January 11, 2023 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Tuesday announced a series of meetings to get feedback on offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine.
Maine lobster fishermen must report more about their catch
January 11, 2023 — Fishermen in Maine, the state responsible for about 80% of the nation’s lobster haul in 2021, must now report more detailed information such as when, where and how many they catch.
Few had to report until this year, making Maine the only state that harvests lobster that didn’t require full details, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Read the full article at the Associated Press
MAINE: As Maine’s climate continues to change, so does its growing scallop farming industry
January 10, 2023 — When you work on the water in Maine, the cold months make for hit-or-miss days.
For Andrew Peters and his three-person crew, undocking from Buck’s Harbor Marina in Brooksville to tend to their scallops is a year-round venture.
It takes about 45 minutes by boat to get to the scallop farm. Along the way, Peters’ crew counts and cleans small scallops. The ones he was monitoring in in December were about an inch or so and needed another two years to grow to market size.
“All my life I wanted to work on the water and make a living working on the water, and when I was younger, I wanted to be a lobsterman,” Peters said while steering the boat through islets on Penobscot Bay.
Peters, who grew up in New York, said he lived near Portland and worked as a sternman on a lobster boat. He wanted to be a captain himself.
“I’ve been on a waitlist for eight years, and within the last 10 years I’ve realized there are other ways to make a living on the water and one day is to scallop farm,” Peters said.
But when you eat a scallop from Maine, chances are you are eating a wild caught scallop. The harvest of wild scallops happens normally in winter. Scallops also take a long time to grow, sometimes two to three years to reach a marketable size.
Fishermen facing climate change: crab crashes and wind power threats
January 9, 2023 — Five thousand miles apart on their own oceans, New England trawlers and Alaska crabbers say they are up against twin threats from climate change: warming waters changing the marine environment, and hasty, risk-filled decisions in response from U.S. policy makers.
“I’m not sure which is going to get me first, climate change or the solution to it,” said Chris Brown, a Point Judith, R.I., captain, president of the Seafood Harvesters of America and a 2022 National Fisherman Highliner.
Brown expressed a general consensus among panelists during a Jan. 5 online webinar hosted by Fishery Friendly Climate Action, an initiative campaign that is organizing fishermen and industry groups to “advocate for robust climate solutions that work for U.S. fisheries and not at their expense,” as coordinator Sarah Schumann says.
“These issues are moving so fast,” said Schumann. “We as an industry have to improve our game.”
A series of winter webinars organized by Schumann aims to bring in fishermen from all U.S. regions to work together on climate issues. The collapse of Alaska’s Bering Sea snow and king crab fisheries – a potential $500 million loss to the industry and dependent communities – has snapped the issue into sharp focus.
MAINE: And now the work begins
January 9, 2023 — President Joe Biden on December 29 signed into law the $1.7 trillion spending bill that delays new whale rules for six years and allocates about $55 million to develop ropeless fishing gear. That money will also pay for research to figure out where, when and if the endangered Atlantic right whale is in the Gulf of Maine.
The delay comes as a big relief to Maine fishermen. They had been anticipating new rules aimed at reducing the risk to the right whale by 98 percent. Many predicted the end of lobster fishing in Maine, the loss of businesses that depend on the fishery, and the transformation of coastal Maine into a touristy collection of condos and marinas. Some Maine lobstermen have already left fishing.
Once the bill became law, the clock started ticking for lobster fishing groups, Maine’s Department of Marine Resources and congressional delegation staff. They have 180 days to come up with a plan to use real-time whale sightings to trigger temporary protections for the animals, also known as dynamic area management, according to Ginny Olsen, political liaison for the Maine Lobstering Union.
“If there’s a sighting of a whale, [the fishery] will be closed,” Olsen said.
MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts Energy Efficient Fisheries gets $2 million for emissions reduction
January 6, 2023 –A new program to plan low- and zero-emissions energy technology for the Massachusetts fishing industry is getting nearly $2 million as part of the recently passed federal Omnibus Appropriations Act for 2023.
Called Energy Efficient Fisheries (EEF), the project aims to “ensure that fishing vessels and fish plants of all sizes in every port in Massachusetts are able to become a part of the energy revolution, using tools and approaches scaled for their businesses,” backers said in an announcement this week.
“Cape Cod Bay is warming at an alarming rate, and so the pace of our investment in innovative technologies and in our historic fishing industry has to keep up,” said U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) who with Sen. Elizabeth Warren got $1.991 million in funding for the program.
“Thanks to the leadership of Senator Markey and Senator Warren, the Massachusetts fishing industry will be part of the energy revolution,” said Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Development Program, which has a lead role in organizing the project, in partnership with other industry and clean-energy groups.
“Our fishermen have known for decades that climate change is a threat, and we’re stepping up to do our part,” said Sanfilippo. “Together, we will find opportunities to save on the fuel bill, reduce emissions, and deliver on the promises of efficiency and a lower carbon footprint that have benefited many other business sectors here already. We’re a diverse industry, and we’re going to find diverse energy efficiency solutions together with everyone in this amazing
Panel: Fishing plan can rebuild long lost cod stock by 2033
January 5, 2022 — Federal ocean regulators say a new fishing plan has a chance to rebuild the New England cod stock, which is a goal even many commercial fishermen have long regarded as far fetched.
Atlantic cod were once a cornerstone of the New England economy, but the catch has plummeted after years of overfishing, environmental changes and restrictive quotas. Most of the cod sold in the U.S. comes from overseas because many American fishermen avoid the fish-and-chips staple altogether.
But the regulatory New England Fishery Management Council has approved a new strategy that it said has a 70% chance of rebuilding the stock by 2033. The proposal, which is awaiting final approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, would use 10 years of low catch limits to try to rebuild the cod population in the Gulf of Maine.
The council said in a statement that the new plan will lower the fishing mortality rate for the fish over the next decade to “offer more protection for Gulf of Maine cod and give the stock a better chance of rebuilding.” But some fishermen are unconvinced cod are ever coming back.
Read the full article at the Associated Press
MAINE: DMR scientist to address climate change challenges in nearshore waters
January 5, 2022 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources’ (DMR) Public Health Bureau has hired Meredith White, Ph.D., to lead a department program that supports coastal municipalities and harvesters as they confront climate change in Maine’s nearshore waters.
White’s hiring coincides with a recent name change that more accurately reflects the work of what was previously called the Shellfish Management Program and is now called the Nearshore Marine Resources Program.
“This program has evolved over time to include far more than just the management of softshell clams,” said DMR Public Health Bureau Director Kohl Kanwit. “Scientists in this program manage all species of clams, oysters, and mussels as well as other important species including seaweed, marine worms, periwinkles, and whelks. The change in name better encompasses all the existing responsibilities of this program.”
“This new senior scientist position and two supporting scientist positions were created by the administration and legislature to address new and dynamic challenges confronting municipalities and harvesters caused by climate change,” said Kanwit.
US Ignored Own Scientists’ Warning in Backing Atlantic Wind Farm
December 30, 2022 — US government scientists warned federal regulators the South Fork offshore wind farm near the Rhode Island coast threatened the Southern New England Cod, a species so ingrained in regional lore that a wooden carving of it hangs in the Massachusetts state house.
The Interior Department approved the project anyway.
The warnings were delivered in unpublished correspondence weeks before Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management authorized the 12-turbine South Fork plan in November 2021. And they serve to underscore the potential ecological consequences and environmental tradeoff of a coming offshore wind boom along the US East Coast. President Joe Biden wants the US to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by the end of the decade.
Concerns about South Fork, the 132-megawatt project being developed by Orsted AS and Eversource Energy, focused on its overlap with Cox Ledge, a major spawning ground for cod and “sensitive ecological area that provides valuable habitat for a number of federally managed fish species,” a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration assistant regional administrator said in an October 2021 letter to Interior Department officials. Based on in-house expertise and peer-reviewed science, the agency said “this project has a high risk of population-level impacts on Southern New England Atlantic cod.”
The Interior Department took some steps to blunt impacts on Atlantic cod, including by carving out some areas of Cox Ledge from leasing. Developers, who are required to monitor cod activity at the site from November through the end of March, plan to adjust work plans to avoid any spotted spawning areas. And the final South Fork plan was scaled down from 15 turbines to 12 after warnings from NOAA.
Still, the oceanic agency faulted the Interior Department for shrugging off other recommendations to protect cod, saying the bureau had based some decisions on flawed assumptions not supported by science. That includes a decision to not block pile driving at the very start of the spawning season in November, even though NOAA said the noise could deter the activity and force some cod to abandon the area.
US lawmakers pursuing national compensation plan for offshore wind impacts
December 23, 2022 — Two federal lawmakers from the U.S. state of Massachusetts have announced an effort to create a national policy that ensures fishermen are compensated for the impact offshore wind developments will have on their livelihoods.
U.S. Senator Ed Markey and U.S. Representative Seth Moulton, both Democrats, said Thursday, 22 December, they’re working on a discussion draft of legislation that would ensure just compensation for fishermen, with funding distributed based on wind farm projects in their regions. In doing this, they plan to bring together officials from NOAA, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and stakeholders from involved industries and academia to determine the best process to determine and distribute funding.
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