Saving Seafood

Court: Lawsuit accusing North Carolina of not protecting right to fish can proceed

September 7, 2022 — The North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously ruled the state can be sued for failing to protect the right of its citizens to fish.

Appeals Court Judge Toby Hampson on Tuesday published a 27-page opinion stating the lawsuit, Coastal Conservation Association v. North Carolina, could not be dismissed based on the state’s claim it possessed sovereign immunity in the matter.

The state contended it had no constitutional mandate to preserve the right of the people to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife for the public good. North Carolinians voted in 2018 to include in the state Constitution those specific rights.

Read the full article at The Center Square

How the climate bill would shift offshore wind in 4 states

August 10, 2022 — The Democrats’ climate bill would erase former President Donald Trump’s 10-year moratorium on offshore wind in the U.S. Southeast, but few experts are betting on a regionwide surge in projects.

Signed by Trump in 2020, the moratorium banned new leasing for all types of energy off the coasts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. It went into effect last month (Energywire, Sept. 29, 2020).

The “Inflation Reduction Act” — which the Senate passed over the weekend and is expected to be taken up by the House soon — would strip away the ban on offshore wind lease sales, while leaving it in place for oil and gas drilling.

But wind power has not generally experienced warm welcomes in the Southeast. Just one onshore wind farm — the Avangrid-owned Amazon Wind Farm near Elizabeth City, N.C. — currently generates electrons across the four moratorium states. Interest in offshore wind also has been mixed.

Lifting the moratorium may not transform that reality, even if Democrats’ climate bill becomes law, some clean energy advocates and environmentalists acknowledge.

In places such as Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, state officials largely haven’t enacted measures to promote offshore wind. This is in stark contrast to the state guarantees to buy offshore wind power that were crucial to the industry’s emergence in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic.

North Carolina stands out as the region’s clear exception, taking concrete steps to embrace the industry. One of its major utilities, Duke Energy, won the right to generate power from federal lease areas for offshore wind in May, as did French oil and gas major TotalEnergies SE. The state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, also has laid out specific targets for the sector: 2.8 gigawatts by 2030, and 8 gigawatts a decade later.

Across other states, however, little groundwork has been done to establish offshore wind’s foothold as a future resource. And it remains unclear if, or how quickly, official indifference might transform into boosterism.

In South Carolina, for instance, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster recently signed a law calling for a first study of how offshore wind’s need for locally made parts and staging ports could benefit the state economically.

That could help convince South Carolinians that their state is well positioned to host the industry, said Hailey Deres, program associate at the Southeastern Wind Coalition.

Read the full article at E&E News

2nd Interior lease sale boosts N.C. offshore wind

May 13, 2022 — Developers bet big on the prospect of offshore wind in North Carolina yesterday in an auction that accelerates the momentum of the Biden administration’s offshore wind thrust — and proves the industry aims to grow its footprint in the southern Atlantic.

After an all-day bidding war, French oil giant TotalEnergies SE and southern utility Duke Energy Corp. pledged a combined $315 million for the right to raise turbines in the sea off the state’s coast.

The two lease areas sold yesterday by the Interior Department could support an estimated 1.3 gigawatts of wind power between them and total 110,000 acres in federal waters roughly 20 miles south of North Carolina’s Bald Head Island. That’s enough to potentially power a half-million homes (Energywire, March 25).

The sale is part of the Biden administration’s push to raise hundreds of offshore wind turbines — 30 gigawatts of clean energy — on the outer continental shelf by 2030. Offshore wind is a critical lever in the White House’s larger climate ambitions, to decarbonize the nation’s grid by 2035 and zero out emissions economywide by midcentury.

But the robust sale that closed after 17 rounds of bidding was widely seen also as a success for the industry’s regional prospects and the sector’s growing potential footprint in the U.S. energy mix.

Read the full story at E&E News

Duke Energy wins with $155M bid to run wind farm off South, North Carolina coasts

May 12, 2022 — Duke Energy is one of two provisional winners to win a bid to run an offshore wind farm in the Carolina Long Bay area, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced Wednesday afternoon.

Duke Energy Renewables Wind, LLC, submitted a $155 million bid for 55,154 acres. TotalEnergies Renewables USA,LLC, submitted a $160 million winning bid for 54,937 acres.

The Carolina Long Bay area is off the shore of northern South Carolina and southern North Carolina.

Read the full story at WBTW

 

N.C. Court of Appeals hears arguments from OAG, CCA-NC

May 10, 2022 — A decision from three N.C. Court of Appeals judges will determine whether a civil suit between the Coastal Conservation Association’s North Carolina branch and state fisheries managers is going forward or is dead in the water.

Appellate Court Judges Hunter Murphy, Tobias Hampson and April Wood received arguments April 26 from attorneys for CCA-NC and from the N.C. Office of the Attorney General. The OAG is appealing a Wade County Superior Court decision to deny a motion to dismiss the civil suit against state fisheries managers. The appellate judges with announce their decision at a date to be determined.

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

Scallop leasing on the table? New England council starts scoping meetings

April 21, 2022 — The possibility of allowing leasing in the Atlantic scallop fishery will be explored by the New England Fishery Management Council in the coming weeks.

A preceding publicity campaign aims to get everyone in the industry out to comment in public meetings. It’s a first step for the council to investigate whether a days-at-sea and access area leasing program is needed in the limited access component of the scallop fishery.

Depending on what they learn, council members could vote to initiate a leasing amendment to the scallop management plan when they meet Sept. 27-29 in Gloucester, Mass.

Leasing has been suggested by some scallop operators, and the council approved a scoping plan at its April 12-14 meeting in Mystic, Conn. It calls for public meetings from Gloucester to New Bern, N.C., starting April 27, plus two online webinars in June, to gauge opinions.

The proposal could have broad effects, so the council is looking to go in depth.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NEFMC Approves Scallop Leasing Scoping Document; Readies for Seven In-Person Meetings and Two Webinars

April 19, 2022 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council: 

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold seven in-person scoping meetings and two webinars over the next two months to solicit public input on whether a leasing program is needed in the limited access component of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery.

The Council approved the scoping document during its April 12-14, 2022 hybrid meeting, which was held in Mystic, CT. In addition, the Council received short updates on:

Scoping Meetings Kick Off April 27th in Gloucester

The first scoping meeting for limited access leasing will be held on Wednesday, April 27, 2022 in Gloucester, Massachusetts at the Cruiseport beginning at 5:00 p.m.

Other in-person meeting locations run from New Bedford down to New Bern, North Carolina. The in-person meetings will not have a remote participation option, but two separate webinar scoping meetings are scheduled for June 17 and June 24, 2022.

Read the full release from the NEFMC

UNC Researchers: Climate change causing fish migration

March 30, 2022 — The University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences says climate change is threatening the fishing industry, which contributes close to $300 million to the economy in North Carolina.

Marine researchers say climate change is continuing to impact the environment along the coast and is now impacting the amount of fish in the water here in the east.

University of North Carolina’s Marine Sciences college in Morehead City has conducted research into the decrease in the number of fish.

Dr. Janet Nye, Associate Professor at the Institute of Marine Sciences, has been studying water temperatures and how it impacts fish along North Carolina’s Coast.

Nye says the increase in temperatures has caused flounder and grouper numbers to decrease.

Read the full story at WITN

Recruitment Announcement: Citizen Science Project Coordinator

March 28, 2022 — The following was released by The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) is seeking a Citizen Science Project Coordinator that will support the Council’s Citizen Science Program and help coordinate individual citizen science projects. The Council, headquartered in North Charleston, SC, is responsible for the conservation and management of fish stocks within the federal 200-mile limit of the Atlantic off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and east Florida to Key West. The Council’s Citizen Science Program aims to work with fishermen and scientists to facilitate and support the development of projects to address Council-specific research needs.

The Citizen Science Project Coordinator is a full-time, time-limited contract position that will work closely with the Citizen Science Program Manager. The position will primarily focus on coordinating the SAFMC Release project and the continued development of the SciFish customizable citizen science mobile application. The SAFMC Release project works with commercial, recreational, and for-hire fishermen to collect information on released fish via a mobile app. SciFish is being developed to serve as an umbrella mobile application that would support data collection for different fishery-related citizen science projects developed by partners along the Atlantic coast.

See the complete recruitment announcement available from the Council’s website for additional information and application instructions. Applications must be received by April 20, 2022.

NORTH CAROLINA: NCDMF Distributes $4.3M in CARES Funds to Commercial Fishing and Seafood Industry Participants

March 4, 2022 — Commercial fishermen and seafood dealers in Carteret County and elsewhere in North Carolina are getting $4.3 million in federal assistance for income losses due to COVID-19.

The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries announced Feb. 17 more than $4.3 million in financial relief is on its way to eligible members of the fishing industries who sustained income losses from March to December of 2020, during the ongoing pandemic.

During the week of Feb. 14-18, the division issued funds to 265 commercial fishermen and marine aquaculture operations, for-hire fishing operations, seafood dealers and processors deemed eligible for relief from the federal North Carolina Consolidated Appropriations Act Fisheries Relief Program, or CARES Act II.

According to DMF, in Carteret County, $612,763.33 in CARES funding was sent to 67 recipients. Of these recipients, 53 were commercial fishermen or aquaculture operations, three were for-hire fishermen and 11 were seafood dealers or processors.

Read the full story at Seafood News