Saving Seafood

Lund’s Fisheries Supports President Trump’s Order Promoting American Seafood

May 8, 2020 — The following was released by Lund’s Fisheries:

Jeff Reichle, Chairman of Lund’s Fisheries, Inc., issued the following statement on President Trump’s “Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth”:

Lund’s Fisheries has been in business since 1954; I myself have been with the company since 1974. This is the first time in my memory that a sitting President has taken the time and initiative to recognize the hard work and value of this country’s fishing industry and its importance in feeding Americans.

Fishermen are notoriously independent people, seldom looking for help, and most often overlooked by their government. It is refreshing, to say the least, that the President has chosen to recognize our industry in this time of national crisis.

We at Lund’s Fisheries are extremely grateful to this Administration for this recognition and Executive Order. With 5 processing companies employing over 300 people in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California, we are ready to continue to meet the country’s needs during this crisis.

We are especially grateful to hear that the Administration will help us with trade barriers and inequities in our international import/export business. Far too often trade barriers have been put in place by foreign nations against our products with no pushback from the U.S. government. We cannot thank the President enough for his tough negotiations on these matters, and look forward to working with his Administration on these issues following his welcomed announcement yesterday.

We further look forward to working with the Administration to ensure that the commercial wild fishing industry is able to stay healthy and vibrant without being impeded by the installation of wind turbines on historical fishing grounds. We hope that the opening sentence in section 1, which states “America needs a vibrant and competitive seafood industry to create and sustain American jobs, put safe and healthy food on American tables, and contribute to the American economy” will include safeguarding this historic industry by ensuring that our ability to produce seafood into the future will not be lost in a rush to produce subsidized wind energy at any cost.

GSSA Thanks White House for Supporting American Fishermen

May 8, 2020 — The following was released by the Garden State Seafood Association:

Yesterday, President Trump signed an Executive Order to increase domestic seafood production, address unfair seafood trade practices, and ensure that the seafood industry is able to meet the country’s current food needs. The Garden State Seafood Association (GSSA) thanks the Administration for recognizing our nation’s vibrant fishing industry and keeping it competitive.

“We would like to thank President Trump for promoting American seafood, and the hard work that our fishermen do to provide the nation with essential protein,” said Scot Mackey, Director of Government Affairs for the Garden State Seafood Association. “The best seafood is American-made, from sustainably harvested fish and scallops to locally farmed oysters. This order will help the industry weather the current crisis and come back stronger.”

GSSA is grateful for efforts to create a more level international playing field for seafood. The U.S. has some of the strictest and most sustainable seafood management in the world. Combined with illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing worldwide, and trade barriers from other countries, U.S. fishermen are often at an unfair disadvantage. This order takes steps to combat IUU fishing, and address unfair international trade practices.

The Administration also recognizes the tremendous potential of U.S. aquaculture, which here in New Jersey means our growing farmed oyster industry. The Administration’s order looks to build on that potential by addressing current restrictions in the aquaculture permitting process. By streamlining this process and eliminating unnecessary barriers, the Administration is setting up U.S. aquaculture for a promising future.

About the Garden State Seafood Association

The Garden State Seafood Association (GSSA) advocates on behalf of New Jersey’s fishermen and fishing communities. Through closely monitoring regulatory developments, actively participating in the management process, and sharing the latest fisheries news and information with our members, GSSA holds our leaders accountable to the concerns and priorities of New Jersey’s hard working, historic fishing industry.

NEW JERSEY: Feeding with Fish Through a Crisis

May 8, 2020 — Fresh and frozen seafood has been leaving Lund’s Fisheries Inc., in Cape May, despite an initial slowdown from COVID-19 restrictions closing many restaurants and other food establishments.

The company received federal funding to help offset expenses during the pandemic and has been able to keep its five facilities operating.

“I can’t say we’ve been necessarily profitable during this time,” said Wayne Reichle, president and owner, “but it was important to us that our employees and their families knew they could depend on us during this time. “The federal funding will help offset costs such as labor, leases and other expenses.”

No employees were laid off as a result of the virus, according to Reichle. There are 150 employees between their facilities in Cape May and Bridgeton. They have two facilities on the West Coast and another was recently added in Bedford, MA.

The virus and restrictions occurred during, what Reichle called, their “transition period,” when the winter fishing season ends and the summer fish and scallop season begins.

Read the full story at the Cape May County Herald

NEW JERSEY: Wind Farm Surveying Begins Again Off South Jersey Coast

May 7, 2020 — Surveying ships are beginning operations in a massive area of the Atlantic Ocean miles off the New Jersey coast as a leading bidder for the state’s second wind farm ramps up work again.

Two vessels began May 1 exploring “potential export cable route corridors towards Atlantic City” from a 183,000-square mile section of the ocean leased by Atlantic Shores LLC. The company is a joint venture between Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables US.

Another off-shore wind project, led by Danish clean energy giant Ørsted, received the first approval from New Jersey and the federal government last summer to move ahead with a wind farm. It will be built about 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City and Cape May.

Read the full story at NBC Philadelphia

Alabama shipyard is a go-to for East Coast scallopers

May 6, 2020 — Jemison Marine & Shipbuilding of Bayou La Batre, Ala., recently delivered the scallop boat Patriarch, the fourth new fishing vessel built by Jemison for Tom McNulty Sr. of T&S Fisheries out of Cape May, N.J.

The double-dredge permit F/V Patriarch is the latest of the four boats at 80′ x 27′ x 13′ and holds 50,000 pounds of payload in its insulated ice hold. In comparison, McNulty’s boat Pride and Joy, also built by Jemison, holds 25,000 pounds.

“You can fit twice as much in the Patriarch as in the Pride & Joy,” said McNulty. “We have just started working the new boat, and it is outstanding.”

McNulty said he has had two different crews work the Patriarch on seven closed trips and 15 open bottom day trips. “The crews cannot say enough about how comfortable the boat is.”

Patriarch was designed by naval architect Travis Carver of Sterling Marine in Gulf Breeze, Fla., with the aid of McNulty’s son Tom McNulty Jr.

“Tom Jr. played a big part in the design of the boat,” says his dad. “He provided a great deal of input into the design of the deck and fish hold.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Commercial fishing industry on the ropes as pandemic-era shoppers avoid seafood

May 6, 2020 — Fisherman Marty Scanlon has not returned to his Long Island home since leaving for North Carolina at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in New York.

Scanlon, a longliner captain from Hauppauge left for North Carolina in early March — roughly the same time the first case of Covid-19 emerged in Manhattan. In the weeks that followed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered most businesses to close, effective March 22, casting a pall over New York City restaurants in a once-bustling culinary capital.

Business for Scanlon has been brutal ever since.

“We basically don’t have the money to go home,” Scanlon said, over the phone. “We can’t go home til we pay our bills.”

Scanlon’s plight is reverberating across the Northeast. While meat, poultry and produce remain in demand, seafood, a once-reliable market, has been swapped for the whims of the home chef who has grown unused to, and perhaps slightly intimidated by the prospect of storing and preparing fish.

And it’s putting an $11 billion industry in New York and New Jersey on the ropes, with as much as a 30 percent drop in revenue since the coronavirus took hold in the region.

Scanlon and his crew aim to scrape 1,000 pounds of mixed swordfish and tuna each night, but it has become increasingly difficult to bear each trip’s financial costs in the face of dwindling profits, he said.

Read the full story at Politico

Northeast lawmakers demand immediate guidance, speedy release of coronavirus aid

May 1, 2020 — Congressional delegations from Massachusetts and New Jersey took up fishing industry calls for immediate guidance and “transparent distribution” from the Department of Commerce to allocate $300 million in coronavirus fisheries assistance approved by Congress.

“The Trump administration must swiftly make this financial assistance available to fishing communities and allocate it in a way that equitably accounts for the severe economic losses the hardest hit states have endured,” New Jersey’s delegation wrote in an April 23 letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

“It has been nearly a month since the CARES Act was signed into law by President Trump…and yet the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has not released guidance for the distribution of the emergency aid nor has it publicly stated when that guidance will be released.”

“Since Congress passed the CARES Act on March 25, 2020, the Commerce Department has made only one public statement on the assistance to fisheries participants,” the Massachusetts lawmakers told Ross in an April 29 message.

NOAA’s sole public communication on the CARES Act fisheries aid was six sentences that appeared April 2 on its website, along with the link to an email address for fishermen and other stakeholders to submit information about the economic impacts of coronaries on their businesses.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NJ’s State & Federal Appeal for Fish Funds

May 1, 2020 — The $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress and signed by the president on March 25 set aside $300 million in COVID-19 relief funding to help the nation’s fishing community. Members of the recreational and commercial fishing industry can qualify for funding if they’ve lost 35% of their revenue compared to a previous 5-year average.

Yet more than month since the cash was made available, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and all 14 New Jersey members of Congress, are still waiting to see how and when these funds are to be dispersed in the areas hardest hit by the global pandemic.

On April 23, the New Jersey congressional delegation sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) and the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) concerning the $300 million in fisheries assistance made available through the CARES Act. The letter addressed to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and OMB Acting Director Russell T. Vought seeks a transparent distribution methodology that accounts for the economic devastation wrought by the COVID19 pandemic in the hardest hit states like New Jersey, and the execution of the disbursed funds as soon as possible.

Read the full story at The Fisherman

As Economy Has Faltered, New Jersey’s Fishing Industry Gets Walloped

April 27, 2020 — From Delaware Bay oysters to Atlantic scallops, the state’s fisheries are struggling to survive as retail sales dry up.

In the town of Port Norris, on South Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore, the first weeks of spring have for well over a century marked the beginning of the annual oyster harvest, a time when the waters of the Maurice River burst to life with a commercial fleet eager for prosperous days ahead. But as the first few weeks of the season come to a close, Port Norris remains still, a sign of just how deep the COVID-19 pandemic has drilled into the state’s economy.

“It’s brought things to a halt,” said Steve Fleetwood, president of Bivalve Packing, South Jersey’s largest wild-caught oyster processor. Already, Fleetwood has had to lay off some of his roughly 20 employees, who, in a rural community as small as Port Norris, are friends and neighbors. “I hate to see people without jobs,” he continued. “Hopefully we can suck it up and wait it out.”

Read the full story at the New Jersey Spotlight

Reps. Pallone, Kim Lead Delegation Demand for Fair and Quick Distribution of Assistance to Fishing Communities

April 27, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Andy Kim (D-NJ):

Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) and Congressman Andy Kim (NJ-03) demanded that the Trump Administration fairly and quickly distribute financial aid to the fishing industries in states like New Jersey that have incurred greater economic losses as a result of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought requested the agencies distribute the financial assistance based on state-specific economic impacts of the pandemic. It was also signed by Senator Bob Menendez, Senator Cory Booker, Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), Congressman Bill Pascrell (NJ-09), Congressman Albio Sires (NJ-08), Congressman Donald M. Payne, Jr. (NJ-10), Congressman Donald Norcross (NJ-01),  Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Congressman Tom Malinowski (NJ-07), Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11), and Congressman Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02). Last month, Congress passed and President Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which allocated $300 million in fisheries assistance.

“The commercial and recreational fishing industry in our home state of New Jersey has felt the devastating economic impacts of the pandemic. The Trump Administration must swiftly make this financial assistance available to fishing communities and allocate it in a way that equitably accounts for the severe economic losses the hardest hit states have endured,” the letter states. “While many states with lower numbers of COVID-19 cases kept their commercial and recreational fisheries open or have already completed their most important fishing seasons of the year, the pandemic has left our fishing industry in dire financial straits.”

New Jersey’s commercial fishing industry generates over $8 billion annually supporting over 50,000 jobs and has one of the largest saltwater recreational fishing industries in the United States.

The letter is available here.