Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Cape May keeps drawbridge open for fishing traffic

August 20, 2024 — A“total failure” of a drive shaft motor led Cape May N.J. officials to leave the Middle Thorofare drawbridge locked open, ensuring continued vessel access to the nation’s 6th-most valuable fishing port.

The bridge in Lower Township carries a two-lane road between Cape May and Wildwood Crest over the Intracoastal Waterway. At 10 a.m. Saturday Aug. 18 the motor used to open the bridge failed, according to a summary from the Cape May Bridge Commission.

 “The bridge electrical engineers performed many tests, concluding that the motor was inoperable and irreparable,” according to the agency. “The Bridge Commission is currently reviewing all options available both nationally and globally to source this highly specialized motor with the goal of replacement as soon as possible, with the best-case scenario is it taking many weeks.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: Temporary repair planned for damaged bridge between Wildwood Crest and Cape May

August 20, 2024 — The Cape May County Bridge Commission is working on a temporary solution to reopen the Middle Thorofare Bridge that connects Cape May to Wildwood Crest and Diamond Beach, possibly enabling traffic to return in the coming weeks. A motor failure on Saturday caused the drawbridge to be stuck in an upright position, resulting in an indefinite closure with significant disruptions.

The county’s interim plan will be to install an auxiliary motor to make the bridge operational in the short term while a specialized replacement for the primary motor is custom built.

The bridge commission’s executive director, Kevin Lare, said Tuesday the auxiliary motor could be installed within a week, at the soonest, but could take as long as a month.

Read the full article at PhillyVoice

NEW JERSEY: Bridge between Wildwood Crest and Cape May closed due to motor failure, could take weeks to repair

August 19, 2024 — The Middle Thorofare Bridge/Two Mile Bridge, which connects Wildwood Crest and Diamond Beach to Cape May, New Jersey, will be closed for the foreseeable future.

Wildwood Crest Mayor Don Cabrera posted on Facebook around 6:15 a.m. Sunday the bridge was closed to vehicles, bikes and pedestrians due to a “motor failure that could not be repaired.”

In a statement released Sunday afternoon, the Cape May Bridge Commission said the bridge experienced a “total failure of the drive shaft motor that was used to open the bridge on demand” at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 17. Tests determined “the motor was inoperable and irreparable,” the commission said.

The mayor said Sunday that there’s no timeline for when the bridge will reopen and that it could be closed for “an extended period of time.” On social media, the Cape May County Sheriff’s Office said “major mechanical repairs” were needed to fix the issue.

The Cape May Bridge Commission echoed the severity of the issue, saying the goal of replacing the motor could take “many weeks.”

Because the motor is a customized part made specifically for the bridge, they can’t easily replace it. They have to build a whole new one, which will take months.

Read the full article at CBS News

NEW JERSEY: Van Drew blasts NJ offshore wind at Brigantine hearing: ‘They’re not dependable’

August 15, 2024 — Two congressmen gathered with experts critical of offshore wind development Tuesday in Brigantine, where they blasted a plan to build power turbines miles off the Jersey Shore.

Inside the auditorium at the Brigantine Community School, Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who represents southern New Jersey in Congress, and Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, held a hearing targeting offshore wind before a crowd of roughly 100 attendees.

“It’s not just people who live at the Shore (who will be affected), it’s wherever you live,” Van Drew said during the hearing. “These things cost a fortune, and they’re not dependable, and they break down a lot.”

Critics of offshore wind have noted the recent failure of a turbine at Vineyard Wind off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The turbine’s broken blade resulted in fiberglass debris spread across beaches there in July.

“For years, the offshore wind companies … have told us that offshore wind is safe, clean, great for fighting global warming, no threat to the environment, and will cut our electric bills,” said Amy DiSibio, who sits on the board of directors for ACK for Whales, an anti-offshore wind organization based in Nantucket. “None of this is true, as we have painfully seen over the past month in Nantucket.”

Read the full article at Yahoo News!

NEW JERSEY: Van Drew uses forum to slam NJ offshore wind projects

August 14, 2024 — With no letting up in his criticism, U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Atlantic) on Tuesday hosted his third public forum so far on the expansion of offshore wind off the Jersey Shore. He was joined by local officials, experts and community members to discuss the broader impacts of offshore wind energy, including costs and the wider effects on the state’s coastal environments.

Van Drew has long contended that the plans to build over 100 giant wind turbines off the coast will have a devastating effect on the environment and the economy.

“This is not the five windmills that you see coming into AC,” he said. “We are talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of wind turbines over 1,000 feet tall that have substances that can leach into our oceans. We are going to decimate our fishing industry which is the third largest industry in the state, but these people don’t care.”

Community members at the Brigantine event on Tuesday also voiced concern about noise and environmental impacts from wind turbines, and others said the costs will fall on taxpayers.

“They are going to cost you a lot of money,” said Van Drew. “Not a little bit, but multiple times. . . Your utility bills are going to go way up. I don’t know about you, but the people I know have a hard time paying their current utility bills before paying all the things they need to.”

Read the full article at the NJ Spotlight

What is “upwelling,” and why is it making Atlantic Ocean temperatures in New Jersey colder?

August 7, 2024 — Families heading to the Jersey Shore this week are facing unusually cold ocean temperatures.

Professor Anna Pfeiffer-Herbert, who chairs Stockton University’s Marine Science Program, said in the past week, the water temperature has plummeted from the low-to-mid-70s to the low-to-mid-50s around Atlantic City and shore towns to the south. She added those temperatures are “unusually cold for this time of late July, early August.”

This weather phenomenon is known as “upwelling,” which, Pfeiffer-Herbert explained, is caused specifically by winds from the south pushing water away from the shore.

Read the full article at CBS News

NEW JERSEY: Whales recorded in large numbers off New Jersey coast

July 30, 2024 — Whales are gathering in large numbers off New Jersey in a portion of the Atlantic Ocean called the New York Bight, according to several sources.

Viking Yacht Company of New Gretna, Burlington County, posted to Facebook that a large group of North Atlantic right whales, an endangered species with only about 360 individuals left, was congregating in the New York Bight between the Hudson Canyon off Sandy Hook and Block Canyon off Montauk, New York.

The New York Bight is a triangular area of ocean that stretches between the Jersey Shore and Long Island.

“NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has used planes to identify the whales — present due to large amounts of food,” Viking Yacht staff wrote on Facebook. “We’re advising boaters to be vigilant. If whale(s) are seen, provide a wide berth.”

Read the full article at Asbury Park Press

NJ is facing a potential lawsuit over alleged failure to protect endangered fish

July 26, 2024 — The state of New Jersey is facing a lawsuit for allegedly failing to protect the endangered Atlantic sturgeon, according to the Delaware and Hudson Riverkeeper Network.

New Jersey, as well as New York and Delaware, are being accused of failing to obtain incidental take permits when operating within the habitat of the Atlantic sturgeon species, according to the lawsuit, that has yet to be officially filed. These permits will ensure commercial fisheries operate within Endangered Species Act and federal law, said Maya van Rossum, the leader of the Delaware River Network.

The suit claims the three states have allowed fisheries to kill the Atlantic sturgeon through bycatch, the act of catching and discarding of species that fishers may catch, but do not want, cannot sell or are not allowed to keep.

The lawsuit claims the states are violating the Endangered Species Act by not requiring and approving the permits.

The Riverkeeper Networks say a permit would avoid the illegal taking of the fish and would establish the tracking of the number of the fish killed in an area.

Read the full article at NorthJersey.com

NEW JERSEY: Jersey Shore is seeing a rapid rise in ocean temps.

July 23, 2024 — The legendary Fish Alley in Sea Isle is humming on a sticky afternoon as Eric Burcaw Sr. navigates Townsends Inlet and drifts the “Heather Nicole” slowly into port. The 35-foot vessel is laden with a colossal catch of black sea bass not seen a generation ago.

As soon as Burcaw’s ship hits the dock, the crew gets to work — stapling together cardboard boxes, pouring caches of ice, plopping fish onto scales. The smell of steamed mussels wafts over from the Oar House Pub as a noisy, floating tiki bar glides past. But Burcaw, who has owned his own boat since he was a teen, is all business.

After today’s trip, he will process 3,700 pounds of black sea bass. The fish will be shipped off for tabletops from Baltimore to Manhattan.

“This time of the year the black sea bass are running very heavily,” says Burcaw, closing out a grueling day that began at 4 a.m. Burcaw is one of many New Jersey fishermen reaping a bounty precipitated by a rapid rise in sea temperatures. The Atlantic Ocean in the northeast has warmed by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 15 years — much faster than the global average, said Malin Pinsky, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University.

Read the full article at NJ.com