March 16, 2021 — A proposed offshore wind farm continues to draw opposition from New Jersey’s southern coastal communities.
Ørsted’s proposed project aims to construct 99 wind turbines about 15 miles off the coast from Atlantic City to Cape May. The wind turbines are expected to produce enough energy to power half a million homes by 2024, according to Ørsted officials.
March 16, 2021 — Rich Isaksen has had no trouble catching fish during a pandemic.
Selling his catch, however, has been a disaster.
Isaksen is the president of the Belford Seafood Cooperative Association in Monmouth County, a collection of about 20 independent fishing boats. When governments around the region ordered restaurants to close in efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19, demand for fish caught by people like Isaksen evaporated. Prices at the docks plunged.
In June, the fisherman was offered just three cents per pound for red hake, a fish that normally draws 50 or 60 cents per pound. It wasn’t an isolated case.
“Last week, I think they got $1.20 (per pound) for summer flounder,” Isaksen said. “Normally, that’s like three or four dollars.”
Wholesalers, to whom Isaksen’s co-op usually sells, tried to compensate for disappearing restaurant demand by peddling more to supermarkets and grocery stores. That helped some, Isaksen said, but he still estimates his 2020 income from selling to wholesalers was slashed in half.
“The thing about the fishing industry, there’s not a lot of people buying whole fish and cleaning them,” Isaksen said. “A lot of people are going to restaurants.”
March 11, 2021 — Opposition to New Jersey’s coming surge in offshore wind farms is growing at the Jersey Shore.
The hundreds of wind turbines due to be built up to 20 miles off New Jersey in the next five years or so will spoil ocean views, undermine local economies and hurt wildlife while boosting the profits of overseas developers, critics say.
These opponents reject claims by wind farm builders and their enthusiastic supporters, including Gov. Phil Murphy, that the clusters of turbines are emissions-free. The manufacture and maintenance of the massive steel structures will require huge amounts of fossil fuel-powered energy, they argue.
They also say they fear that the tourism-dependent economies of many Shore towns will be damaged if visitors flee because they don’t want to look at an array of wind turbines on the horizon, or if the new structures disrupt marine life so much that recreational and commercial fishermen stay away.
And if fewer people want to spend time at the Shore, real estate values of coastal properties will drop, the critics predict.
“If people decide they don’t want any part of coming here, they will go elsewhere,” said Suzanne Hornick, administrator of SaveourshorelineNJ, a Facebook page that’s dedicated to opposing the industry, and has about 3,100 members.
March 10, 2021 — The state Department of Environmental Protection is seeking comments on proposed new rules regulating crab and lobster management, marine fisheries and fishery management in New Jersey. Written comments can be electronically filed until April 30 or submitted via the regular mail.
“The department is proposing to reduce the number of commercial crab pot/trot line licenses and crab dredge licenses for both the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic coast due to a reduction in the number of actively harvesting license holders,” according to the March 1 DEP bulletin on the proposed rule change.
Under the proposal, a licensee could transfer licenses to any person, based upon the number of available licenses.
March 8, 2021 — With revenues up 3 percent in January and February of 2020, the industry was looking ahead to another strong year in the global marketplace.
In March, when restaurants across the country shuttered quickly under covid-19 outbreak restrictions, seafood supply chains ground to a halt in the early days of the pandemic. Fishermen who had been out harvesting to supply the once-solid market were stuck with their catch left unsold and their boats tied up.
In early March, New Jersey fisherman Gus Lovgren was headed to port after a Virginia summer flounder trip when his wife called him, “saying they’re shutting the country down, basically,” he recalled.
“We had been getting $1.75 to $2 (per pound). In the end we got, I think, 60 cents,” said Lovgren. “The market was flooded, and there was nothing we could do.”
Right out of the gates in April 2020, the Hawaii Longline Association worked with others in Hawaii’s fishing industry to donate 2,000 pounds of fresh seafood to Hawaii Foodbank, and planning larger deliveries.
The initial donation, coordinated with the with United Fishing Agency’s Honolulu auction, the Hawaii Seafood Council, Nico’s Pier 38, and Pacific Ocean Producers, “is the beginning of a new pilot program with the Hawaii Foodbank,” the association said.
“Through the partnership, Hawaii Foodbank plans to purchase $50,000 worth of seafood landed by Hawaii longline vessels,” according to a statement from the association. “The purchase will ensure that Hawaii Foodbank will be able to meet the needs of Hawaii residents facing hardship as a result of covid-19. It will also support Hawaii’s longline fishermen.”
March 8, 2021 — With New Jersey’s commercial fishing industry about to receive a second round of federal coronavirus aid, boat owners and those who run fishing-related businesses say the extra money is helping keep them afloat amid a sea of red ink.
The state’s fishing industry received $11 million last March under the CARES Act, an early aid bill passed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
And it should get roughly the same amount under a second bill passed by Congress in December, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. said Monday. Pallone, (D-NJ) held a news conference Monday at the Belford Seafood Cooperative in Middletown with boat owners and those who run related businesses.
Many said the extra money could make the difference between working and not working this spring and summer. They declined to say how much each individually received under the measure.
“I’ve been on a boat with my family since I was 7 years old,” said Capt. Richard Isaksen, president of the fishing cooperative. “We still haven’t recovered from Superstorm Sandy that hurt us badly with eight feet of water on the dock and (which) wiped everything out.”
The 2012 storm caused widespread devastation in New Jersey, New York and other northeastern coastal states.
March 5, 2021 — The federal government is extending three protective zones off the East Coast that are designed to prevent collisions between ships and whales.
The zones are intended to protect North Atlantic right whales, which number only about 360. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the protective zones are located south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, east of Boston and southeast of Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Mariners are asked to avoid the areas altogether or transit through them at 10 knots or less. The three zones were established in late February. The Nantucket zone has been extended to March 13 and the Boston and Atlantic City zones have been extended to March 14.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times
March 3, 2021 — U.S. consumer demand for Atlantic surf clams and ocean quahogs has shifted in the past six months.
Most of the Atlantic surf clam fleet is centered around Point Pleasant Beach and Atlantic City, New Jersey; Oceanview, New York; Hyannis, Massachusetts (surf clams only); and New Bedford and Fairhaven, Massachusetts. There is also a quahog fishery in Maine.
February 26, 2021 — More than 500 acres of wetland habitat near the Jersey Shore is in line to be protected, thanks to a $1 million grant from the federal government.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would award the funds to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program to help pay for the acquisition and permanent protection of 517 acres in Atlantic and Cape May counties.
The federal agency declined to give a specific location for the tract, but said it is adjacent to the state’s Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Area.
The total cost of the project is expected to reach $1,492,000, according to the USFWS. That leaves nearly $500,000 to be matched by the state and any local conversation groups that are partnering in the effort.
The property is part of the Great Egg Harbor estuary, which includes a variety of wetland habitats, from barrier islands and back bays to mud flats and forested areas. The area is critical for the survival of various fish and shellfish, plus hundreds of species of birds, including the threatened red knot.
February 24, 2021 — About 60 miles east of New York’s Montauk Point, a 128,000-acre expanse of the Atlantic Ocean is expected to produce enough electricity to power around 850,000 homes when it’s populated with wind turbines and connected to the onshore grid in the next few years.
Fifteen miles off Atlantic City, New Jersey, another windy swath of ocean is due to start generating enough power for some 500,000 homes when a forest of 850-foot-high turbines start turning there in 2024.
And off the Virginia coast some 200 miles to the south, a utility-led offshore wind project is scheduled to produce carbon-free power equivalent to taking 1 million cars off the road when it is complete in 2026.
The fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry is finally poised to become a commercial reality off the northeast and mid-Atlantic coasts within the next five years, thanks to robust commitments to buy its power from seven coastal states, new support from the Biden administration, and billions of dollars in investment by an industry that sees a huge market for electric power in Eastern states.
New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland have together committed, through legislation or executive action, to buying about 30,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore electricity by 2035 — enough to power roughly 20 million homes, according to the American Clean Power Association (ACPA), which advocates for renewable energy. Projects totaling 11,000 MW have been awarded so far.