Saving Seafood

Offshore Wind Agenda Still Has Some Bight

April 27, 2021 — The Biden administration isn’t bowing to all local opposition to offshore wind development (“Railing Against the Wind,” Review & Outlook, April 21). Although the wealthy residents of the Hamptons succeeded in preventing offshore wind farms from spoiling their ocean views, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to sink all opposition to development in the New York-New Jersey Bight, a roughly triangular area bordered by New Jersey and Long Island.

In December 2020, the Interior Department’s Office of the Solicitor issued a detailed ruling that commercial fisheries’ interests must be considered when siting offshore wind. But in March the Biden administration rescinded that ruling. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to ignore fisheries’ interests, even though the Bight is home to some of the most productive fisheries in the world and is a migratory route for endangered right whales.

In the end, the fisheries industry and thousands of jobs at risk are no match for Big Wind’s lobbyists, whose European customers stand to reap billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars from the Biden administration’s new offshore wind-investment tax credit and the sky-high prices for the intermittent and unreliable power that regulators will force utility customers to buy.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

Cornell To Survey Suffolk County Fishing Industry About Pandemic Recovery

April 27, 2021 — The Cornell Cooperative and Suffolk County will survey the commercial fishing industry on Long Island. They will recommend ways for fishermen to recover from the pandemic-related shut down of restaurants and seafood markets across the state.

“They work to be able to provide this food for the nation. And COVID, just basically — in New York, especially where 90% of our seafood market is New York City restaurants that were completely shuttered,” Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said.

In 2019, Long Island commercial fishermen landed over 19 million pounds of fish valued at over $27 million. Then, the pandemic cut market prices for fish in half. Commercial fishing is a more than $50 million industry on Long Island and employs more than 650 people.

Read the full story at WSHU

New York wholesaler indicted on seafood fraud charges

April 23, 2021 — A federal grand jury has indicted Montauk, New York-based seafood wholesaler Bob Gosman Co. on seafood fraud charges.

On 21 April, the grand jury unsealed the indictment in the seafood fraud case, which also charges fishing captain Christopher Winkler, Bob Gosman Co. managers Bryan Gosman and Asa Gosman, and an unnamed co-conspirator – a now-defunct company operating out of the New Fulton Fish Market – the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NEW YORK: No Wind Farms in ‘Fairways’

April 23, 2021 — Two areas off the South Shore of Long Island that had been identified as potential federal lease areas for development of offshore wind will not be considered for leases, an official of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said last week.

The announcement came on April 14, during a BOEM-hosted virtual meeting of the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Forces, comprising representatives from 14 coastal states, local governments, tribes, and federal agencies. A second meeting was held on Friday.

The areas in the New York Bight known as Fairways North and Fairways South, respectively 88,246 and 23,841 acres, “will not be considered for leases,” said Luke Feinberg, a BOEM project coordinator. The Bight is in the waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

The Fairways North area is approximately 15 miles south of Long Island, stretching from Moriches Bay to Montauk Point. Fairways South is farther west and mostly farther offshore. The New York Bight also contains federal wind energy areas known as Hudson North and the Central Bight, off Great South Bay, and Hudson South, south of New York City.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

Montauk Fisherman and Wholesalers Indicted in Fraud Scheme

April 22, 2021 — A federal grand jury has indicted two members of Montauk’s Gosman family and a commercial fishing boat owner on charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and obstructing an investigation in connection with a scheme to sell at least $250,000 in illegally caught fluke and black sea bass. The United States Department of Justice announced the indictment on Wednesday.

The indictment stems from about 70 fishing trips that Christopher Winkler, 61, also of Montauk, made aboard his boat New Age from May 2014 to July 2016 during which he took fluke and black sea bass in excess of federal catch quotas, according to the Department of Justice. The fish was sold to a now-defunct company, Greater New York Fish, at the New Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx that was owned in part by Asa Gosman, 45, and Bryan Gosman, 48.

After the Bronx company stopped operating, Mr. Winkler continued to sell the allegedly illegal catch to the two men, through Bob Gosman Co., in which they had an ownership role, the Justice Department said.

The grand jury charged Mr. Winkler, Bryan Gosman, and Asa Gosman with one count each of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud as well as to unlawfully frustrate National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration regulatory efforts.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

New York Fisherman and Fish Dealer Charged with Conspiracy, Fraud, and Obstruction

April 21, 2021 — The following was released by The United States Department of Justice:

Today, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York unsealed the indictment of one fisherman, a wholesale fish dealer, and two of its managers for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and obstruction in connection with a scheme to illegally overharvest fluke and black sea bass. All four defendants are from Montauk.

Christopher Winkler, 61, Bryan Gosman, 48, Asa Gosman, 45, and Bob Gosman Co. Inc. were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud as well as to unlawfully frustrate the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) efforts at regulating federal fisheries. Winker and the corporate defendant each face substantive fraud charges. In addition, each of the defendants was charged with obstruction.

The indictment alleges that between May 2014 and July 2016, Winkler, as captain of the New Age, went on approximately 70 fishing trips where he caught fluke or black sea bass in excess of applicable quotas. This fish was then sold to a now-defunct company and unindicted co-conspirator in the New Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx. Both Asa Gosman and Bryan Gosman had an ownership interest in the defunct company. After the Bronx company went under, Winkler sold a smaller quantity of his illegal catch directly to Bob Gosman Co. Inc., a Montauk fish dealer in which Asa Gosman and Bryan Gosman had a management role. The overages of fish included at least 74,000 pounds of fluke, and the overall over-quota fish (of all species) were valued at least $250,000 wholesale.

Under federal law, a fishing captain is required to accurately detail his catch on a form known as a Fishing Vessel Trip Report (FVTR), which is mailed to NOAA. Similarly, the first company that buys fish directly from a fishing vessel is termed a fish dealer, and fish dealers are required to specify what they purchase on a federal form known as a dealer report, which is transmitted electronically to NOAA. Pursuant to statutory mandate, NOAA utilizes this information to set policies designed to ensure a sustainable fishery. The indictment alleges that the part of the conspiracy was to falsify both FVTRs and dealer reports in order to cover-up the fact that fish were taken in excess of quotas.

Additionally, Asa Gosman, Bryan Gosman, and Bob Gosman Co. Inc., acting through its agents and employees, were charged with obstructing the investigation into these crimes by corruptly withholding certain documents and records sought by a federal grand jury.

Initiated as part of Operation One-Way Chandelier, the indictment is part of a multi-year, ongoing investigation into fisheries fraud on Long Island. The case is being investigated by NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement. Trial Attorney Christopher Hale of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Crimes Section is prosecuting the case.

The defendants will be arraigned at a future date.

Read the full release here

NEW YORK: Biden Administration Nixes Hamptons Offshore Wind Sites Near Beaches, Fishing Grounds

April 20, 2021 — The Biden administration announced that it will not lease two offshore wind areas off the Hamptons. The leasing areas were controversial to eastern Long Island residents and the commercial fishing industry.

The Fairways North and Fairways South sites were planned just 15 miles off the coast.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman says the 800-foot-tall turbines would be a visual eyesore for public and private Hamptons beachgoers — which the state of New York relies on for billions in tourism dollars.

“I believe in [offshore wind],” Schneiderman said, “just site it further out. There’s no reason why they can’t go deeper, into deeper waters, you know, manage the visual impact.”

And 1,700 members of the fishing industry sent a letter to the Biden administration to say the construction and the operation of the turbines would starve them of prime fishing grounds. Bonnie Brady with Long Island Commercial Fishing Association has sent these letters before.

“Let’s face it,” she said. “I’ve been fighting on this issue for fishermen to get a true seat at the table, not be served for lunch, for 20 years.”

Read the full story at WSHU

NEW YORK: Latest Hamptons Offshore Wind Farm Idea Shelved

April 15, 2021 — A heavily disputed plan to build a wind farm off the coast of the Hamptons is no longer under consideration, federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) officials said on Wednesday.

Two weeks after the agency first announced the plan to create five new offshore wind farm development zones in the Atlantic Ocean between New York and New Jersey, officials pulled the plug on two of the zones closest to Long Island — Fairways North, off the coast of the Shinnecock Inlet, and Fairways South, off Fire Island.

The two zones “will not be considered for leasing at this stage,” Luke Feinberg, project manager for BOEM, said during an online task force meeting on the proposed zones, citing issues with commercial fisheries.

Commercial fishing groups had opposed the wind farms on the grounds that it will interfere with their ability to make a living. New York State Energy Research and Development Authority officials also opposed the Fairways zones.

“I think we have some challenges that we have identified in the Fairway sites both in the relative size and distance from the shore,” Gregory Lampman, program manager for environmental research at NYSERDA, said during the meeting. “We’ve been pretty clear, and we want to make sure the projects are more than 18 miles from shore. And they fall at 15.”

Read the full story at Dan’s Papers

NEW YORK: NYSERDA chief to feds: No wind farms off Hamptons

April 9, 2021 — New York State will emphasize its position that windfarms off the Hamptons are a nonstarter as federal regulators begin the public process of auctioning off lease rights to waters off the South Shore.

Doreen Harris, the newly named president and chief executive of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, in an interview Thursday, said the state next week will make a detailed case for instead focusing on two other wind areas to the west. Harris had previously been acting chief executive of NYSERDA.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in a highly anticipated announcement last month, released a map of proposed new wind-energy areas off New York and New Jersey in a body of water known as the New York Bight.

Read the full story at Newsday

NEW YORK: Biden Puts Spotlight On Waters Off Long Island For Wind Power Future

April 1, 2021 — President Joe Biden’s administration this week declared all of the waters between the south shore of Long Island and the New Jersey coast — including a swath of water less than 20 miles south of the Shinnecock Canal — a priority area for the development of offshore wind.

It’s the foundation of an already accelerating rush to establish a new multibillion-dollar industry, create tens of thousands of jobs and set the United States on a course away from reliance on fossil fuel energy.

To do so, the White House threw its weight behind accelerating the pace of planning and development of offshore wind farms in the waters south of Long Island, which potentially could see thousands of turbines, each nearly 800 feet tall, sprout from the sea in the coming decade.

The call for an even faster pace of growth than is already underway also could mean that regions seen as suitable for wind farm development directly south of Southampton and East Hampton will get closer consideration.

While the administration’s announcement made no actual reference to specific areas of the sea where wind turbines should be built, it did say that the Department of the Interior will advance the creation of new leases of ocean floor for the development of wind farms. The goal will be to have 16 projects approved and ready for construction by 2025.

The regions of ocean directly south of the East End are particularly sensitive for fishermen, according to Bonnie Brady, a commercial fishing advocate from Montauk, since they are critical grounds for the small boats that sail out of Shinnecock Inlet and Montauk to harvest sea scallops, fluke and squid.

Placing wind turbines in Fairways North, she said, would pose a navigational hazard and would drastically change the habitat of the ocean in the area, which is currently a sandy ocean plain, to one of hardened structure, which could upset the ecological balance that fishermen rely on.

Commercial fishermen have been the most strident opponents of offshore wind farm development and met this week’s announcement from the White House with renewed exasperation at the breakneck speed with which offshore wind development is apparently going to be introduced to the ocean off the Northeast coastline.

“Here we have the administration that holds science so near and dear just throwing science right out,” Ms. Brady said. “They are throwing up $4 billion to create this future industry, but they are not funding the science that should be the basis of all this and has to be done before build all these turbines. They could screw it all up, and then they’ll just say, ‘We didn’t know’ — but it’s the fishermen who will be hung out to dry.”

Read the full story at The Southampton Press