January 2, 2019 — Bluefish harvest is set to stay steady on the East Coast in 2019
Federal fishing managers are looking to keep the quotas for bluefish about the same next year.
Bluefish are a popular sport fish that are also harvested commercially as food. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it’s looking to implement proposed catch limits for the fish that are mostly status quo with the current year.
December 28, 2018 — North Carolina’s Attorney General Josh Stein, along with attorneys general from Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Virginia and New York have moved to take their own action stop the proposed use of airguns to survey the Atlantic Ocean floor for oil and gas.
“North Carolina’s beautiful coastline supports tens of thousands of jobs and billions in economic activity,” said Stein in a statement. “That is why I am fighting this move to take our state one step closer to offshore drilling. I will continue to do everything in my power to protect our state’s coast.”
A lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, and federal officials was filed last week in South Carolina by a coalition of local and national non-governmental organizations.
“In moving to intervene on the side of the organizations, the attorneys general are seeking to file their own complaint on behalf of their respective states,” according to the announcement.
The seismic testing surveys is one step closer to allowing offshore drilling, “An action that would result in severe and potentially irreparable harm to our coastline and its critically important tourism and fishing economy,” the release continued.
Five private companies applied in 2014 and 2015 to the U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, for permits to use air guns for seismic testing to search for oil and gas on the Atlantic Ocean floor.
December 19, 2018 — As offshore wind developers worked their way up to a record-setting New England lease sale last week, New Jersey energy planners met once more in Atlantic City before setting their own goalposts.
“We’re looking for proposals that deliver not only the best price, but the best value,” said Anne Marie McShea of the Board of Public Utilities, the state energy regulators who will soon make a deal to buy up to 1,100 megawatts of power to be generated from future wind turbines.
For wind power advocates, that means a deal that will bring new jobs to New Jersey, both in building and operating offshore turbine arrays, and manufacturing components locally.
Almost a decade ago, it looked like the Garden State might take a lead role in developing offshore wind power. In Atlantic City, the Atlantic County Utilities Authority built the state’s first commercial-scale wind power project, adding the sight of five spinning rotors to the resort’s gaudy skyline.
In April 2009, then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar came to town, talking up the new Obama administration plan to develop East Coast leases for wind power along with oil and gas, part of the “all of the above” energy strategy.
There was the Fishermen’s Energy plan for a five-turbine offshore array, within sight of the Atlantic City beaches, conceived by the late Daniel Cohen of Atlantic Cape Fisheries, Cape May,N.J., as a way for seafood companies to get a place at the table for planning renewable energy.
But then-Gov. Chris Christie’s administration began to cool on the idea.
The Board of Public Utilities did not like aspects of the pilot project, including the projected cost to ratepayers. Then there were Christie’s presidential ambitions, which meant playing to the conservative Republican base with its dislike of renewable energy subsidies.
December 17, 2018 — A fisheries researcher at the University of Rhode Island has found that oyster aquaculture operations can limit the spread of disease among wild populations of oysters. The findings are contrary to long-held beliefs that diseases are often spread from farmed populations to wild populations.
“The very act of aquaculture has positive effects on wild populations of oysters,” said Tal Ben-Horin, a postdoctoral fellow at the URI Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences. “The established way of thinking is that disease spreads from aquaculture, but in fact aquaculture may limit disease in nearby wild populations.”
Working with colleagues at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Rutgers University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Ben-Horin integrated data from previous studies into mathematical models to examine the interactions between farmed oysters, wild oysters and the common oyster disease Dermo.
Read the full story from the University of Rhode Island at Phys.org
December 14, 2018 — Flipping through his captain’s log, Larry Colangelo looks at the water temperatures off Atlantic City’s coast this past summer. Unusually warm 70- and 80-degree days are jotted down inside the record-keeping book he’s had for nearly two decades.
For $800 a day, he takes tourists and professional anglers alike onto his 31-foot ship. But in recent years, he said, certain fish have become more challenging to catch and keep.
Climate change and outdated regulations are partially to blame, researchers say, and it’s affecting some local fishermen in drastic ways.
“I only know what I see, and what I see is that the water definitely seems to be warmer… We have to work a little harder now,” said Colangelo, who owns a charter boat docked at Kammerman’s Marina in Atlantic City.
A November report in the ICES Journal of Marine Science looked at how fishermen are reacting to the migration of fish north as the ocean’s temperature gradually increases. It reports dramatic shifts in the distances large, commercial Atlantic Coast fishing operations have been traveling over the past 20 years.
But for some commercial fishers in South Jersey, it’s been business as usual.
Dotted with outdoor seafood restaurants, Cape May’s commercial fishing industry brought in $85 million in 2016. The city boasts one of the largest local fishing markets in the country.
Jeff Reichle, president of Lunds Fisheries in Cape May, said his 19-boat fleet has been buying permits off North Carolina and Virginia for decades.
In recent years, he said he’s noticed more summer flounder and sea bass near Connecticut and Massachusetts, but said his boats continue to travel along the entire coast both to maximize the number of fish caught and due to higher quotas in Virginia and North Carolina.
“You follow the fish where they go,” Reichle said. “This is why boats float and have propellers.”
Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City
December 10, 2018 — U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo has joined 92 other House members from both parties in opposing the Trump administration’s decision to allow seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean.
Critics say the constant barrage of compressed air blasts used to find gas and oil deposits under the sea floor harms marine mammals and other sea life.
LoBiondo, R-2nd, said Friday he had signed a letter sent to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, asking them not to issue final permits.
“Seismic testing is a prelude to drilling for oil and natural gas,” said LoBiondo, a longtime foe of drilling in the Atlantic.
December 10, 2018 — A regulatory board is allowing shellfish harvesting in a key management area off of New England, though more monitoring of the fishery will now apply.
The New England Fishery Management Council has approved new measures to allow the harvest of surfclams within the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area. The council says mussel fishermen will also be able to operate in the new areas.
The council says it wants fishermen and researchers to work together to get a better idea of where surfclams can be harvested without disturbing sensitive undersea habitat.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public
December 10, 2018 — A decision by NOAA Fisheries to issue five permits for seismic air gun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean has drawn sharp criticism from business and environmental leaders who fear the blasts could be harmful for fish and other marine wildlife.
The blasting will be used to conduct surveys that will provide data to oil and gas industry businesses, who may then seek to conduct offshore drilling in federal waters between Cape May, New Jersey and Cape Canaveral, Florida. President Trump opened the door for such exploration in an executive order last year.
“The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has responsibility for permitting geophysical surveys, and makes decisions about energy development in the waters of the outer continental shelf,” NOAA Fisheries said in a press release.
Observers will be aboard survey vessels and will notify operators if a protected species comes near the air guns. Shutdowns will be mandatory when certain species are seen.
However, opponents to the plan fear the blasts, which they claim can impact marine life thousands of miles away, will still be detrimental to marine life and those whose livelihoods depends on fishing. The Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast said it represents 42,000 business and 500,000 fishing families along the Atlantic coast.
December 3, 2018 — The Cape May County Board of Freeholders is the latest legislative body to support a program that would allow the New Jersey fishing industry to donate discarded seafood to food banks, pantries, and soup kitchens.
Known as gleaning, the growing movement seeks to increase food security and reduce food waste by utilizing the approximately 20 percent of seafood that is discarded by United States fisheries annually for consumption.
“We in Cape May County are proud to support this initiative,” said Cape May County Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton. “The fishing industry is so important to our economy, and at the end of the day this can help people who are in real need.”
December 3, 2018 — The Trump administration has approved a first step toward offshore oil and gas drilling on the Atlantic coast.
The National Marine Fisheries Service issued permits Friday for five private companies to conduct offshore seismic tests from New Jersey to Florida.
The tests fire acoustic pulses into the sea floor in search of oil and gas deposits.
Such tests haven’t occurred in the Atlantic as part of hydrocarbon exploration since around the 1980s, according to federal officials, though academic seismic tests have happened more recently.
These permits, which were denied under the Obama administration in 2017, will allow the companies to disturb protected marine mammals during their surveys.