September 29, 2020 — Maine is among the latest states have had CARES Act spend-plans approved by NOAA, bringing the current total of states with approved plans to 12 as of 29 September.
Maine – along with Alabama, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia – have all had spend plans approved and can now begin the application process for fishery participants. The states join California, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, and South Carolina.
September 29, 2020 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
The New England Fishery Management Council today reelected Dr. John Quinn of Massachusetts and Eric Reid of Rhode Island to serve as chairman and vice chairman, respectively, for another year in the Council’s two top leadership positions.
This is Dr. Quinn’s fifth consecutive year in the chairman’s post. He is the Assistant Dean of Public Interest Law and External Relations at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) School of Law. He also is the Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Government Relations at the UMass School of Law. Prior to becoming Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn. – NEFMC photo Council Vice Chairman Eric Reid. – NEFMC photo Council chairman, Dr. Quinn served as vice chair for three years. He joined the Council in 2012 with a long history of legislative, legal, and fishing industry experience as a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for 18 years and as a practicing attorney, first at an outside law firm from 1989-1992 and then through his own firm from 1994-2010. During these tenures, he spent a considerable amount of time working on fisheries issues, which led him to be well prepared for his extensive responsibilities as Council chairman.
This is Eric Reid’s second year as Council vice chairman. He works at Seafreeze Shoreside Inc., a large, full-service seafood processing facility in Galilee, Rhode Island. He previously owned and operated his own business, Deep Sea Fish of Rhode Island, for 11 years before joining Seafreeze in 2013. Eric has a long history in seafood processing in several of New England’s largest fishing ports, and in his early career, he spent time on both commercial and recreational fishing vessels. He currently is a U.S. Commissioner to the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization.
September 25, 2020 — Nearly 20 years ago when Perry Raso leased a 1-acre piece of Potter Pond in South County to farm oysters, aquaculture was in its infancy in the Ocean State.
Raso, then in his early 20s, was only the 15th person to obtain a lease from the state and called himself a stockholder in the pond where he spent part of every day.
Today, the entrepreneurial owner of the Matunuck Oyster Farm and the Matunuck Oyster Bar nurtures 16 million oysters in different stages of growth on 7 acres in the saltwater estuary a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean.
His farm is now one of 70 similar aquaculture operations across the state.
The farmed oysters mature slowly under about 4 feet of water in polyethylene bags that are open to the sea at one end of the pond.
The oysters extract algae from the water that flows through the baskets on the rising and falling tides, said Raso, 39.
He has about 2,000 bags of oysters growing in the pond at any one time. The farm crew tends the operation daily and passes the oysters through a tumbler apparatus frequently to separate them by size in the growing process.
September 15, 2020 — National Grid and Deepwater Wind, now Ørsted, were given a break by Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) when the agency granted the use of a cost-saving method for burying the Block Island Wind Farm power cables at a New Shoreham beach. Both companies now likely regret that decision.
National Grid, which owns the high-voltage power line from Block Island to Narragansett, expects to pay $30 million for its share of the reconstruction, which will require horizontal directional drilling. The state’s primary electric utility will recover the expense through an undetermined surcharge on ratepayers’ bills.
“While exact bill impacts won’t be available for some time, we don’t anticipate major fluctuations to those charges with these needed repairs,” National Grid spokesperson Ted Kresse said.
The power line from the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm reaches shore at Fred Benson Town Beach and leaves New Shoreham for Narragansett at Crescent Beach to the north. But keeping portions of the cable buried at Crescent Beach has been a struggle.
September 14, 2020 — The R.I. Department of Environmental Management on Friday said it will begin accepting applications for a total of $3.1 million available for fisheries assistance starting Sept. 14.
The funds come from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Applicants can include commercial harvesters, commercial aquaculturists, seafood processors and dealers, for-hire vessels and business owners.
Eligible applicants must have incurred, as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a documented fishery-related loss in revenue between March and May 2020 greater than 35% to related average revenue earned in the same timespan over the previous five years, or applicable years in operation.
September 1, 2020 — Last week Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Melissa Darigan dismissed a complaint filed by Nature’s Trust Rhode Island against the Department of Environmental Management (DEM). On behalf of 13 young Rhode Islanders and the Sisters of Mercy Ecology, the group filed suit after DEM had rejected an attempt that would have forced the state to address, systematically and meaningfully, the climate crisis and to take responsibility for its share of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Peter Nightingale, president of the Nature’s Trust Rhode Island board, said the judge’s recent ruling “makes it clear that the Rhode Island courts shirk their responsibility to protect the environment.”
The University of Rhode Island physics professor pointed to House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello’s statement at the beginning of this year that “there’s nothing Rhode Island can do to address climate change in a way that is real or impactful” as perhaps the most vivid example of political negligence.
August 20, 2020 — Squid made up most of the 48 million pounds landed at Point Judith, R.I., during 2018, a year when the port brought in $64 million, according to the latest National Marine Fisheries Service statistics.
So when the covid-19 pandemic shut down restaurants around the country – and with them most demand for fried calamari, the ubiquitous casual-dining appetizer – the Rhode Island seafood industry took a huge hit.
But fishermen and their supporters in state government regrouped, with a new licensing system to allow fishermen to sell directly to customers as “our restaurant and fishing industry have been decimated” by the lockdowns, state Democratic Party chairman Joe McNamara told the national television audience during the Tuesday evening broadcast of the national Democratic presidential convention.
August 19, 2020 — Rhode Island won the roll call.
State Democratic Party Chairman Joseph McNamara highlighted the state’s official appetizer during the roll call of the largely virtual Democratic National Convention Tuesday. McNamara stood on Oakland Beach in Warwick behind Iggy’s Boardwalk alongside John Bordieri, the executive chef of the Rhode Island seafood mainstay, holding a platter laden with Rhode Island-style calamari — a mix of battered-and-fried squid, sliced banana peppers, and olive oil dressing.
“Rhode Island, the Ocean State, where our restaurant and fishing industry have been decimated by this pandemic, are lucky to have a Governor, Gina Raimondo, whose program lets our fishermen sell their catches directly to the public, and our state appetizer, calamari, is available in all 50 states,” McNamara said.
August 14, 2020 — Last October, lobstermen fishing off the coast of southern New England noticed the lobsters getting more active. That’s fairly common, says Mark Sweitzer, a commercial fisherman out of Port Judith, Rhode Island.
“It’s not unusual for there to be a big pop of lobster in September or October,” says Sweitzer. “Fall’s our best fishing.”
But along with the lobster came something more unusual: a temperature spike on the seafloor, about 150-200 feet down. The temperature jumped from about 50 degrees to 60 — “a big, big change,” says Sweitzer — and stayed there for 38 days, from October 10 to November 15.
Sea surface temperature can change rapidly, rising or falling with strong winds or a storm. But at the bottom, temperature changes much more slowly. “So to get a temperature change that big on the bottom, that is major,” says Sweitzer. “Something caused that to happen. That wasn’t a few warm nights.”
August 13, 2020 — A new report from the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) displays the importance of summer flounder to Mid-Atlantic coastal communities.
SCEMFIS found that $26.5 million worth of fish landed at the docks, generating over $151 million in total sales for wholesalers, retailers and restaurants. Overall, the fishery which operates in New Jersey, Virginia and Rhode Island is responsible for over $259 million in total economic output and over 1,600 direct jobs.