Saving Seafood

Awash in uncertainty, SouthCoast Wind contract delayed for a third time

April 2, 2025 — No one knew exactly how President Donald Trump’s first-day order halting new offshore wind leases would affect the federal approvals already granted for the SouthCoast Wind project planned south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

More than two months later, uncertainty still hangs over the 147-turbine wind farm. Which is why SouthCoast Wind and utility companies in Rhode Island and Massachusetts announced Monday a three-month extension to finish contract negotiations — the same day final contracts were set to be executed.

“The multi-state negotiations have been complex and ambitious; now they must also tackle uncertainty presented by federal policy,” Rebecca Ullman, a SouthCoast Wind spokesperson, said in an emailed statement on Monday. SouthCoast Wind is grateful for the continued collaboration with our Massachusetts and Rhode Island partners.”

The new June 30 deadline marks the third delay since Rhode Island and Massachusetts jointly unveiled plans in September to buy power from SouthCoast Wind following a competitive, tri-state solicitation that included Connecticut. The bulk of the power from SouthCoast’s 1,287 megawatts of “nameplate capacity” — 1,087 megawatts — would go to Massachusetts under tentative contracts with its utility companies. Rhode Island Energy was set to buy the remaining 200 megawatts of wind-powered electricity to deliver to the Ocean State’s electric grid.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

RHODE ISLAND: RI fishermen back legislation that could make calamari cheaper

April 2, 2025 — The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) said climate change is bringing more squid to Rhode Island than ever before, but the rules about how much they can catch are made by out-of-state regulators.

“We have the highest amount of landings here in Rhode Island and we don’t even sit on the council that makes the rules for them,” said Jason McNamee, the deputy director of the DEM’s Bureau of Natural Resources.

He said squid used to be more of a mid-Atlantic species. Yet while the species has migrated north, the regulations are still being created by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. The council includes members representing states from New York to North Carolina, but not Rhode Island.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News

Reed renews bid for Rhode Island on MAFMC

April 1, 2025 — U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) has reintroduced legislation to add the state of Rhode Island to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC), one of the eight regional fishery councils that manage commercial fishing in the United States.

The Mid-Atlantic Council holds primary management authority over federal waters off the coasts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.

Rhode Island currently sits on the New England Fishery Management Council, which governs fishing to the north of the Mid-Atlantic Council area along the United States’ Atlantic coast. However, Reed claims that Rhode Island would be better served by a seat on the MAFMC, since the commercial fisheries Rhode Island fishers are most actively participating in are managed by the MAFMC, not the NEFMC.

“For years now, Rhode Island’s landings of stocks managed by the MAFMC have outpaced the landings of those managed by the New England Fishery Management Council, where Rhode Island is represented,” Reed said on the floor of the U.S. Senate on March 26. “Moreover, Rhode Island has a larger stake in the mid-Atlantic fishery than many of the States that currently hold seats on the MAFMC.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman 

Rhode Island lawmakers continue push for seat on Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council

March 28, 2025 — U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) has reintroduced legislation to add the state of Rhode Island to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC), one of the eight regional fishery councils that manages commercial fishing in the United States.

The Mid-Atlantic Council holds primary management authority over federal waters off the coasts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

American Food Partners acquires Rhode Island calamari firm The Town Dock

March 21, 2025 — Narragansett, Rhode Island, U.S.A.-based American Food Partners (AFP) has acquired seafood supplier NGC, Inc., which conducts business under the name The Town Dock, and its affiliated fleet of vessels.

The acquisition of The Town Dock, a supplier specializing in squid and calamari, reflects AFP’s “growing presence in the U.S. market,” AFP said in a press release. By adding The Town Dock, AFP now has several seafood brands in its portfolio, including SeaFresh USA and Handrigan Seafood.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Rhode Island’s ‘Squid Squad’ Targeted in DOGE Purge of NOAA

March 4, 2025 — The head of squid research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Narragansett Bay facility is among the hundreds of agency employees nationwide who are no longer on the job, according to one of NOAA’s former administrators.

Former National Marine Fisheries Service Administrator Janet Coit said Monday that about 20 employees from NOAA’s Rhode Island office and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts were recently dismissed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Coit shared the revelation during a roundtable discussion hosted by U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) at Save the Bay’s headquarters near the Port of Providence.

Coit, who directed the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) from 2011 to 2021, called the firings “sudden, irrational and indiscriminate.”

“The circumstances are dire,” she said. “The impact will be felt in a cascading and ripple effect across many different coastal communities.”

NOAA began firing employees on Feb. 27 as part of the latest wave of cuts from DOGE to shrink the federal workforce. NOAA employs some 12,000 people nationally — 94 of whom work in Rhode Island, according to the latest figures available from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Read the full article at Rhode Island PBS

RHODE ISLAND: Magaziner states NOAA Cuts ‘a direct attack on the Ocean State’

March 4, 2025 — Sharp cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will hurt Rhode Island’s economy and imperil its commercial fisheries, said U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner.

The White House on Thursday cut around 800 people from the NOAA payroll, and intends to eliminate 30% to 50% of the agency’s staff, said Magaziner, who hosted a panel discussion in Providence to “sound the alarm.”

“As the Ocean State, it is a direct attack on our character and our quality of life,” Magaziner said. “And we need to fight back.”

Read the full article at Providence Business First

‘This Is a Calamity’: Federal Cuts Decimate NOAA Programs and Threaten Rhode Island’s Blue Economy

March 4, 2025 — As chaos and uncertainty continue to be unleashed on federal agencies thanks to the policies of the Trump administration, the Ocean State’s blue economy is just starting to feel those downstream impacts.

While federal jobs by themselves don’t play an outsized role in the state’s economy, many functions of scientific marine research, marine resource management, and commercial fishing rely heavily on federal initiatives or funding.

The past few weeks have seen 800 probationary employees at the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fired without cause, and further deep cuts to agency staffing are expected by a March 13 deadline issued by the White House to its federal agency chiefs.

Many of the federal grants awarded to states, nonprofits or other nongovernmental agencies remain frozen and inaccessible, despite multiple court orders from multiple district judges to turn the funding spigot back on.

Read the full article at EcoRi News

RHODE ISLAND: Will Trump’s offshore wind executive order halt RI’s projects? What to know.

January 22, 2025 — An executive order signed by President Donald Trump aimed at reining in the expansion of offshore wind may not affect projects that are already in the development pipeline off southern New England.

The sweeping order signed on Monday temporarily halts sales of leases to offshore wind developers in federal waters and pauses permitting for projects, pending a review by the Department of the Interior and other federal government agencies.

But the order doesn’t go so far as trying to put a stop to wind farms that have already gone through the federal permitting process or are under construction.

They include Revolution Wind, the 704-megawatt project that is being built off the Rhode Island coast, or SouthCoast Wind, the proposal for up to 2,400 megawatts of capacity south of Nantucket that last month got the green light from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is part of the interior department.

Read the full article at the The Providence Journal

SouthCoast Wind deal deadline pushed to end of March

January 22, 2025 — Gov. Dan McKee’s newly unveiled fiscal 2026 budget touts Rhode Island as a “key player” in the offshore wind sector, citing the state’s intent to buy 200 megawatts of wind-powered electricity from a wind farm planned off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

But Rhode Island’s utility company hasn’t actually inked the deal with the SouthCoast Wind developers. In fact, the deadline to sign the contract has been pushed back again, with negotiations between Rhode Island Energy and the wind project developer now expected to wrap up by March 31, according to an updated timeline posted on the state’s offshore wind procurement website.

When Rhode Island Energy unveiled its tentative power purchase agreement with SouthCoast Wind developers in September, it pegged Dec. 31 as the deadline to seal the deal. Then, the deadline was moved to Jan. 15.

On Thursday, Jan. 16, Rhode Island Energy again announced a delay in the contract signing.

“The revised schedule aligns with the negotiations SouthCoast Wind is concurrently having with the Massachusetts electric distribution companies,” the company stated in a post on the wind procurement website.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current