Saving Seafood

OREGON: BOEM drops Oregon offshore wind energy auction for now for “insufficient bidder interest”

September 30, 2024 — The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says today it’s delaying an offshore wind energy auction.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) had planned the auction of potential lease areas for two offshore wind farms along the Oregon coast.

BOEM says today the auction delay is, “due to insufficient bidder interest at this time.”

A coalition of Oregon Native American tribes filed a federal lawsuit this month challenging BOEM’s plan.

On August 29, 2024, the Department of the Interior announced the Final Sale Notice (FSN) for offshore wind leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore Oregon following engagement through the Oregon Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force, including coordination with the State of Oregon on advancing opportunities for leasing that would precede a multi-year process for site assessments and subsequent review of any specific project plans if submitted. The FSN set an auction date for October 15, 2024, and included two lease areas offshore Oregon and identified the five companies qualified to participate in the sale. Following issuance of the FSN, BOEM received bidding interest from one of the five qualified companies.

Read the full article at KDVR

OREGON: 2 kinds of ocean energy inch forward off the Oregon coast

September 24, 2024 — On a cloudy late August morning, Burke Hales was on a boat a mile off the central Oregon coast, pointing to a sandy beach along the forested shoreline. It was there, the Oregon State University oceanography professor said, that the subsea cables from the first large wave energy test site in the continental U.S. will connect to land — and ultimately the local power grid.

“This is the highest power — probably the most energetic — wave condition of any of the test sites out there,” he said, as the high swells known to pound the Oregon coast rocked the boat.

The coastal waters of Oregon are shaping up to be key for advances in two forms of renewable energy: wave power and wind turbines that float. The way electricity is traditionally made is a major cause of climate change, so clean alternatives are key to addressing it.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

Tribes sue BOEM for lack of research in wind energy project on the Oregon Coast

September 19, 2024 — A lawsuit filed by the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians alleges that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) conducted insufficient analysis of offshore wind energy impacts.

The development of offshore wind energy areas are set to take place in two regions off the Oregon Coast, near Coos Bay and Brookings.

BOEM recently authorized the sale of leases for approximately 195,012 acres for wind energy development, and the plaintiff argues the areas are within the Tribe’s ancestral territory, which contain critical fish and marine wildlife habitats.

Read the full article at KATU

OREGON: 5 companies set to bid on Southern Oregon offshore wind leases

September 6, 2024 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management outlined how its Oct.15 auction will work in a final sale notice released Tuesday.

Five companies have qualified to participate in the auction, bringing offshore wind development experience from around the world.

Avangrid, which is owned by the Spanish electric utility Iberdrola, is the co-owner of the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. That project was criticized recently after a blade detached from a turbine in mid-July, and truckloads of fiberglass debris washed up on shore, according to the Boston Globe.

Read the full article at OPB

USDA awards more than USD 17 million for Pacific Northwest seafood

September 3, 2024 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded contracts for seafood from the Pacific Northwest worth more than USD 17 million (EUR 15 million), following requests from politicians and seafood organizations to do so.

Clackamas, Oregon, U.S.A.-based Dulcich, which owns Pacific Seafood, snagged the largest portion of the contracts – USD 9.3 million (EUR 8.4 million) for Pacific whiting.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

OREGON: Federal government will hold first-ever offshore wind auction off the Oregon

August 30, 2024 — The federal government says it will hold Oregon’s first-ever offshore wind energy lease sale in mid-October to auction two areas where developers can build floating wind turbines.

The announcement by the U.S. Department of the Interior on Thursday cements the development of offshore wind in Oregon despite vehement opposition from coastal communities, the state’s fishing industry and local tribes who say the process was rushed and ignored local input.

Read the full article at The Oregonian

OREGON: Wyden, Merkley announce more than $35M in federal funds for salmon recovery

August 23, 2024 — Senators Wyden and Merkley are announcing some major funding to support salmon recovery in Oregon.

The two U.S. Senators announced Wednesday that both Oregon and the Klamath Basin are receiving more than $35 million from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. The federal grant program helps to restore Pacific salmon and steelhead.

The money will be distributed between the Klamath River Inter-Tribal Fish and Water Commission and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board.

Senator Merkley says Oregon’s salmon population is critical in sustaining the state’s commercial and recreational fisheries as well as being a crucial part of the cultural heritage of Oregon’s Indigenous Tribes.

Read the full article at KOBI

OREGON: Record crab harvest among other results

August 14, 2024 — Oregon’s fishing scene in 2023 was a bit of a mixed bag. While the state’s commercial fishing industry landed 301 million pounds of seafood, up from the previous year, the total revenue didn’t quite hit the high notes of the past few years. The amount of crab harvested nearly doubled compared to 2022, but low prices kept the revenue from making this season something special for the fishermen. Salmon landings took a hit, and the pink shrimp market saw a price drop despite better landings. Overall, it was a year of contrasts, with some fisheries thriving and others struggling.

The report shared by the State of Oregon Employment Department examined individual fisheries and employment in each state county. The industry landed a total of 301 million pounds, which was worth $178 million in 2023. Though it was more pounds than in 2022, it was below the average landings and revenue from 2018 to 2022, which was 319 million pounds worth $189 million.

Crab harvests in 2023 were 37.2 million pounds versus 4.9 million pounds the year before. Typically, the state’s crab season begins in December. However, the season didn’t fully open until Feb 1, 2023, making the 2022 crab harvest drastically lower than the historical trends. The 2023 harvest was twice as large as the five-year average of 18.3 million pounds. The year’s total revenue sat at $104 million due to the low crab prices. Dungeness crab’s average landed price per pound was $2.80 in 2023, the lowest seen since 2013’s $2.74 per pound.

Salmon landings significantly dropped 18% in 2023, totaling 1.7 million pounds. This was more than the five-year average, which was 1.4 million pounds. The average price also dropped, leading to a decrease in total landed value of 32%, totaling $5.2 million. The U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a disaster declaration for the 2023 Oregon ocean troll salmon fishery due to the long-term trend of low levels of salmon harvests.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

US promises $240 million to improve fish hatcheries, protect tribal rights in Pacific Northwest

July 26, 2024 — The U.S. government will invest $240 million in salmon and steelhead hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest to boost declining fish populations and support the treaty-protected fishing rights of Native American tribes, officials announced Thursday.

The departments of Commerce and the Interior said there will be an initial $54 million for hatchery maintenance and modernization made available to 27 tribes in the region, which includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.

The hatcheries “produce the salmon that tribes need to live,” said Jennifer Quan, the regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. “We are talking about food for the tribes and supporting their culture and their spirituality.”

Some of the facilities are on the brink of failure, Quan said, with a backlog of deferred maintenance that has a cost estimated at more than $1 billion.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Climate change is causing low-oxygen levels in Pacific Northwest ocean, report says

June 17, 2024 — A recent report out of Oregon State University paints a picture of how ocean oxygen levels have decreased in the Pacific Northwest over the years.

The report found near-bottom levels of dissolved oxygen in the waters off of Washington, Oregon and Northern California in 2021. JPR’s Roman Battaglia talked to Jack Barth, professor of oceanography at OSU, about his report and what these low oxygen levels mean for marine life.

Roman Battaglia: One thing I noticed in this study was that the levels seem pretty different in different parts of the coast. For example, in northern California and the southern Oregon coast, the oxygen levels seem much higher than they are in southern Washington and the northern Oregon coast. But why is there so much variability?

Jack Barth: That was the second big outcome of the paper, is that there really are regional differences. And importantly, we can explain them by oceanographic processes. So that higher oxygen level off southern Oregon, that’s because the continental shelf is relatively narrow. So it can flush water on and off pretty effectively from the deep ocean and flush out that low oxygen water so it stays high. And it looks like a pretty good area for fisheries. As you get into the wider continental shelves off central Oregon and Washington, the water sticks around longer; it doesn’t get flushed off as effectively. So that keeps those low oxygen waters near the bottom on those wider shelves.

Read the full transcript at OPB