Saving Seafood

Deepwater Wind Offers Offshore Information, Fishermen Want Compensation

July 17, 2018 — Deepwater Wind is trying to keep fishermen happy while it builds more offshore wind facilities. The latest effort aims to protect commercial fishing gear, but fishermen and their advocacy groups want broader protections for fishing grounds and their livelihood.

The Providence-based company recently announced a program to inform fishermen of where and when construction and other work occurs at the site of three wind facilities and their electric cables. The offshore wind developer hired liaisons to offer dockside information to fishermen at main fishing ports such as New Bedford, Mass., Point Judith, and Montauk, N.Y. Daily activity will be posted online about surveys, construction, and maintenance work. The updates will also be broadcast twice daily on boating radio channels, according to Deepwater Wind.

Deepwater Wind has three primary offshore wind projects that will be covered by the new program: the nation’s first offshore wind facility, the Block Island Wind Farm; the Skipjack Wind Farm off the coast of Delaware and Maryland; and the South Fork Wind Farm, which is proposed for federal water between Rhode Island and Massachusetts and would deliver electricity to eastern Long Island via a 30-mile undersea cable.

Bonnie Brady, president of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said the outreach by Deepwater Wind is window dressing. Deepwater Wind is “not doing anything at all. it’s a big, giant schmooze,” she said.

Read the full story at ecoRI

Entangled whale spotted off Cape Cod in October is freed from nets in N.Y.

July 16, 2018 — A young humpback whale that had been tangled up in fishing nets since October was finally freed Wednesday, after responders found the animal in New York Harbor and successfully cut away the rope, officials said.

The whale was first spotted near Cape Cod in October, with gillnet fishing gear, including ropes and small floats, wrapped around its upper jaw, according to a Thursday statement from Provincetown’s Center for Coastal Studies.

Teams quickly responded but were only partially successful in cutting away the ropes, and a “tight wrap of line” was still firmly wound around the whale’s jaw, eye, and blowhole, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“If left alone, the animal had no chance,” NOAA Whale Disentanglement Coordinator David Morin said in the statement. “The whale would have died a slow and painful death. Even in response, the tight wrap left such a small area — about a foot or two wide — that we could cut.”

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

New York Halts Commercial Fluke Fishery for About 2 Weeks, Sets Harvest Limit

July 13, 2018 — New York State will close its commercial fishing grounds, a staple of the Long Island fishing fleet, for about two weeks effective Sunday.

The closure, which applies to fishing in state waters up to 3 miles from shore, will last until the month’s end, when it reopens with a harvest limit of 50 pounds per day.

Local commercial fishermen, who dealt last month with a similar closure of another plentiful staple in New York waters of black sea bass, say the new closure is another blow to their livelihood at a time of pricing stresses and amid state pressure to ease federal restrictions.

“It really hurts us,” said Phil Karlin, a commercial fisherman from Riverhead. “It really makes it difficult for the fishermen and the retailers and dealers involved who need a supply of fluke.”

Read the full story at Newsday

NEW YORK: ‘Choose Long Island’ Campaign Promotes Buying Local Produce, Seafood

July 13, 2018 — There’s a push to stimulate the economy while stimulating your taste buds in Suffolk County.

CBS2’s Vanessa Murdock visited Lenny Bruno Farms in Manorville, where she and fourth-generation farmer Dominick Bruno discussed buying local.

“For some people, local is 250 miles away. Here, local means it’s coming from this field and it’s being sold at our farm stand,” he said.

Bruno said he’s thrilled to be part of a new initiative launched by Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, called Choose LI.

“Buying locally grown and harvested food is better for overall health and it is better for our region,” said Bellone.

The goal is to get Long Island families to take the pledge to spend 10 percent of their weekly grocery budget on buying local produce and fish.

New Yorkers spend an average of $176 a week on food, Murdock reported. If each Suffolk County household pledges 10 percent to buying local, $19 million would be fed into the county’s economy each year and, in turn, help create 1,000 jobs.

Julieann Hughes, a mother of four, said she makes an effort to buy local.

Read the full story at WLNY

AP report claims Sea To Table lied to customers about seafood origins

June 14, 2018 — An investigative report by the Associated Press claims it has found evidence that the company Sea To Table has been misleading customers about origins of its seafood.

Sea To Table, founded more than two decades ago, offers fresh wild-caught seafood sourced from small-scale American fishermen. The company guarantees that its products are wild-caught and directly traceable to docks, and often specific boats, in the U.S. The purchase of the seafood often comes with informational packages detailing the origins and the people behind the product.

According to the AP report, published on 13 June, those claims may be suspect as investigations found that the company was sourcing “fresh” seafood from boats that hadn’t been to sea for two years, species that weren’t allowed to be fished in locations Sea To Table was claiming they were from, and tuna from southeast Asian companies with checkered histories of labor abuse.

“Preliminary DNA tests suggested some of its yellowfin tuna likely came from the other side of the world, and reporters traced the company’s supply chain to migrant fishermen in foreign waters who described labor abuses, poaching and the slaughter of sharks, whales and dolphins,” the AP report said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NEW YORK: State legislation would ban big boats from menhaden fishery

June 14, 2018 — The clock is ticking on an effort by local baymen to maintain a sustainable local fishery for Atlantic menhaden through legislation that would ban large commercial purse seine boats from gobbling up the state’s newly expanded quota.

New York’s previously low annual quota for the bait fish, also known as bunker, has largely kept industrial purse seine boats out of the state fishery. The state quota had stood at 250,000 pounds for the entire year. But this year, the state’s allotment was increased to 3.4 million pounds as menhaden fisheries have been rebuilt.

A bill by Assemb. Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) that has already passed the State Assembly would ban purse seining boats from operating in state waters. A Senate version of the bill is sponsored by Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson). It would take effect in 2020.

Local baymen using small-scale nets and fish traps have been the primary state harvesters of bunker, selling them as bait for lobster traps and sport fishing. They’ve also harvested the fish for local towns to prevent massive die-offs that have polluted rivers, bays and beaches over the past several years.

Read the full story at Newsday

AP Investigation: Fish billed as local isn’t always local

June 14, 2018 — Even after winter storms left East Coast harbors thick with ice, some of the country’s top chefs and trendy restaurants were offering sushi-grade tuna supposedly pulled in fresh off the coast of New York.

But it was just an illusion. No tuna was landing there. The fish had long since migrated to warmer waters.

In a global industry plagued by fraud and deceit, conscientious consumers are increasingly paying top dollar for what they believe is local, sustainably caught seafood. But even in this fast-growing niche market, companies can hide behind murky supply chains that make it difficult to determine where any given fish comes from. That’s where national distributor Sea To Table stepped in, guaranteeing its products were wild and directly traceable to a U.S. dock — and sometimes the very boat that brought it in.

However, an Associated Press investigation found the company was linked to some of the same practices it vowed to fight. Preliminary DNA tests suggested some of its yellowfin tuna likely came from the other side of the world, and reporters traced the company’s supply chain to migrant fishermen in foreign waters who described labor abuses, poaching and the slaughter of sharks, whales and dolphins.

The New York-based distributor was also offering species in other parts of the country that were illegal to catch, out of season and farmed.

Over the years, Sea To Table has become a darling in the sustainable seafood movement, building an impressive list of clientele, including celebrity chef Rick Bayless, Chopt Creative Salad chain, top universities and the makers of home meal kits such as HelloFresh.

“It’s sad to me that this is what’s going on,” said Bayless, an award-winning chef who runs eight popular restaurants and hosts a PBS cooking series. He said he loved the idea of being directly tied to fishermen — and the pictures and “wonderful stories” about their catch. “This throws quite a wrench in all of that.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Boston Herald

NEW YORK: Rep. Zeldin Secures $12 Million in Federal Funding to Complete Emergency Dredge of Moriches Inlet

June 12, 2018 –Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1) just announced the Fiscal Year 2018 Army Corps of Engineers Workplan was released today, including $12 million in funding for the completion of the Army Corps approved emergency dredging of Moriches Inlet. Sand removed from Moriches Inlet will be placed at Smith Point County Park to address beach erosion. Additional engineering details as laid out in the Army Corps solicitation for contracts to carry out the dredging, which was issued on May 22nd, can be viewed here.

In March, Rep. Zeldin was joined by local elected officials, small businesses, boaters and fishermen in calling for an emergency dredge of Moriches Inlet during which Congressman Zeldin joined local fishermen to survey the inlet’s dangerous navigational conditions first-hand.

In April, Rep. Zeldin worked with the Commander of the U.S. Army Corps New York District, Colonel Thomas Asbery, to receive the needed Emergency Declaration from the Army Corps of Engineers North Atlantic Division Brigadier General William Graham, granting Rep. Zeldin’s request to perform emergency dredging of the Moriches Inlet. This emergency declaration began the process of coordinating funding and permits so dredging vessels can begin work.

“The approval of funding for the emergency dredging of Moriches Inlet is great news for our coastal economy, commercial and recreational fishermen and all whose livelihoods rely on the vitality of our communities’ waterways,” said Congressman Lee Zeldin. “I will continue to work with the Army Corps of Engineers and all affected by the deteriorated state of Moriches Inlet to complete this emergency dredge.”

Read the full story at LongIsland.com

Murphy gets state, fishing industry more time for wind energy plan

June 1, 2018 — New Jersey under Gov. Phil Murphy is fully committed to offshore wind, working toward generating 3.5 gigawatts of its clean energy by 2030. The Board of Public Utilities has been ordered to prepare to seek bids on more than 1,000 megawatts of wind power, and a Danish company with a lease for an ocean wind farm has opened an office in Atlantic City.

So when the governor asked early last month for another 180 days to comment on the next round of vast ocean wind leases — this time in the much used and fought over New York Bight between the city’s harbor, Long Island and South Jersey — his request was very credible.

If even an ardent supporter of green energy wants more time to consider the impacts of massive wind farms on other users, he must be speaking for all New Jersey businesses and people with a stake in these very valuable waters.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

 

Cuomo visits Long Island site of artificial reef construction

June 1, 2018 — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo traveled to Shinnecock Inlet on Thursday morning to kick off construction of one of the East Coast’s largest artificial reef programs, starting off the coast of Hampton Bays.

The Shinnecock Inlet portion of the work included dropping 885 tons of material from the dismantled Tappan Zee Bridge and scuttling an old canal vessel called The Reliable.

Sections of the cantilever bridge were visible from a fishing boat chartered by the state to bring dignitaries and the media to the site, where barges, cranes and a fleet of tugboats worked through the day.

“It’s going to change, literally, the shoreline around Long Island,” Cuomo said. It will also foster fishing industries by creating new fish habitats and diving opportunities, he said.

Material is being placed in an area 2 miles from shore, 85 feet deep in 35 acres of sea bottom. Six reefs are being constructed this year out of a planned 12.

Read the full story at Newsday