Saving Seafood

US judge rules cod quota set-asides for Alaskan cities are unlawful

March 25, 2019 — Washington, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kelly ruled March 21 that the North Pacific Council’s Amendment 113 (A113) to the Bering Sea Groundfish Fisheries Management Plan does not comply with Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) requirements.

The amendment, adopted in 2016, provided 5,000 metric tons of Pacific cod as a set-aside for processing facilities located west of 170 degrees longitude. It named the specific cities of Adak and Atka in the US state of Alaska and the plants located there as the plants that would benefit from this set-aside.

Shortly after the amendment was adopted in late 2016, the Groundfish Forum, United Catcher Boats and other groups who rely on cod, flatfish, and other groundfish in the Bering Sea, filed a complaint challenging the rule, based on five separate claims for relief.

They contended first, that the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) didn’t have the authority to “allocate shore-based processing privileges” and overstepped its authority with this amendment.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Michael Pentony: NOAA patching up relationships with fishermen

March 25, 2019 — So, how’s your March Madness bracket going? Clean as a pachyderm’s patootie? Not so much ours. Our bracket has taken on the very patina of a paper we once wrote on Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” That too was full of bad choices, ill-formed thoughts, scratch-outs and an imprint of our forehead where we seemed to have nodded off.

We took a break from hoops last week to check out most of the video of NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator Mike Pentony’s 90-minute sitdown with the editorial board of The Standard-Times of New Bedford, a fine news organization that does a standup job covering the fishing industry in America’s most lucrative fishing port.

The discussion was interesting on a number of levels. Among the most compelling was Pentony’s take on the “evolution of perspectives” that has shaped the relationship between NOAA Fisheries and the Northeast commercial fishing industry.

“It’s fair to say that six to 10 years ago, the relationships between the industry at large and the agency were in trouble, were a real problem. Maybe at an all-time low, I don’t know. But certainly, with my experience, it was a real struggle,” Pentony said. “I think many in the industry – not just the groundfish industry, but the industry at large – saw the agency as the problem. We’ve made progress over the years rebuilding a lot of those relationships, being confident (now) that we could walk in a room and not be perceived as the enemy.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA official talks ‘damage’ to scallop industry from offshore wind

March 25, 2019 — The federal fishing administrator for the Greater Atlantic region told The Standard-Times Wednesday that although offshore wind will not threaten the overall sustainability of the scallop industry, the damage to it could be significant, especially for fishing grounds off New York. But later in the day, he clarified his comments, saying the “damage” remark does not accurately reflect his position.

Michael Pentony’s initial comments came when asked in an editorial board meeting if offshore wind gives the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cause for concern about the sustainability of the scallop industry, particularly with regard to wind turbines off New York.

He began, “I think it’s difficult to say that we have concerns about the sustainability of a three-to-five-hundred-million-dollar-a-year fishery.”

Asked specifically about damage to the industry, he said, “The damage could be significant, and we definitely have concerns about that. I’m less concerned about the overall long-term sustainability of the fishery, but certainly, we have concerns about the impacts of that particular area and how that could … play out.”

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard-Times

Idaho Plan Safeguards Wild Steelehead, Per NOAA

March 22, 2019 — NOAA Fisheries has determined that Idaho’s Fishery Management and Evaluation Plan for their recreational steelhead fishery provides necessary protections for salmon and steelhead listed under the ESA.

NOAA Fisheries has determined that Idaho’s Fishery Management and Evaluation Plan (FMEP) for their recreational steelhead fishery provides necessary protections for salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). NOAA fisheries has approved Idaho’s plan under section 4(d) Rule.

Under section 4(d), NOAA Fisheries can specify how an activity can be exempt from additional ESA regulations. This applies particularly to “take,” which can include any act that kills or injures fish, and may include habitat modification. The ESA prohibits any take of species listed as endangered, but some take of threatened species that does not interfere with survival and recovery may be allowed.

“Idaho has developed a plan that provides continuing recreational fishing opportunities while ensuring that ESA-listed salmon and steelhead have the protection they need to recover,” said Allyson Purcell, Branch Chief in NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region.

Idaho’s plan came together through collaboration with fishery managers across the Snake River Basin and includes a new basin-wide framework designed to limit total impacts on steelhead from all fisheries in the Snake River Basin. Under Idaho’s plan, fishermen will continue to be required to release any wild steelhead they encounter.

Read the full story at the Fishing Wire

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Comments on Proposed Measures for the Jonah Crab Fishery

March 21, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries seeks comments on proposed measures for the Jonah crab fishery that complement the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Jonah Crab.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recommended these measures for managing Jonah crabs in federal waters. The management plan was initiated after an increase in landings.

Proposed measures include limiting Jonah crab harvest to those who already have a limited-access American lobster permit, a minimum size, protection for egg-bearing females, and incidental catch limits.These proposed regulations do not expand trap fishing effort. They propose to regulate the catch of Jonah crabs that is already occurring in the American lobster fishery.

For more details or to comment on the proposed measures, please read the rule as filed in the Federal Register and the draft environmental impact statement on our website.

NOAA Fisheries Announces Transfer of Georges Bank and Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic Yellowtail Flounder Quota

March 21, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is transferring unused quota of Georges Bank and Southern New England/Mid Atlantic yellowtail flounder from the Atlantic sea scallop fishery to the commercial groundfish fishery.

If the scallop fishery is expected to catch less than 90 percent of its Georges Bank or Southern New England/Mid Atlantic yellowtail flounder quota, we are authorized to reduce the scallop fishery quota for these yellowtail flounder stocks to the amount projected to be caught, and increase the groundfish fishery quota by the same amount. This adjustment helps achieve optimum yield for both fisheries, while still protecting from an overage of the annual catch limits.

Based on the current projections, the scallop fishery is expected to catch 80 percent of its allocation of Southern New England/Mid Atlantic yellowtail flounder quota, and 44 percent of its Georges Bank yellowtail allocation.

We are transferring 0.78 mt of Southern New England/Mid Atlantic yellowtail flounder from the scallop fishery to the groundfish fishery, and 18.53 mt of Georges Bank yellowtail flounder through the end of the 2018 fishing year (April 30, 2019).

For more information, read the rule as filed today in the Federal Register.

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester seeks fish counters for river herring run

March 21, 2019 — Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The same goes for river herring at the city’s Little River fish run in West Gloucester.

The city, with NOAA Fisheries and the state Department of Marine Fisheries, is embarking on another year of visually counting river herring, or alewives, that migrate into the Little River and up the fish run to the Lily Pond spawning area to begin another life cycle for the important species.

As the river herring spawning run commences and a new counting season beckons, the fisheries partners want to expand the cadre of volunteers who help count fish along the recently reconstructed and improved fish run next to the city’s West Gloucester water treatment plant off Essex Avenue.

Read the full story at The Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA questions Vineyard Wind environmental impact study

March 21, 2019 — A Gloucester-based division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has raised concerns that a government environmental impact study about the proposed Vineyard Wind project lacked sufficient detail.

Michael Pentony, the head of NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, warned in a March 15 letter that the report on Vineyard Wind completed by the U.S Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in December included conclusions that were not well supported by data and needed additional analysis of several key angles of impact.

“We determined that many of the conclusory statements relating to the scale of impacts for biological and socioeconomic resources are not well supported in the document,” Pentony wrote in his letter to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. “Specifically, impacts categorized as major appear under-inclusive, while impacts designated as moderate seem overly inclusive.”

The letter, posted online by fishing industry advocacy group Saving Seafood, serves as the office’s official response to the federal draft environmental impact statement on the construction and operation plan for Vineyard Wind’s proposed offshore wind farm.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Fisheries Issues Public Comments on Vineyard Wind Project

March 20, 2019 — (Saving Seafood) — Last Friday, in a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), NOAA Fisheries expressed concern over how the proposed Vineyard Wind offshore energy project may negatively impact New England’s fisheries, marine life, and ocean habitats.

The letter was the agency’s official public comment on BOEM’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Vineyard Wind project, which is proposed for off the coast of Massachusetts. In the letter, NOAA Fisheries Northeast Regional Administrator Mike Pentony raises issues with BOEM’s analysis of the project’s negative impacts.

Specifically, the letter notes that the BOEM analysis does not include “the most accurate or updated data on fishery landings and associated revenue” for several fisheries, including squid, Jonah crab, and American lobster. The letter also faults BOEM for not sufficiently addressing the potential economic impacts of the project, particularly on the issues surrounding fisheries displacement.

“In some cases, if fishermen are displaced from an area they will move somewhere else, which can have direct economic impacts such as increased fuel costs, longer trips, etc., as well as indirect impacts such as increased conflicts with other fishermen,” the letter states. “However, it is also possible that the fish are simply unavailable to the fishery outside of the area.”

NOAA similarly criticizes BOEM’s analysis of potential mitigation measures for the project, noting that “the analysis is solely dependent upon an undefined financial mitigation package, while impacts to the fishing communities go beyond just revenue loss.”

Other areas of the DEIS criticized by NOAA include its limited analysis on critical habitats, impacts with marine mammals and endangered species, and the effects of project development and construction. The agency offered to continue to collaborate with BOEM to address these issues.

Read the full public comments here

 

NOAA Fisheries Approves Monkfish Quota for 2019

March 19, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is implementing monkfish quotas for the 2019 fishing year that we announced on July 12, 2017. There have been no overages in 2018, and there is no new biological information, so we are now finalizing the 2019 quotas that were previously announced. The quotas are the same as the 2017 and 2018 quotas and are in place until April 30, 2020.

All other requirements remain the same.

For more details, read the rule as filed in the Federal Register and the permit holder bulletin on our website.