Saving Seafood

Pallone, New Jersey DEP push back against summer flounder cuts

December 16th, 2016 — This was one of the more consequential Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meetings in recent memory.

The council’s decisions that were made this week in Baltimore will have a major impact on fishermen, starting with recommendations for cuts to summer flounder, special management zones for artificial reefs, and final rules for a coral protection on the Continental Shelf.

SUMMER FLOUNDER

Anglers are facing the most restrictive fluke regulations yet as a 40-percent cut in the allowable coastwide harvest is being recommended.

It’s based on models that show summer flounder was overfished this year and its biomass is on the decline. Fishermen and legislatures refute that science.

Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) is asking NOAA to postpone any cuts until a benchmark assessment is complete. He said there continues to be legitimate concerns that the random sampling heavily relied upon by NOAA and the estimates produced are inaccurate.

The state Department of Environmental Protection is also taking a strong position against the reductions, which it said will cripple recreational and commercial fishing in New Jersey and be felt sharply throughout the Shore economy.

On Wednesday the council approved a non-preferred coastwide measure for a 19–inch minimum size limit, a four-fish bag limit and a season from June 1 – Sept. 15.

Read the full story at The Ashbury Park Press

Legal Proceedings Preserve Fishing Industry Rights as New York Wind Energy Lease Sale Proceeds

December 15, 2016 — The following was released by the Fisheries Survival Fund:

Last week, a group of fisheries organizations, communities and businesses filed suit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), seeking a temporary restraining order to delay today’s auction of leasing rights to the proposed New York Wind Energy Area. The suit also sought a preliminary injunction to prevent BOEM from executing any resulting wind energy lease.

The plaintiffs allege that BOEM did not adequately consider the effect on the region’s fishermen of a 127-square-mile wind farm off the coast of New York and New Jersey.

Subsequently, a scheduling agreement was reached between the parties that allows the court to take adequate time to deliberate carefully on the case’s important issues. The plaintiffs agreed to withdraw their motion for a temporary restraining order that would have delayed the scheduled auction. Although the auction is proceeding today, under BOEM’s final sale notice for the auction, the lease will not be final until further steps, as outlined in the sale notice, are completed.

On Monday, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia set a court schedule on the plaintiffs’ motion to preliminarily enjoin BOEM’s execution of any lease resulting from today’s auction. The schedule concludes with a hearing in Federal court on February 8.

Under Judge Chutkan’s order, if the lease is ready to be executed before the court is able to rule on the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motion, BOEM must provide the court no less than 14 days notice. If that notice is provided, the preliminary injunction proceedings will be expedited.

The Fisheries Survival Fund, representing the majority of the U.S. Atlantic scallop industry, is the lead plaintiff in the case. The lease area includes documented scallop and squid fishing grounds, which serve as essential fish habitat and grounds for other commercially important species, including black sea bass and summer flounder. It is also an important foraging area for threatened loggerhead sea turtles and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Other organizations joining as plaintiffs include the Garden State Seafood Association and the Fishermen’s Dock Co-Operative in New Jersey; the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in New York; and the Narragansett Chamber of Commerce and Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance.

Joining as plaintiffs are the City of New Bedford, Mass.; the Borough of Barnegat Light, N.J.; and the Town of Narragansett, R.I.

Also joining are three fishing businesses: SeaFreeze Shoreside, Sea Fresh USA and The Town Dock.

Representative Frank Pallone Calls for NOAA Fisheries to Reconsider Summer Flounder Quotas

December 15, 2016 — Washington, DC – On Wednesday, Congressman Frank Pallone (NJ-06) spoke at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s (MAFMC) December Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland about his efforts to convince NOAA Fisheries to postpone any decision on reducing summer flounder quotes until it conducts a new benchmark summer flounder assessment. Pallone argued that  proposed reductions would harm many coastal communities including those along the Jersey Shore who rely on the recreational and commercial fishing industries.

“Many fishermen are frustrated and lack confidence in the data that guides stock assessments,” said Pallone. “In the recreational sector, many believe that they have sacrificed for years to increase stocks, and have yet to see any benefits, despite the increase in biomass from the ‘90s. There continues to be legitimate concerns that the random sampling heavily relied upon by the NOAA and the estimates produced are inaccurate.”

This week Congressman Pallone and Senator Cory Booker sent a letter to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries about its proposal to reduce the Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) recreational and commercial quotas for summer flounder in 2017 and 2018. The New Jersey lawmakers requested that NOAA Fisheries postpone any decision on reducing summer flounder quotes until it conducts a new benchmark summer flounder assessment.

Read the full story at the Atlantic Highlands Herald

Some of Earth’s oldest creatures are now protected off the Jersey Shore

December 15, 2016 — To preserve some of the oldest living creatures on Earth, the federal government announced Wednesday that it had created an enormous protected area off the coast of New Jersey to protect deep-sea corals and other hidden ecological treasures.

At more than 40,000 square miles (the size of Virginia), the Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area includes about a dozen deep-water chasms, including the fabled Hudson Canyon. The area begins more than 70 miles offshore and parallels the coast from Long Island to North Carolina. Lautenberg, the U.S. senator from New Jersey who died in 2013, championed several deepwater species.

The agreement was hashed out by several stakeholders including NOAA Mid-Atlantic Fisheries, fishermen  and marine scientists.

Cold-water corals live hundreds of meters under the water. Until the fishing industry started harvesting using bottom trawling, the creatures were undisturbed for millennia. Commercial fishermen using “canyon busters,” however, have raked the world’s sea floors to harvest mackerel, monkfish and squid. The equipment boosts fisheries production but also topples and destroys the fragile coral. What survives can take centuries, even thousands of years, to bounce back. As a result, species that depend on the coral for their habitats — spider crabs, the bizarre rhinochimera, and scores of other rarely seen animals — are also left unprotected and imperiled.

Read the full story at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Proposed Atlantic wind energy lease auction to proceed

December 13th, 2016 — The federal government’s plan to auction the development rights to a huge offshore windfarm in the Atlantic Ocean between New York and New Jersey will proceed Thursday.

Groups representing the fishing industry in four states sought to delay the auction. But an agreement between the groups and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will allow it to proceed.

A lawyer for the fishing groups says they still will be able to seek a halt to the final sale during a federal court proceeding now scheduled for Feb. 8, 2017.

Andrew Minkiewicz says the delay gives both sides more time to submit documents. A judge in Washington, D.C., agreed to the plan Monday.

The groups, including scallop fishermen, claim the 127-square-mile project would harm their business.

A BOEM spokeswoman declined comment.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald 

NEW JERSEY: Fishermen can protest Summer flounder catch limits with letters

December 13th, 2016 — Before I get into any recent fishing catches, I want to cover some very distressing news concerning next year’s fluke regulations. To say that the reports I have gotten are negative is being kind.

NOAA Fisheries has announced that their flounder assessment from last summer shows the summer flounder population is declining, and anglers are catching too many fish.

To address this problem, the federal government is proposing a 30 percent reduction from catch limits already determined for 2017, and then the next year another 16 percent reduction from current 2018 allocations.

According to predictions from “The Fisherman” magazine, the result of this could very possibly be something like a two-fish per day daily catch limit, a 19-inch minimum keeper size, and a three month long season during the summer months. I told you that you would not like this news!

The only positive thing that I can tell you is that these cuts have not yet been made, but are in the works. According to “The Fisherman,” there are a couple of things that we as concerned anglers can do.

First, we can send a note to NOAA Fisheries expressing our opposition to these cuts. Try to keep your comments within the bounds of polite discourse, and be sure to include your contact information.

Read the full story at the Ashbury Park Press 

Ocean advocates hope Trump takes climate change seriously

December 9, 2016 — LONG BRANCH, N.J. — For Tom Fote, of Toms River, the decline of the lobster industry in New Jersey is proof that ocean warming is having big environmental and economic effects.

“I manage lobsters, and we saw what happened in the last 20 years. We had a huge population of lobster that grew in the Mid-Atlantic. Now it’s starting to collapse,” said Fote, who is one of three New Jersey commissioners on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

He told panelists at the 12th Annual Future of the Ocean Symposium, focused on priorities for the Trump administration and Congress at Monmouth University on Wednesday, that the water off New Jersey has become too warm for lobsters.

Fishermen need help dealing with the effects of climate change on their industry, he said.

Panelists at the symposium included former New Jersey Governor and federal Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and Donald E. Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Cambridge, Md.

“If I were to say one thing to the incoming administration and to the president-elect, it’s, ‘Listen to your daughter.’ Ivanka believes in climate change,” said Whitman of Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser. “It has real everyday implications to our lives, and to national safety. It is a national security issue.”

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

Fishing groups seek Atlantic wind farm delay

December 8, 2016 — MINEOLA, N.Y. — Commercial fishing companies, trade groups and three fishing-based municipalities are seeking to delay the lease sale of an Atlantic Ocean site between New York and New Jersey that federal officials envision as the home of a massive offshore wind energy project.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of a 45-page motion ahead of its filing Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C. It seeks a temporary restraining order halting the Dec. 15 lease sale. Those seeking a delay include groups representing scallop and squid fishermen, the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The motion seeks to delay the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s plans for developers to build a 127-square-mile, 194-turbine offshore wind farm. The United States still has no offshore wind projects online, though BOEM has awarded 11 commercial offshore wind leases for sites in the Atlantic. Some major projects have been delayed by political opposition.

A BOEM spokeswoman said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

The country’s first offshore wind farm, a tiny project off Rhode Island with just a few turbines, is expected to debut this month.

The court motion argues that BOEM failed to consider alternative sites and contends that besides negative impacts on scallop and squid fishing, others who harvest fish species including summer flounder, mackerel, black sea bass and monkfish also would be negatively affected. When it announced final plans for the lease sale earlier this fall, BOEM said it had removed about 1,780 acres from the initial proposal because of environmental concerns.

The plaintiffs referred to that as a “diminutive change” in their motion. The fishing groups said they aren’t opposed to wind farms. But they argue that site alternatives weren’t considered and that conducting site analysis after a lease sale is completed will be too late.

“BOEM must carry out the proper analysis prior to officially leasing out areas to companies for construction, due to the importance of this fishery area,” said James Gutowski, president of the Fisheries Survival Fund, who is a scallop fisherman from Barnegat Light, New Jersey; the group is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

“It must adequately and accurately characterize the potential impacts to the industry from construction on this site,” Gutowski said.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Scallop & Fishing Industry, Municipalities, Sue Feds to Ensure Seafood Interests Are Considered in NY Bight Wind Energy Project

December 8, 2016 — The following was released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

WASHINGTON — December 8, 2016 – The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), which represents the majority of the limited access Atlantic scallop fleet, is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction to delay an anticipated lease sale for the development of a 26-mile long wind farm project approximately 11 miles off the coast of Long Island, scheduled for December 15, 2016. The story was broken today by the Associated Press.

The filing alleges that the leasing process for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) did not adequately consider the impact the proposed New York Wind Energy Area would have on the region’s fishermen. The site chosen for the 127 square mile wind farm is in the waters of the New York Bight on vital, documented scallop and squid fishing grounds, which serves as essential fish habitat and grounds for other commercially important species, including black sea bass and summer flounder. It is also an important foraging area for threatened loggerhead sea turtles and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The lawsuit argues that fishermen’s concerns regarding the location of the lease area received “virtually no attention or analysis” from government officials ahead of the planned December 15 lease sale, despite fishing stakeholders repeatedly making their concerns known. It further states that BOEM failed to identify the proposed wind farm’s environmental, economic, social, and cultural impacts, and failed to “consider alternative sites in an open, collaborative, public forum.”

Several other members of the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC)—including commercial fishing organizations, businesses, and communities that depend on the sustainable use of Atlantic Ocean resources—have joined the lawsuit. The suit was filed against Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, BOEM, and BOEM Director Abigail Hopper.

Organizations joining the lawsuit include: the Garden State Seafood Association and the Fishermen’s Dock Co-Operative in New Jersey; the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in New York; and the Narragansett Chamber of Commerce and Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance in Rhode Island.

The City of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the nation’s top-grossing fishing port; the Borough of Barnegat Light, New Jersey; and the Town of Narragansett, Rhode Island have joined as plaintiffs. Also joining are three fishing businesses: SeaFreeze Shoreside, Sea Fresh USA, and The Town Dock.

The New York Bight consists of the waters from Cape May Inlet in New Jersey to Montauk Point on the eastern tip of Long Island, and offshore to the outer edge of the Continental Shelf, where the coasts of New York and New Jersey form an upside-down L around shallow waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

The plaintiffs are represented by the law firm of Kelly, Drye & Warren.  The case will be heard by Judge Tanya Chutkan in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Case No. 1:16-cv-02409.

Press inquiries should be directed to Bob Vanasse at Stove Boat Communications, 202-333-2628.

Read the full legal filing and declarations from the plaintiffs at atlanticscallops.org

Jersey Shore Fishing: Menhaden Public Hearing on Thursday

December 8th, 2016 — Anglers concerned about an increase in quota for menhaden reduction boats should be sure to attend Thursday’s 6:30 p.m. ASMFC public hearing at the DEP Nacote Creek Law Enforcement Office, 360 North New York Road.

Yesterday’s northeast wind created a rough sea, and the surf was basically unfishable. Strong northwest winds could solve that problem the next couple of days.

Capt. Rob Semkewyc has decided to conclude his season on the Sea Hunter from Atlantic Highlands. He posted the following:

Looking at the long range forecast I decided to just pack it in for the winter. I want to thank everyone who fished with us. I hope you enjoyed the season. The spring striper run was disappointing this year. The summer fluke season was pretty normal. We caught many and threw lots back. I was happy with the fall Striper fishing. We caught lots of fish! Have a great Holiday Season and a safe winter. We will start up again in the spring for the stripers, either late March or early April. If you would like to buy a gift Certificate for someone you can give me a call 732-291-4468 and I can get one out to you. Thanks again from Capt Rob and the crew of the Sea Hunter.

Read the full story from NewJersey.com