library of Congress fellowship to document shore-side workers

July 15, 2016 — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is pleased to announce its receipt of a prestigious Archie Green Fellowship from the Library of Congress to support a year-long effort to document shore-side workers in New Bedford/Fairhaven.

Archie Green (1917-2009) was a pioneering folklorist who championed the establishment of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and who was awarded the Library’s Living Legend Award and honored in the Congressional Record [pdf].  Green documented and analyzed the culture and traditions of American workers and encouraged others to do the same. Archie Green Fellowships are designed to stimulate innovative research projects documenting occupational culture in contemporary America.  This year, Archie Green Fellowships went to four teams of researchers in four different regions of the country.

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center received support for “Workers on the New Bedford Waterfront.” Folklorist and Director Laura Orleans, working with anthropologists, Madeleine Hall-Arber and Corinn Williams, oral historian, Fred Calabretta and photographer, Phil Mello will conduct a large ethnographic field project interviewing approximately 60 shore-side workers involved in the local commercial fishing industry. The project will focus on recording oral histories about rarely documented occupational skills, knowledge, and trades including: marine electronics and engine repair; fish processing, packing, and trucking; the design and manufacture of fishing gear; work in ice plants and on fuel barges; offloading of fish and scallops; the seafood auction, settlement houses; and shipyard work.

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to telling the story of the fishing industry past, present and future through exhibits, programs, and archives. For more information, contact the Center at 508-993-8894 or info@fishingheritagecenter.org

New Bedford Port Director, Ocean Conservancy Spokesperson Talk Northeast Ocean Planning

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) – July 12, 2016 – On June 26, New Bedford, Massachusetts Port Director Ed Anthes-Washburn and Christine Hopper, Ocean Conservancy outreach specialist for coastal and marine spatial planning, appeared on WJFD-FM in New Bedford to discuss Northeast ocean planning.

In a conversation with Irene de Amaral, host of “Conversas que importam,” Anthes-Washburn and Hopper agreed that ocean planning is necessary to ensure current ocean users are consulted as new projects develop and to create a common set of data so different government agencies are working with the same information.

“The Ocean Conservancy has been great about having a big tent and bringing all the stakeholders in so that their input is heard and reflected in the decisions that happen on our oceans,” Anthes-Washburn said. “We want to make sure that all of the current uses and all of the future uses are worked out in a successful way, and I think ocean planning is a key tool to do that effectively.”

“It’s really just about bringing everyone around the table, having a good conversation, making sure that the best available data is out there, and that we’re all talking and communicating with each other so we can cumulatively make the best decisions for our ocean spaces,” Hopper said.

The Draft Northeast Ocean plan is available for public review and comment until July 25 at neoceanplanning.org.

Listen to the full discussion here