Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: Two Hampton Roads wind energy grants were canceled. But $20M was already spent.

September 8, 2025 — A Norfolk maritime facility tied to the region’s nascent offshore wind industry plans to shift part of its operational plans after President Donald Trump’s administration killed a $39 million grant.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced last week his agency was withdrawing from or terminating $679 million in funding for 12 projects related to offshore wind energy.

The canceled funding includes a $39 million grant for Fairwinds Landing, a more-than $500 million maritime facility in Norfolk’s Lamberts Point connected to shipbuilding, ship repair and offshore wind.

Fairwinds Landing leaders are now asking the Department of Transportation’s U.S. Maritime Administration, or MARAD, to reconsider the cuts , said Mike Hopkins, the project’s managing director.

VIRGINIA: Trump admin cancels $39M meant for Norfolk’s Fairwinds Landing because of wind energy association

September 4, 2025 — Norfolk’s Economic Development Authority will ask the Trump administration to reconsider its decision to cancel a grant meant to improve Fairwinds Landing.

The body made the decision during their monthly meeting Wednesday, five days after the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the $39 million in Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) funding would be withdrawn, due to the sites association with the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project.

The funding, first awarded to the authority in 2023 under the Biden administration, was to “assist in transforming the marine terminal at Fairwinds Landing into offshore wind logistics facility,”

Read the full article at WAVY

VIRGINIA: Trump administration withdraws $39.27M for Norfolk offshore wind project

September 3, 2025 — The Trump administration last week withdrew $39.27 million in federal funding that had previously been awarded for an offshore wind logistics port in Norfolk and attempted to terminate $20 million for a project that had already been completed in Portsmouth.

The Norfolk Offshore Wind Logistics Port, part of the 111-acre Fairwinds Landing project at Lambert’s Point Docks, is the project losing nearly $40 million that was awarded in 2023 under the Biden administration.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced on Aug. 29 that Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy withdrew or terminated a total of $679 million in funding for 12 offshore wind projects across the country. The department stated that the action is intended to “ensure federal dollars are prioritized towards restoring America’s maritime dominance and preventing waste.”

The department stated that it identified 12 projects that were not aligned with the current administration’s priorities. The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized and targeted  projects, instead prioritizing fossil fuels and “traditional forms of energy.”

“Wasteful, wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go towards revitalizing America’s maritime industry,” said Duffy in a statement. “Joe Biden and [former Secretary of Transportation] Pete Buttigieg bent over backwards to use transportation dollars for their Green New Scam agenda while ignoring the dire needs of our shipbuilding industry. Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritizing real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little.”

Read the full article at Virginia Business 

As High-Tide Flooding Worsens, More Pollution Is Washing to the Sea

March 15, 2019 — As high-tide flooding worsened in Norfolk, Virginia in recent years, Margaret Mulholland, a biological oceanographer at Old Dominion University, started to think about the debris she saw in the waters that flowed back into Chesapeake Bay. Tipped-over garbage cans. Tossed-away hamburgers. Oil. Dirty diapers. Pet waste.

“This water is coming up on the landscape and taking everything back into the river with it,” says Mulholland, a professor in the Department of Ocean, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences. “I was thinking how no one is counting this stuff (as runoff pollution). It drove me nuts.”

Nuts enough that she decided to sample those waters. That’s why on a recent Saturday morning she was steering her Chevy Bolt EV toward a narrow, flooded ribbon of Norfolk’s 51st Street at high tide. Marsh grasses bordered an inlet of the Lafayette River on one side of the street. A line of houses set back from the street rose on the other. Soon she came upon an overturned trash can, its contents underwater. A few feet away was a box. She opened it, and inside was a toilet. “Oh, this is good,” she said, pulling out her phone for a photo.

It’s an apt metaphor for her pioneering research project, which she has dubbed Measure the Muck.

With global sea levels steadily rising — already up 8 inches in the past century and now increasing at an average of 1.3 inches per decade — the incidence of high-tide “sunny day” or “blue sky” flooding is on the rise, especially along the U.S. East Coast. Those flooding events now routinely wash over sections of cities, and when the waters recede they take with them an excess of nutrients and a toxic mix of pollutants that flows into rivers, bays, and oceans.

Read the full story at Yale Environment 360

Regulators approve Maine elver quota

October 24, 2017 — NORFOLK, Va. — Interstate fisheries regulators voted last week to approve Maine’s elver landings quota for another year.

Meeting in Norfolk, Va., on Oct. 17, the American Eel Board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission authorized Maine harvesters to land up to 9,688 pounds of elvers during the upcoming 2018 fishing season. That is the same quota the fishery has operated under for the past three years.

They also initiated an addendum to consider alternative allocations, management triggers and coastwide caps relative to the current management program for both the yellow and glass eel commercial fisheries starting with the 2019 fishing season.

Back in 2014, for the first time, the ASMFC established a quota for Maine’s glass eel (elver) landings. The quota governed the 2015 through 2017 fishing seasons. The regulators agreed to review that quota allocation before the 2018 season.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander 

 

MAFMC June 2017 Council Meeting in Norfolk, VA

May 16, 2017 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

Meeting Materials: Briefing documents will be posted at http://www.mafmc.org/briefing/june-2017 as they become available.

Public Comments: Written comments must be received by Wednesday, May 24, 2017 to be included in the Council meeting briefing book. Comments received after this deadline but before close of business on Thursday, June 1, 2017 will be posted as “supplemental materials” on the Council meeting web page. After that date, all comments must be submitted using an online comment form available at available at http://www.mafmc.org/public-comment. Comments submitted via the online form will be automatically posted to the website and available for Council consideration. Late comments will no longer be distributed to Council members via email.

Webinar: For online access to the meeting, enter as a guest at: http://mafmc.adobeconnect.com/june2017.

Agenda

PDF Version

Tuesday, June 6th

9:00 a.m. Council Convenes

9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. SARC Presentation – Surfclam/Ocean Quahog Assessments, Jim Weinberg – NEFSC

9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Surfclam/Ocean Quahog Specifications

  • Develop recommendations for 2018- 2020 specifications

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Surfclam/Ocean Quahog Excessive Shares Amendment

  • Approve scoping document

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Lunch

1:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Lobster Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology Framework, GARFO Staff

  • Discuss alternatives

1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Risk Policy Framework – First Meeting

  • Review and approve options for potential revision to current MAFMC Risk Policy and ABC Control Rules

2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Climate Velocity Over the 21st Century and Its Implications for Fisheries Management in the Northeast U.S., James Morley – Rutgers

  • Review climate-velocity-driven species distribution projections for 2020 through 2100.
  • Identify potential propriety species for adaptation of fisheries management to climate change

3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Cooperative Research in the Mid-Atlantic

  • Review of NEFSC Cooperative Research and response to MAFMC request, Jon Hare – NEFSC
  • Mid-Atlantic Council approach to collaborative research

Wednesday, June 7th

9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Mackerel, Squid, Butterfish Committee, Meeting as a Committee of the Whole – Specifications

  • Review fishery performance and make recommendations for 2018-2020 specifications, including butterfish cap

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Shad/River Herring (RH/S) Committee, Meeting as a Committee of the Whole

  • Review RH/S cap operation and RH/S progress update
  • Make recommendations for RH/S cap amount modification if necessary

12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Lunch

1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Mackerel, Squid, Butterfish Committee, Meeting as a Committee of the Whole – Squid Amendment

  • Review alternatives, public comments, and staff recommendations
  • Select preferred alternatives and adopt amendment

3:30 p.m. Council Convenes

3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Law Enforcement Reports

  • NOAA Office of Law Enforcement
  • S. Coast Guard

4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Data Modernization in the Northeast Region, Barry Clifford – NMFS and Mike Cahall – ACCSP

5:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Habitat Update

  • EFH review progress
  • Mid-Atlantic fish habitat assessment project

Thursday, June 8th

9:00 a.m. Council Convenes

9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Business Session

  • Committee Report
    • SSC Committee
  • Executive Director’s Report, Chris Moore
    • Review and approve SOPP revision regarding paid parental leave
  • Science Report,Rich Seagraves
  • Organization Reports
    • NMFS Greater Atlantic Regional Office
    • NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center
    • NOAA Office of General Counsel
    • Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
  • Liaison Reports
    • New England Council
    • South Atlantic Council
    • Regional Planning Body
  • Continuing and New Business