Saving Seafood

OREGON: Oregon’s Dungeness crab season pushed

November 22, 2024 — Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab season is delayed coastwide until at least Dec. 16, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) announced yesterday. Pre-season testing shows that Dungeness crabs are too low in meat yield in some ocean areas and have elevated domoic acid in crab viscera (guts) in two areas on the south coast.

Oregon’s ocean commercial Dungeness crab season, targeted to open Dec. 1, can be delayed so consumers get a high-quality product and crabs are not wasted.

The commercial bay crab fishery (currently open from Cape Blanco to the Washington border) closes at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 1 in conjunction with the delayed ocean commercial season. The commercial bay crab season runs through Dec. 31 but will only reopen in December if the ocean commercial season does so.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Salmon return to lay eggs in historic habitat after largest dam removal project in US history

November 18, 2024 — A giant female Chinook salmon flips on her side in the shallow water and wriggles wildly, using her tail to carve out a nest in the riverbed as her body glistens in the sunlight. In another moment, males butt into each other as they jockey for a good position to fertilize eggs.

These are scenes local tribes have dreamed of seeing for decades as they fought to bring down four hydroelectric dams blocking passage for struggling salmon along more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of the Klamath River and its tributaries along the Oregon-California border.

Now, less than a month after those dams came down in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, salmon are once more returning to spawn in cool creeks that have been cut off to them for generations. Video shot by the Yurok Tribe show that hundreds of salmon have made it to tributaries between the former Iron Gate and Copco dams, a hopeful sign for the newly freed waterway.

“Seeing salmon spawning above the former dams fills my heart,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “Our salmon are coming home. Klamath Basin tribes fought for decades to make this day a reality because our future generations deserve to inherit a healthier river from the headwaters to the sea.”

The Klamath River flows from its headwaters in southern Oregon and across the mountainous forests of northern California before it reaches the Pacific Ocean

Read the full article at The Associated Press

Researchers optimistic as salmon return to Klamath River

November 4, 2024 — Researchers are expressing optimism over the initial signs of salmon migration in the Lower Klamath River following the nation’s largest-ever dam removal, saying fish are moving upstream into previously blocked regions as the waterway shows signs of improving health.

A series of four dams were removed from the river in Northern California and southern Oregon, with demolition completed in early October, restoring more than 400 miles of free-flowing waterway that had been blocked for a century.

Federal, tribal and state fisheries managers predict it could take at least a decade for the region’s fisheries to recover to healthy population levels, but on Thursday they touted the first post-removal migration.

Read the full article at E&E News

OREGON: Tribes slow Oregon’s offshore wind plans to ask ‘the big questions’ on cultural, environmental impacts

October 7, 2024 — To Courtney Krossman and Jesse Beers, the windswept view off Gregory Point offers more than just postcard-perfect scenery.

The majestic cape juts into the Pacific Ocean just south of Coos Bay, its sharp sandstone cliffs ringed by dark water.

“When you look in that direction, the view is essentially the same as what our ancestors saw when they were standing here. It has not altered,” said Krossman, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians.

The headland was once home to a village of Miluk-speaking Coos people. Officially returned to the coastal tribes just a decade ago, the site is home to first salmon ceremonies, remembrances for the dead and prayers for ancestors – traditions that Krossman and Beers, the tribes’ cultural stewardship manager, are working hard to preserve.

The tribes’ leaders say the view, the land, the fish and other marine life – fundamental to their cultural and spiritual legacy – could in the coming years be marred by massive floating wind towers and their turbines.

Read the full article at The Chronicle 

OREGON: With offshore wind on hold, fishermen want a more rigorous evaluation

October 7, 2024 — For most of his life, Paul Kujala has called himself a fisherman. The Warrenton local owns and operates a small bottom-trawling vessel that he uses to catch sole, sablefish and rockfish — but over the last few years, he’s had his eye on a new technology he fears could threaten that work: floating offshore wind.

Kujala isn’t the only one.

For months, fishermen and others who work in the fishing industry have been calling on the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to slow down its process for two proposed wind energy lease areas — a 61,204-acre site 32 miles offshore in Coos Bay and a 133,808-acre site about 18 miles off the coast of Brookings — citing economic and environmental concerns for communities up and down the coast. Those concerns were amplified last month after the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians filed a lawsuit against the bureau and Gov. Tina Kotek sent a letter urging the bureau not to move forward with a long-anticipated Oct. 15 lease auction of the two sites.

Read the full article at The Astorian

 

Pacific Seafood enmeshed in lawsuits concerning business practices of Galveston Shrimp Company subsidiary

October 1, 2024 — Clackamas, Oregon, U.S.A.-based Pacific Seafood is involved in at least three lawsuits related to the operation of its Galveston Shrimp Company subsidiary.

The most recent, filed 23 September, involves a suit brought by the company’s former finance director, Justin Ottman, who claims his employment was wrongfully terminated after he raised concerns about potential fraud involving Galveston Shrimp Company (GSC), a shrimp processor based in Galveston, Texas, U.S.A. that Pacific acquired in 2011.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

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