Saving Seafood

NOAA accepting final comments on new illegal seafood rules

April 5, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Federal fishing regulators who are hoping to crack down on illegal fishing imports are closing the public comment period on proposed new rules.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has supported changes that would create a new system to collect data about commercial fishing catch. The new rules would also track trips ashore and the chain of custody of fish and fish products imported into the U.S.

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

Fishermen look to replace human monitors with cameras

April 4, 2016 — The program, slated to begin next month, will include about 20 boats, roughly 10 percent of the region’s active groundfishing fleet, and will require fishermen to use sophisticated software, maintain cameras through the harsh conditions at sea, and submit to constant electronic scrutiny.

That has made some fishermen, who say their boats are like homes, uneasy.

They worry about losing their privacy and whether the footage could become public.

“Our bathrooms are buckets out on deck. I do not want some person counting how much toilet paper I use when I go to the head,” said David Goethel, who fishes cod out of Hampton, N.H.

Goethel sued NOAA last year for requiring fishermen to assume the costs of the observer program, which he said were too expensive and would put many of his colleagues out of business. The agency had previously covered the costs, but officials said they could no longer afford to subsidize the $3 million program.

See the full story at the Boston Globe

At-sea monitoring fees are the latest threat to New Hampshire’s dwindling fishing industry

April 1, 2016 — Working as both a biologist and a fisherman, David Goethel brings a unique perspective to the state and federal fishery management boards he’s an adviser on. 

“I’ve spent all my life acting as a translator because they speak all different languages,” says Goethel, who worked as a research biologist at the New England Aquarium before he became the owner and operator of the Ellen Diane, a 44-foot fishing trawler based out of Hampton. 

But the most recent disconnect between the factions has resulted in Goethel and other groundfishermen filing a federal lawsuit. 

After delaying the regulation for years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is now requiring groundfishermen to pay for the at-sea monitoring program — at a cost of an average $710 per trip, conducted at random. The monitoring is done to ensure that the fishermen adhere to groundfish catch quotas set in May 2010 by the New England Fishery Management Council, under NOAA. (Groundfish include cod, haddock and other common bottom-dwelling species.) 

Read the full story at the New Hampshire Business Review

N.H. Fishermen Say Burden of At-Sea Monitoring Fees Could Break Industry

April 1, 2016 — New rules that took effect last month shift the costs of at-sea monitoring to local fisherman.

Critics say these new fees threaten the very existence of New Hampshire’s dwindling fishing industry and will put people out of business. There’s now a lawsuit pending on the issue.

Jeff Feingold, editor of the New Hampshire Business Review, joined NHPR’s Morning Edition to talk about the issue.

Let’s start with some background – what are these fees all about?

Back in 2010, they put these new rules together that limited the amount of ground fish that could be caught; that’s cod, haddock, and other fish, a lot of what commercial fishermen are looking for.

See the full story at NHPR

Endangered Puget Sound orcas to get personal health records

April 1, 2016 — SEATTLE — The killer whales that spend time in the inland waters of Washington state already are tagged and tracked, photographed and measured.

Researchers follow them by drone and by sea, analyzing their waste and their exhaled breath.

Now, experts want to add another layer to the exhaustive studies: individual health records for each endangered whale.

The records would take existing research on the creatures and combine it in one place. The idea is to use them to monitor the orcas’ health trends individually and as a population. It’s similar to people having one medical record as they move from one doctor to the next or between specialists.

Eighty-four orcas typically appear in Puget Sound from spring to fall.

Read the full story at KRON 4

NEW YORK: Federal fish fight erupts over Hudson River PCB cleanup

March 31, 2016 — FORT EDWARD, NY — Federal agencies are fighting over how quickly the PCB dredging project of the Hudson River by General Electric Co. might someday make the fish once again safe to eat.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is disputing a finding by two other agencies — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — that EPA seriously overestimated by “several decades” how quickly recently-concluded GE river dredging will reduce PCBs in fish to levels fit for human consumption.

On Tuesday, EPA issued a 110-page rebuttal to the NOAA and Fish and Wildlife findings, which were first reported in 2015 and this week published in a peer-reviewed national scientific journal. Last fall, GE wrapped up a six-year dredging project between Fort Edward and Troy, although a coalition of environmental groups and river advocates said too much toxic pollution remains left behind.

EPA claimed less optimistic conclusions on future PCB levels in fish by other federal scientists “are not supported by the full range of available evidence,” according to an EPA statement accompanying its rebuttal.

Read the full story at the Albany Times-Union

Changing Ocean Topic Draws Record Crowd

March 30, 2016 — ROCKPORT, Maine — More than 350 fishermen and others attended a Maine Fishermen’s Forum session, March 3, that focused on the changes fishermen are seeing in the water.

The three-hour event featured a panel of nine speakers and a standing-room-only audience, one of the largest in the 41-year history of the forum. Topics ranged from water temperatures to migrating species. Participants ranged from fishermen with 50 years on the water to marine scientists with the latest data on a changed ocean in the Gulf of Maine. Organizers titled the event “Changing Oceans” and encouraged discussion to revolve around how fishermen might deal with a changing reality.

Cutler lobsterman, and one of the organizers of the program, Kristen Porter said, “We wanted to focus attention on what we can do about working in a changed ocean, rather than debate the causes and who is at fault.” Scientists presented data to verify what fishermen have reported seeing.

Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) scientist Andy Pershing said, “Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.”

Pershing said there has been a lot of variability in the weather since 1980 and the Gulf of Maine has been the most variable water body on the planet. Water temperatures warmed in 2012 and took off. And the Gulf of Maine is experiencing changes in air, salinity, and Gulf Stream currents as well, according to NOAA ecosystem data.

Read the full story at Fishermen’s Voice

NOAA Fisheries offering industry-related loans

March 30, 2016 — NOAA Fisheries is accepting applications from commercial fishermen and those in the aquaculture industry looking for a share of NOAA’s $100 million in lending authority designated for fiscal 2016.

The loans, which run from five to 25 years, have market-competitive interest rates.

Eligible applicants include those working in aquaculture, mariculture, shoreside fisheries facilities and commercial fishermen.

Potential uses for the funds among applicants from aquaculture, mariculture and shoreside fisheries facilities include purchasing an existing facility, improvements to an existing facility, new construction and reconstruction.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Northeast Seafood Coalition responds to erroneous statements on Cashes Ledge from Pew Charitable Trusts

The following was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:

March 29, 2016 – GLOUCESTER, Mass. – Earlier today, in a webinar releasing a new report regarding the environmental composition of Cashes Ledge, in response to Cape Cod Times reporter Doug Fraser’s question as to whether there is an imminent threat to Cashes Ledge, The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Director of US Oceans, Northeast, Peter Baker stated:

“..the different areas – Cashes Ledge, the coral canyons, and the sea mounts – have different pressures on them, and different levels of imminent pressures that might be put on them. For instance Cashes Ledge, some of the council members, led by Terry Alexander, who is the president of the Associated Fisheries of Maine and was quoted in a press release last week, put up a motion just last year at the NEFMC to open Cashes Ledge once again to bottom trawling. The other guy, Vito Giacalone, who was quoted in that press release, at a public forum in Gloucester just last month, said that the fishing industry is eager to get in and catch the cod that are in Cashes Ledge. So, certainly the leaders of the groundfish industry have made it clear, recently, that they’re eager and working to get back in there and that at every available opportunity they’re going to try and open up Cashes to bottom trawling again. So I’d say, yes, absolutely, there’s an imminent threat to Cashes Ledge.”

The statement attributed to Vito Giacalone of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, and the description of the motion made by Councilmember Terry Alexander are factually inaccurate. There was never a motion or statement made proposing access to Cashes Ledge.

The problem is the terminology used.  “Cashes Ledge” is often used as verbal shorthand to refer to the large, 1400 square kilometer ‘Mortality Closure’ that includes Cashes Ledge and the surrounding areas and is an artifact of the old effort control system created to protect cod.

What we did say, and will maintain, is that once the old effort control system was replaced with a quota system, we want to be able to access the old mortality closures, including the Cashes Ledge Mortality Closure when such access is appropriate and scientifically justified. These portions of the Cashes Ledge Mortality Closure, despite the name, are not located on Cashes Ledge.

The Northeast Seafood Coalition proposed and supports the habitat management areas developed with government science, included in Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 which was adopted by the New England Fisheries Management Council last June, and are pending approval by NOAA.

We collaborated with the Associated Fisheries of Maine, and with the Fisheries Survival Fund, representing the limited access scallop fleet.  We did not develop our own habitat closed area on Cashes Ledge, but rather embraced the habitat management area developed via the government science.

This habitat area is significantly larger than Cashes Ledge itself, in fact, it completely engulfs Cashes Ledge, all of the kelp forest, and all of the areas displayed in the video and photographs circulated in recent months by proponents of a marine national monument. The protected area includes a surrounding buffer of hundreds of square miles.

We never would propose re-entering an area which we agreed to protect, and especially this area that encompasses Cashes Ledge.  It is simply untrue to say that we stated that we are “eager” to fish within the habitat management area on Cashes Ledge.

Did we say we want to preserve the ability to access portions of the mortality closure such as Cashes Basin and other basins that were not identified as important habitat areas by the science? Yes, we did say that.

We have no way of knowing whether Mr. Baker’s statement was made to intentionally mislead, or simply out of a lack of clear understanding regarding the difference between Cashes Ledge, the habitat management area surrounding Cashes Ledge, and the remaining portions of the previous mortality areas that were artifacts of the old system, but we state unequivocally that it is not true to say we ever proposed accessing the Cashes Ledge habitat management area.

Battle is on to preserve lobster shipments from Maine to Europe

March 29, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — The lobster fishing and export industries and Maine’s congressional delegation are moving swiftly to pressure the European Union not to approve a Swedish proposal to list the American lobster as an invasive species.

Such a listing would effectively ban 28 member nations from importing live American lobster, also known as Maine lobster, from the United States and Canada, and could cost U.S. lobster fishermen and exporters $150 million a year, including about $10.6 million in Maine.

Maine’s congressional delegation sent letters Monday to Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and NOAA Administrator Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, calling on them to protest the proposed change in EU trade rules that have worked around the globe for decades.

“We urge you to engage in immediate efforts to ensure the continuation of safe and responsible import of live Maine lobsters, consistent with the EU’s World Trade Organization obligations,” wrote Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin. “Since only a small number of Maine lobsters have been found in foreign waters, we believe regulators should take a more finely tuned approach before calling this an ‘invasion.’ ”

Read the full story at the Portland Herald Press