Saving Seafood

Charlie Baker: Fishing, offshore wind coexistence is ‘something we have to deal with’

December 14, 2018 — Gov. Charlie Baker expressed confidence on Thursday that offshore wind developers and fishermen in the Northeast will find a way to co-exist.

“This is something we have to deal with on a regional basis and I believe we will,” Baker told reporters.

His comments come as Rhode Island fishermen are raising objections to the state’s Vineyard Wind project and the federal government is auctioning off more ocean real estate.

The Rhode Island Fishermen’s Advisory Board recently voted against the Vineyard Wind project in a move that could scuttle the state’s foray into offshore wind.

Baker said he’s proud that Massachusetts proved states could create an offshore program “at a rate affordable to ratepayers,” but added, “Nobody cares more about the fishing community than this administration.”

Read the full story at the Salem News

 

Vineyard Wind navigates travel lane dispute

Fishermen want wider corridors than those wind farm has backed.

December 14, 2018 — A dust-up has emerged over vessel travel lanes in the vast offshore wind area south of the Islands, with wind farm development companies at odds and fishermen giving mixed reviews.

“We support establishing transit corridors through the wind energy areas,” said Lauren Burm, a spokeswoman for Bay State Wind, which has signed a lease in the area but does not yet have a contract to sell its wind power. Although progress has been made on the corridor layout, a consensus is still needed with fishermen and with new companies that may lease remaining areas, Burm said.

Vineyard Wind, under the pressure of a tight schedule to begin construction next year of an 84-turbine wind farm, announced Monday that it supports the proposed 2-nautical-mile-wide vessel travel corridors. But the company’s 800-megawatt wind farm is northeast of any of the proposed corridors, so it may not be an issue until the company needs to expand. “We’re amenable to discussing a wider corridor,” company spokesman Scott Farmelant said.

The proposed corridors are not as wide as commercial fishermen might like.

“It’s a good starting point,” said lobsterman Lanny Dellinger, chairman of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council Fisheries Advisory Board. But the commercial fishing industry has been pretty adamant about wanting 4 miles in width, Dellinger said. Fishermen need plenty of room to allow their large and slow-moving vessels to navigate safely in poor weather and recover safely in emergencies such as engine trouble, he said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

New England Council Discusses Whiting, Enforcement, Dogfish, Herring, Ecosystem Management, and More at December Meeting

December 14, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council covered numerous issues during its December 4-6 meeting in Newport, RI. In addition to taking final action on Scallop Framework 30, Groundfish Framework 58, and the Clam Dredge Framework, the Council discussed a slate of other topics. Here are a few highlights.

WHITING: The Council took final action on Whiting Amendment 22, which was developed to consider limited access options for the small-mesh multispecies fishery. After reviewing all public comment and available analyses and considering a recommendation from its Whiting Committee, the Council selected the alternative called “status quo/no action.” As such, the whiting/small-mesh multispecies fishery will remain an open access fishery and no changes will be made to existing regulatory measures. More information, including summaries of public hearing comments, is available at December 3 Committee Meeting and December 4, 2018 Council Meeting Materials.

ENFORCEMENT: The Council adopted several consensus statements drafted by its Enforcement Committee. One of these pertained to use of the OMEGA Mesh Gauge® to measure fishing nets. The Coast Guard extensively tested the OMEGA gauge and concluded that it has notable benefits over the weight-and-spade tools currently being used to measure webbing. Coast Guard representatives provided a demonstration for Council members comparing the OMEGA gauge versus the weight-and-spade. The Council recommended that NOAA, under existing authority, adopt the OMEGA gauge to measure mesh size once the Enforcement Section of NOAA General Counsel determines that all legal requirements have been met.

Read the full release at the New England Fishery Management Council

 

Creating Transit Lanes for Fishing Vessels in Northeast Wind Energy Areas Still a Work in Progress

December 11, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Offshore Wind Transit Working Group is inching closer to developing transit lanes for fishing vessels in Northeast Wind Energy Areas.

Members of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), as well as other fishing industry representatives, offshore wind developer lease-holders, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the U.S. Coat Guard, convened in Newport, Rhode Island, earlier this month for the Working Group meeting, which aimed to develop fishery transit lanes through the Wind Energy Areas (WEA) in federal waters off of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Currently there are concerns about commercial fishermen safely traveling across WEAs to access fishing grounds. According to RODA, safety risks “greatly increase” due to the long distances that fishing boats may be required to take in order to get around or through the WEAs. To solve the issue, the working group is developing transit lanes.

The goal is for the group to come up with a transit lane option that preserves the most important routes to the historic fisheries. Some route options have been identified, but so far nothing has been finalized.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

New England Shellfish Harvest OK’d, With More Monitoring

December 7, 2018 — A regulatory board is allowing shellfish harvesting in a key management area off of New England, though more monitoring of the fishery will now apply.

The New England Fishery Management Council has approved new measures to allow the harvest of surfclams within the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area. The council says mussel fishermen will also be able to operate in the new areas.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S News and World Report

Wind Farm Near Martha’s Vineyard In Jeopardy

December 6, 2018 — Rhode Island fishing interests, given the authority to weigh in on offshore wind projects that could damage their livelihoods, are flexing their muscles. As a result, a 94-turbine wind farm planned for waters south of Martha’s Vineyard is in serious jeopardy.

Like Deepwater Wind’s South Fork Wind farm planned off of Montauk, the Vineyard Wind project is owned by European energy companies with global wind-farm interests. Rhode Island, as part of the permitting process, asked for and was given “Federal Consistency” because even though the project originates in Massachusetts, it affects fisheries in neighboring states. New didn’t ask for the right to weigh in, even though local fishermen extensively fish that area.

On Tuesday, November 27, the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council agreed to postpone its decision to grant a “consistency certification” for Vineyard Wind until the end of January. If Rhode Island denies certification, Vineyard Wind could appeal to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It is not clear how the latest news affects the Deepwater Wind project off of Montauk Point but it is sure to come up during the state’s review of the project. In fact, fishing industry proponents are urging New York State officials to be proactive in the review of any proposed offshore wind farm in the immediate region.

Read the full story at The Independent

Working Group Nears Consensus on Transit Lanes for Fishing Vessels in Northeast Wind Energy Areas

December 6, 2018 — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), which consists of regional fishing industry representatives from Maine to North Carolina, convened an Offshore Wind Transit Lane Working Group meeting on December 3rd at the Hotel Viking in Newport, R.I.

Fishing industry representatives, offshore wind developer lease-holders, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and the U.S. Coast Guard, among others, joined RODA to continue an attempt to develop fishery transit lanes through the large group of Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) in federal waters off of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The meeting was facilitated by the Consensus Building Institute. Currently, three WEAs are subject to active leases held by Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Vineyard Wind.  BOEM will hold an additional auction for three new leases in WEAs adjacent to the existing sites on December 13, 2018.

In addition to loss of access within the lease areas, commercial fishermen coastwide have long been concerned about their ability to safely travel across wind energy arrays to access other historical, traditional commercial fishing grounds. They are especially concerned with the size of the WEAs being proposed by BOEM, which are by far the largest in the world.

While fishing industry representatives and wind developers agree that minimizing transit time through wind energy arrays is a primary design goal, safety risks greatly increase due to the long distances—up to 50-70 miles—fishing boats may be required to transit either around or through wind energy arrays.

The Massachusetts Fisheries Working Group on Offshore Wind began to consider the development of transit lanes earlier this year, and RODA has since held a large workshop followed by the smaller working group meeting to continue this task. To prepare for the working group meeting, RODA asked NMFS and the Northeast Regional Ocean Council Data Portal team to evaluate historic transit patterns to identify options for safe and direct access to fishing grounds. NMFS presented an analysis based on VMS and AIS data that substantially supported input received from the fishing industry regarding prevailing transit patterns.

As some examples, vessels from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and other ports frequently cross the Wind Energy Areas in a “diagonal” Northwest-Southeast direction to access offshore fishing grounds, and will no longer have access to direct routes. Vessels from New York must additionally transit in an East-West direction, whereas other fisheries access grounds in a variety of directions including North-South in western and eastern portions of the lease areas.

Fishing industry representatives have considered a wide range of transit lane options and continue to support options that generally preserve these most important routes to their historic fisheries, which must include a “diagonal” route or, less favorably, smoothing out the Northwest-Southeast edges of the lease areas to allow more direct transit along the perimeters. Offshore wind lease-holding developers, for their part, have attempted to identify routes to meet those goals that also preserve the energy-generating nameplate capacity for each site that allows them to meet pricing goals for power procurement. Developers have various viewpoints on preferred transit lane locations and, as such, layouts have differing ranges of support including for the currently unleased areas.

The series of discussions regarding transit lane design was further from achieving consensus on the necessary width of transit lanes. Offshore fishermen have consistently requested lanes to be a minimum width of 4 nautical miles to allow for safe passage in an area known for extreme weather and tidal conditions, and to mitigate the anticipated effects of radar interference emanating from large monopole turbines. The developers have proposed lanes of only one to two nautical miles in order to optimize site layouts for wind exposure.

In order to foster evidence-based progress on necessary transit lane widths, RODA and others have requested the Coast Guard and BOEM to conduct an in-depth analysis regarding fisheries vessel position data, radar functionality, emergency incident reports, and other items.

While the group has not yet finalized recommendations, both fishermen and developers broadly agree that the most efficient timing for transit lane identification would occur before a lease is issued. RODA therefore strongly urges BOEM to include stipulations for the continuation of these transit lanes in its upcoming lease sale, and welcomes inquiries as to the status of these recommendations as potential bidders prepare proposals.

Additional materials, including a meeting summary with details regarding each of the options, will be available shortly on the RODA website.

About RODA
The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) is a broad, membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and companies working to improve the compatibility of new offshore development with their businesses. It seeks to coordinate science and policy approaches, through public and private partnerships, to manage development of the Outer Continental Shelf in a way that minimizes conflicts with existing traditional and historical fishing.

NOAA seeks recreational fishermen’s input

November 29, 2018 — NOAA Fisheries is ramping up its plans to develop management strategies for the Northeast recreational groundfish fishery for 2019, beginning with three January workshops for stakeholder input.

The agency’s Gloucester-based Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office has scheduled the workshops for Jan. 8 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Jan. 10 in Narragansett, Rhode Island; and Jan. 12 in Plymouth. Times still are to be determined.

The workshops, beyond soliciting stakeholder comment, also will jump-start the campaign to develop new short-term and long-term management measures for the recreational fishing industry “that balance the need to prevent overfishing with enabling profitability in the for-hire fleet” and provide other opportunities for recreational anglers.

In the short term, regulators are seeking potential new management measures to achieve, but not exceed, recreational catch limits in the upcoming 2019 fishing season, including Gulf of Maine cod and haddock.

In the long term, NOAA is exploring how to use new data — such as the information culled from the Marine Recreational Information Program — in its management of recreational groundfish stocks. It also is seeking the most effective manner to use available research to reduce or avoid bycatch mortality, calculate dead discards and the best methods of release.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Clam controversy: Prime area may be closed to save fish

November 29, 2018 —  In June, at the Intershell dock on Commercial Street, owners Monte and Yibing Gao Rome launched their new 55-foot surf clam boat, F/V Bing Bing, amid the hoopla and happiness associated with a new Gloucester boat going into the water.

The Bing Bing sitting pretty at the dock that day was the most recent, and perhaps most palpable, reflection of Intershell’s commitment to the surf clam fishery. The metal-hulled boat, built in Mississippi in 1977 and just off a 10-month retrofit, became the third surf clam boat in the Intershell fleet.

But on Tuesday, in a ballroom of the aptly named Viking Hotel in Newport, Rhode Island, Intershell and the other major surf clammers along the Northeast will find out if they still have a surf clam fishery to call home in the lucrative and historically rich Great South Channel of the Nantucket Shoals.

The New England Fishery Management Council, in a trailing action to its Omnibus 2 Essential Fish Habitat Amendment, will decide if a large swath of the current surf clam fishery, 10 to 20 miles east and southeast of Nantucket, will remain open to surf clamming or possibly be closed as part of a protectionist move to designate the full area as an essential fish habitat.

If designated as a full essential fish habitat, the whole Great South Channel would be closed to surf clammers and their hydraulic water-pressure dredging gear, as it already has been to all other types of mobile, bottom tending gear.

The clammers initially got a one-year extension to continue fishing when the council designated the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area. That exemption is set to expire April 9, 2019.

“The Nantucket Shoals are one of the premium, large-scale harvest areas on the East Coast and not an essential fish habitat,” Monte Rome said Wednesday as workers buzzed around the the sprawling Intershell facility in the Blackburn Industrial Park. “We’ve been going to habitat committee meetings and plan development meetings for months and they have constantly revealed that right now there is not anywhere near enough data to make a decision on whether this is an essential fish habitat. They say it might be. We say there is essentially no fish habitat within the area where we have fished for surf clams for the past 30 years.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Feds looking to increase limits for skate fishing in Northeast

November 29, 2018 — The federal government’s considering allowing northeastern U.S. fishermen to harvest more skates, which are used for food and bait.

Skates are flat fish caught on both coasts of the U.S. and commonly sold as “skate wing.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s looking to increase the maximum catch of skate wing in the northeastern states from 19.2 million pounds to 23.1 million pounds.

The maximum amount of skate bait that can be brought to land would also be boosted from 9.7 million pounds to 11.6 million pounds.

American fishermen caught over 40 million pounds of skate in 2016, the most recent year for which figures are available.

The biggest skate fisheries in the northeastern U.S. are based in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

More information on the revised Framework Adjustment 6 may be found at https://bit.ly/2Pa8Zw2.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times