Saving Seafood

RHODE ISLAND: Ocean State’s new charity license plate is full of seafood

January 9, 2025 — The Ocean State has a new charity license plate that will support research on sustaining seafood that lives in the waters off Rhode Island.

The license plate “features eight iconic seafood species that are sustainably harvested in Rhode Island state waters and enjoyed throughout the state, region, and world,” according to the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation, the nonprofit foundation that will benefit from plate sales.

Based in Kingston, the foundation is “a non-profit, private foundation dedicated to conducting research that assists in the achievement of sustainable fisheries through the generation of better information and effective technologies.” It was founded in 2004 by a group of fishermen and others in the industry.

Read the full article at the Providence Journal

Vineyard Wind Withstands Another Legal Challenge

December 10, 2024 — Another attempt to halt Vineyard Wind through the courts fell short last week when a federal court dismissed an appeal by a fishermen’s organization and a Rhode Island seafood dealer.

A panel of judges with the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision on Dec. 5, saying the group’s claims that the federal government mishandled the approval process for the wind farm were unfounded.

The decision is one of several that Vineyard Wind, which aims to build 62 turbines to the south of the Island, has weathered in recent years, keeping the project’s approvals from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intact.

Seafreeze Shoreside, a Rhode Island-based seafood dealer, the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance and other groups filed the appeal after their claims were rejected by the U.S. District Court in Boston in 2023.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Senator Whitehouse introduces bill to improve offshore wind development process

December 6, 2024 — U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) today introduced the Create Offshore Leadership and Livelihood Alignment By Operating Responsibly and Together for the Environment (COLLABORATE) Act, a comprehensive bill to improve the offshore wind development process and bring new sources of affordable clean energy onto the grid.

The COLLABORATE Act would put domestic offshore wind development on track by improving permitting, coordination, and cooperation between agencies and with developers and stakeholders, creating a holistic process for offshore wind transmission, and boosting support for fisheries and other potentially affected groups, including the establishment of a compensation fund for eligible recipients.

“Rhode Island has led an early charge in America’s offshore wind development.  My legislation applies the Ocean State model of good-faith cooperation to the federal interagency process, while fixing permitting and transmission problems to harness our abundant offshore wind potential,” said Whitehouse.  “The pathway to a clean energy future is narrowing fast, and we can’t afford to lose investments to bureaucratic delays and endless red tape.  I’m hopeful we can pass this bill swiftly and bring offshore wind online nationwide.”

Read the full story at What’s Up Newp

RHODE ISLAND: Climate change pushing some marine species out of Narragansett Bay

November 22, 2024 — On an unseasonably warm October day, the John H. Chafee pulled away from the docks of Fort Wetherill to conduct a survey of the marine life that call Narragansett Bay home.

Known as trawl fishing, scientists roll out a large net in the water, drag it along the ocean floor and see what comes up.

Christopher Parkins, the principal biologist of the trawl survey for the R.I. Department of Environmental Management (DEM), said state regulators have been using trawl fishing data since 1979 to decide which marine life can be caught and which need to be protected.

Read the full article at WPRI

RHODE ISLAND: Westport lobstermen recall fishery’s heyday

November 21, 2024 — The days of huge hauls and oceans of money may be on the decline. But as he and three other long-time Westport lobstermen sat before a packed house at the Westport Grange one recent Saturday, Grant Moore said he is happy to be passing his family’s offshore lobster business to his son John, even as the little guys struggle harder and harder to compete with well-funded corporate fishing operations that have all but wiped local independents off the map here.

“When I started off, it was 100 percent owner operators,” he told the crowd at the Westport Historical Society-sponsored talk. “I knew the guy that I washing fishing next to — we all did. That’s changed dramatically.”

Now, 30 years after Westport’s lobstering heyday came to a slow end, the work is as hard as it ever was, there is never a guaranteed paycheck, and it takes a tremendous amount of money to get into and stay in the business. So before he agreed to let his son fish with him and eventually take over the family business, he made sure to show him the worst of it.

After college, when his son expressed an interest in the family business, Moore agreed to bring him aboard but “I made it as miserable for him as I possibly could. I honestly did. Because I didn’t want him to have to experience what I had to” without knowing what he was getting himself into.

Read the full article at East Bay RI

RHODE ISLAND: U.S. Coast Guard investigates report of diesel spill from vessel that ran aground in Narragansett

November 19, 2024 — The United States Coast Guard is investigating the report of diesel in Narragansett Bay around Austin Hollow after a vessel ran aground Monday morning.

Virginia Wave, a commercial fishing vessel, ran aground 1 nautical mile north of the Beavertail Light, and was reported listing, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Motor vessel Deep Cygnus responded and aided in the rescue of all four of Virginia Wave’s passengers, and the Jack M commercial fishing vessel took the passengers on board.

Later that morning, the Virginia Wave was able to successfully float due to the incoming tide and the crew was transferred back to the vessel.

During the Jamestown Police Marine’s initial response, units reported it noticed the smell of diesel and a visible sheen coming from the Virginia Wave.

Read the full article at ABC 6

US East Coast states select firms to run offshore wind development compensation fund for fishers

November 12, 2024 — A coalition of U.S. East Coast states have selected two firms to manage the Offshore Wind Fisheries Compensation Fund, a mitigation program built to compensate commercial and recreation for-hire fishers for revenue lost due to offshore wind developments.

The fund is a collaboration between the governments of 11 East Coast states – Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina – to provide financial compensation for economic loss caused by offshore wind projects along the Atlantic Coast. The states launched a competition earlier this year to select an administrator to run the new fund.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Richmond firm to oversee fishermen compensation related to offshore wind farms

November 6, 2024 — Richmond claims resolution firm BrownGreer PLC and London’s The Carbon Trust have been tapped to design and roll out a regional fisheries mitigation program on the East Coast.

The program is aimed at providing financial compensation to the commercial and recreational for-hire fishing industries related to the impacts of new offshore wind farms.

BrownGreer and The Carbon Trust will work with 11 East Coast states and their respective fishing industry communities on the program. The groups have established a design oversight committee and a for-hire committee to provide advice and guidance from respective parties on the program.

The involved states include Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.

Read the full article at Richmond Inno

RHODE ISLAND: As NOAA Evaluates Rhode Island’s CRMC, Advocates Push to Dissolve Agency’s Decision-Making Council

October 21, 2024 — Chris Powell knows the score when it comes to coastal regulations in Rhode Island.

A retired wildlife biologist who spent decades working for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) in its marine fisheries program, Powell knows the ins and outs of environmental permitting and regulations. His stint as a state employee included a temporary assignment to the state Coastal Resources Management Council, during a time when the regulatory agency was particularly short-staffed.

Powell had nothing but praise for the agency’s staff, both when he was assigned to the agency and after, when he interacted with CRMC staff as a member of the public. But he has concerns about the 10-member, politically appointed council that makes final decisions for the agency.

“CRMC has always had good staff where they try to do the right thing,” said Powell. “I attended many meetings, however, where the council overrode the recommendation of staff.”

Lifelong Rhode Islander and chairman of Warren’s Harbor Commission, Woody Kemp, has similar concerns. Warren is one of the smaller towns in Rhode Island, and thanks to sea level rise and coastal flooding, the town is shrinking. Kemp offered praise for the work completed by agency staff, but, he said, the council moves too slowly when making decisions. “It took us maybe 10 years to get approval for our harbor management plan,” he said.

“I would like to see more staff for timelier reviews of agency applications,” added Kemp.

Powell and Kemp were part of more than a dozen members of the public testifying in a state Department of Administration conference room recently about their experiences — on both sides of the table — with CRMC. The testimony is part of the evaluation process conducted regularly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of all the state coastal programs for which it provides funding and oversight as part of the 1972 Coastal Zone Management Act.

The CRMC is charged with regulating, developing and conserving the state’s 400 miles of coastline and ocean waters. But the agency’s council has a long history of controversy, of ignoring the broader public and, at times, the recommendations of CRMC staff when it comes to permitting decisions and project approvals.

Advocates of reforming the agency are putting pressure on NOAA to advise a restructuring of CRMC into a shape that abolishes the executive authority of the council.

Read the full article at EcoRi News