Saving Seafood

Miss. Coast will pay steep price in new plan to save Louisiana wetlands, fishermen warn

August 26, 2019 — Fishermen in South Louisiana have a warning for the Mississippi Coast: If you think the Bonnet Carré Spillway has wreaked havoc in the Mississippi Sound, just wait until Louisiana gets permission for a new diversion of Mississippi River water.

The fishermen in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes say they have watched saltwater marshes, shrimp, oysters and fish disappear over the last decade because of Mississippi River diversions that flow continuously into the Breton Sound estuary.

They have been trying to fight the state of Louisiana’s plan for new river diversions that would flow into the Barataria Bay and Breton Sound estuaries south of New Orleans. The state is forging ahead with plans, claiming the diversions will build land along Louisiana’s coast, where wetlands the size of a football field sink into the water every 100 minutes.

Read the full story at The Sun Herald

Wind farms could one day power New Orleans, but high cost, other issues cause for concern

August 1, 2019 — For years, solar power has been the rallying cry of New Orleans City Council members aiming to chart a more sustainable energy future for New Orleans.

Its advocates have long said that solar panels — which now adorn a smattering of city rooftops and will soon populate a 200-acre site in New Orleans East — are cheaper and better suited to the coastal city than the giant windmills that create energy in other parts of the U.S.

But other renewable energy advocates, federal officials and representatives of the wind-power industry recently told a council committee that wind power ought to get a closer look, even if costs would need to fall sharply to make a wind farm in the Gulf of Mexico a viable future power source for New Orleans.

Read the full story at Nola.com

High hopes to diversify US marine finfish aquaculture

March 13, 2019 — Spotted sea trout, wolffish, tripletail, California halibut, southern flounder, lumpfish and greater amberjack are amongst the prime candidate species that might allow for the US to diversify its marine finfish aquaculture sector.

So argued members of a distinguished panel of researchers during a special session of Aquaculture 2019 in New Orleans on 10 March – a session that offered some hope that diversification could help the country expand its marine finfish production and to reduce its $15 billion seafood deficit.

Eric Saillant from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Marine Aquaculture Centre, outlined the potential and pitfalls facing tripletail production, noting that “current data suggest that tripletail could become a successful species for commercial marine aquaculture, assuming that bottlenecks in the hatchery [phase] can be overcome.”

Read the full story at The Fish Site

Judge: NOAA can’t regulate fish farming under fisheries law

September 27, 2018 — A federal judge in New Orleans has thrown out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s rules for fish farms in the Gulf of Mexico, saying the agency lacked authority to make them.

Tuesday’s ruling halts a plan that would have allowed, “for the first time, industrial aquaculture offshore in U.S. federal waters,” according to the Center for Food Safety , which sued NOAA on behalf of what U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo described as “a bevy of special interest groups representing both food safety advocates and Gulf fishermen.”

The government considers fish farming, including that on the open sea, to be “vital for supporting our nation’s seafood production, year-round jobs, rebuilding protected species and habitats, and enhancing coastal resilience.” Opponents say huge numbers of fish confined in nets out in the ocean could hurt ocean health and native fish stocks, and the farms would drive down prices and devastate commercial fishing communities.

“It’s a landmark decision,” George Kimbrell, lead counsel for the Center for Food Safety, said in a telephone interview from San Francisco.

“NOAA wanted to do this sort of industrial permitting not just in the Gulf of Mexico but in the Pacific and along the Atlantic coast,” he said.

The agency was working on rules for waters around Hawaii and other Pacific islands.

NOAA is considering whether to appeal the ruling handed down Tuesday, it said in an emailed statement.

The decision doesn’t forbid aquaculture, the statement emailed by spokeswoman Jennie Lyons noted. “NOAA remains committed to expanding the social, environmental, and economic benefits of sustainable marine aquaculture in the U.S.” it said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

States: US government to rewrite 2 endangered species rules

March 16, 2018 — NEW ORLEANS — The Trump administration will rewrite rules governing how to choose areas considered critical to endangered species to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four trade groups, according to state attorneys general.

The endangered species director for an environmental nonprofit says that’s terrible news. Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity says the administration has “shown nothing but hostility toward endangered species.”

The attorneys general for Alabama and Louisiana said in news releases Thursday that the administration made the agreement Thursday to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four national trade groups, challenging two changes made in 2016.

According to the lawsuit, the rules are now so vague that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service “could declare desert land as critical habitat for a fish and then prevent the construction of a highway through those desert lands, under the theory that it would prevent the future formation of a stream that might one day support the species.”

A spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife referred a request for comment to the U.S. Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to phoned and emailed queries. A NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman did not immediately respond Thursday.

“We are encouraged that the Trump administration has agreed to revisit these rules, which threaten property owners’ rights to use any land that the federal government could dream that an endangered species might ever inhabit,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in his news release. “These Obama-era rules were not only wildly unreasonable, but contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the Endangered Species Act.”

Greenwald said, “Their case didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times

 

Massachusetts: Promise of jobs, revenue not muting foes of offshore drilling

February 27, 2018 — BOSTON — The Trump administration proposal to open new tracts of ocean to the oil industry could create “hundreds of thousands of jobs,” according to an offshore energy group whose president said the plan is part of a “larger push to increase the global competitiveness of America and to spur jobs and economic growth at home.”

But the prospect of drilling off the Massachusetts coast also brought together advocates on Monday who are often at loggerheads but are now pulling in the same direction, against the Trump administration’s plans.

Decades ago, when oil exploration at George’s Bank last occurred, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) joined together with the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives to fight the proposal, ultimately prevailing, and those groups and others are hoping for a repeat this time around.

“It was a remarkable moment,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel at CLF, who said it is “ridiculous” that the idea has resurfaced.

“We knew this would not die completely,” said Angela Sanfilippo, of the Fishermen’s Wives, who said she saw the devastation an oil spill can bring to a fishing community when she visited New Orleans after Deepwater Horizon spewed fuel into the Gulf of Mexico eight years ago.

CLF often supports regulations on fishing that the industry opposes, but the two groups — and others — were on the same side for Monday’s event, organized by U.S. Sen. Ed Markey one day before the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s hearing on the offshore drilling proposal in Boston.

The public meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. at Sheraton Boston Hotel is a “sham” because officials there will not take live testimony from the public and the meeting location was moved multiple times, according to Markey.

“We cannot allow George’s Bank to become Exxon’s Bank,” Markey said at Monday’s event, held at the New England Aquarium. The Trump proposal is an “invitation to disaster,” he said.

The Trump administration has proposed opening up waters to drilling and oil exploration, allowing companies to tap into some of the estimated 89.9 billion barrels of oil sitting undiscovered beneath the continental shelf. The idea has pitted food providers against fuel providers.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Interior to Hold Massive Sale of Offshore Oil and Gas Leases

February 21, 2018 — The Interior Department announced Friday that the sale of leases on 77.3 million acres off the Southeast coast for oil and gas exploration will occur on March 21.

The sale, which Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said is the largest in U.S. history, will consist of leases off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. It includes all currently unleased areas in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Responsibly developing our offshore energy resources is a major pillar of President Trump’s American Energy Dominance strategy,” Bernhardt said. “A strong offshore energy program supports tens of thousands good paying jobs and provides the affordable and reliable energy we need to heat homes, fuel our cars, and power our economy.”

Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a New Orleans-based nonprofit that is heavily involved in environmental issues asked “How stupid can we be?” when she learned of the scheduled lease sale.

“The Gulf Coast is consistently nailed by hurricanes and yet our government insists on an energy strategy that exacerbates these hurricanes,” she said.

“A real energy strategy would be one that pursues renewables full speed ahead. Their so-called energy strategy is really a scheme for corrupt politicians to enrich themselves and their cronies,” Rolfes added.

Raleigh Hoke, campaign director of the Gulf Restoration Network, also took a dim view of the Interior Department announcement.

“We are disappointed that this Administration is moving forward with yet another lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico while simultaneously rolling back key safety measures to protect workers and the environment,” Hoke said. “Oil spills and accidents are an everyday occurrence in the Gulf, and we’re still at risk of a major catastrophe like the 2010 BP drilling disaster. We need stronger safety requirements, not weaker, and an end to all new offshore leasing in the Gulf.”

“Trump’s auctioning off this massive amount of our ocean while at the same time proposing to rollback important environmental and safety requirements,” agreed Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

 

Shell game: researchers release 21 diamondback terrapins hatched from eggs collected during BP restoration work

July 6, 2017 — Squirt, an 11-month old turtle raised by a team of volunteers, flailed its legs in the air as it was lowered into the marshes off a barrier island near Grand Isle.

“Welcome home, Squirt,” said Rachael Creech as her husband Stephen placed the reptile along the bay side of the island, known as Chenier Ronquille.

After some hesitation, Squirt navigated the marsh grasses and plopped into the bay, where it quickly settled on some floating vegetation.

Squirt was the smallest of a batch of 21 diamondback terrapins released Thursday after their eggs were discovered last year during restoration work on the island after the BP oil spill.

The 2- to 4-inch terrapins, which hatched last August, were deemed ready to return to the wild by state researchers, who had helped oversee their collection and care.

By ones and twos, scientists and volunteers grasped the reptiles by their distinctive shells and lowered them into the grass at the water’s edge.

Some of the turtles headed straight for the water, while others were more tentative. More than one made a U-turn and headed back toward the crowd that had gathered to watch the release. Others dove in and their noses could soon be seen yards off the bank, popping up to the surface before they dove again.

“Maybe we’ll see you again someday,” state biologist Keri Landry said.

If not for the BP oil spill, the presence of terrapins on Chenier Ronquille might never have been known.

It was only when federal contractors working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were searching for bird eggs along the island’s sandy shores last July that they noticed the terrapin eggs there as well. They called the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to collect the eggs. Until that point, the state was unaware that terrapins lived on the island.

Read the full story at The New Orleans Advocate

The tide is changing for offshore aquaculture

May 4, 2017 — Harlon Pearce walks muck-booted past processors gutting wild drum and red snapper to showcase a half-full new 5,000-square-foot freezer he hopes someday will house a fresh boom of marine fish. Harlon’s LA Fish sits just across the railroad tracks from the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, perfectly positioned to ship fish out of Louisiana.

As president of the New Orleans–based Gulf Seafood Institute, seafood supplier Pearce is a big fish himself in these parts, connected to fishermen, federal agencies, restaurateurs and even the oil industry. He knows better than anyone that wild fisheries alone can’t supply U.S. consumers’ growing demand for fish. Which is why he’s doing his best to bring everyone to the table to achieve one goal: farming the Gulf of Mexico.

No commercial finfish operations are in U.S. federal waters, between 3 and 200 miles offshore. Pearce and others are convinced that jumping into the rapidly growing open ocean aquaculture industry expanding into offshore waters globally is the future of sustainable seafood.

In 2015, per capita fish consumption in the United States was 15.5 pounds (PDF), up from 12.5 pounds (PDF) in 1980. Globally, however, the amount of all wild-caught fish has stayed relatively stagnant — at around 90–100 million tons — for the past two decades.

Globally, in total, around 160 million metric tons of fish — wild, farmed, marine and freshwater — are produced to satisfy annual demand.

The Gulf of Mexico annually yields a catch of about 32,000 tons of wild-caught finfish, which are bony fish such as snapper or grouper. Given regional demand, Pearce said, “our wild marine fish don’t go too far.” To his point, a seafood restaurant is on practically every block of New Orleans’ French Quarter.

Read the full story at GreenBiz

Gulf states get $370M in oil spill funds to restore wetlands

November 16, 2016 — NEW ORLEANS — Five Gulf states still seeking to restore their coastal waters and habitats after the devastating oil spill of 2010 will divvy up nearly $370 million for an array of projects that will create new wetlands, restore fisheries, aid sea turtles and more.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation announced the grants Tuesday for Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida as those states strive to bounce back from one of the largest environmental disasters in history.

Millions of barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days after an offshore rig fire and explosion in April 2010. British Petroleum, which was found primarily responsible for the spill, has paid billions in cleanup costs, settlements and penalties.

The funding announced Tuesday in New Orleans is the fourth and largest round of grants yet that the foundation — which oversees part of the money from criminal penalties paid by BP and other defendants — is allotting for the Gulf’s recovery. That fund is getting a total of $2.5 billion over five years for projects to repair the damage.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Rocky Mountain Telegram