Saving Seafood

The seal population is growing in Rhode Island. Does that mean fewer fish and more sharks?

April 25, 2025 — July Lewis of Save The Bay sees seals as an indicator of environmental health, so she was encouraged when her organization recently counted 755 in Rhode Island waters.

“It tells us the bay is really healthy, and the coastal waters are as well,” said Lewis, Save The Bay’s volunteer and internship manager.

On March 27, forty-three volunteers fanned out along the shore and water at low tide to count seals in Save The Bay’s annual effort. They counted 551 in Narragansett Bay and 204 at Block Island. Save The Bay is a nonprofit organization, which defines its mission as promoting a healthy Narragansett Bay that is accessible to everyone.

The bay’s seal population has been steady over the past several years, while the Block Island population has increased, according to Lewis.

Fisherman: Seals have “voracious” appetites

Chris Brown, 57, who fishes out of Point Judith on his 45-foot Proud Mary, said, “I’ve never seen so many seals in my life.”

“Seals don’t eat potatoes,” Brown said. “They have voracious appetites.”

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

Rhode Islanders march against offshore drilling

March 5, 2018 — PROVIDENCE, R.I. — More than a hundred Rhode Island residents gathered at the State House Wednesday to protest the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposal to lift the long-standing ban on offshore fossil fuel drilling in large swaths of US coastal waters.

The protest, organized by Save the Bay, an independent, nonprofit organization devoted to protecting and improving Narragansett Bay, was preceded by a press conference wherein several state officials spoke out against BOEM’s proposal.

Concerned RI residents packed into the State Room as Governor Gina Raimondo, Senator Dawn Euer, Mayor Scott Avedesian of Warwick and others railed against the expansion of offshore drilling in RI and elsewhere.  The proposal came after President Donald Trump’s latest executive order to reverse existing policy that protects waters from oil and gas drilling.

According to BOEM, the proposal, “The Five Year Program, is an “important component” of the President’s executive order to allow domestic oil and natural gas production “as a means to support economic growth and job creation and enhance energy security.”

“While offshore oil and gas exploration and development will never be totally risk-free, since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill, the U.S. Department of the Interior has made, and is continuing to make, substantial reforms to improve the safety and reduce the environmental impacts of OCS oil and gas activity,” reads the proposal.

However at Thursday’s press conference, Raimondo said the proposal is a “terrifying” move in the wrong direction, citing “tragedies like Exxon Valdez and the BP oil spill.”

“We should be focusing on harnessing our offshore wind power – not digging for oil off our coast. The proposal that came out of Washington in January to open up our coastal waters to offshore drilling is terrifying,” Raimondo said, to thunderous applause.  “Rhode Island won’t stand for it.”

Reaching the coastlines of all five Gulf Coasts, the long-term impacts of the Deepwater spill are still felt today, taking a devastating impacts on birds, mammals, fish, and other creatures.

Read the full story at the Narragansett Times

 

Rhode Island: Ocean State Officials Pledge to Halt Offshore Drilling

February 13, 2018 — NARRAGANSETT, R.I. — Rhode Island’s governor and members of Congress are calling for an all-out effort to oppose President Trump’s plan for offshore drilling along the Eastern seaboard. They warned of the environmental and economic risks to the state’s fishing and tourism industries. They urged the public to submit comments on the proposal to the Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM) and to show their opposition at a scheduled Feb. 28 public workshop in Providence.

Referencing the six commercial fishermen in the audience at at Feb. 12 press event, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said he planned to advance a bill signed by all New England senators to ban offshore drilling off the New England coast. Whitehouse called the offshore drilling proposal a “dumb idea” and blamed the fossil-fuel industry for directing the Trump administration to enact it.

“This will not happen. Whatever it takes to prevent it, we will see takes place,” Whitehouse said.

Gov. Gina Raimondo promised to lobby governors of coastal states to pass resolutions opposing the offshore drilling plan.

“This is backwards. We ought to be moving forward for offshore wind farms, not backwards for offshore oil drilling,” she said.

Raimondo also restated her intent to have Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke follow through on his promise to meet her in Rhode Island and discuss the fossil-fuel project. Several East Coast governors called Zinke after he met with Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Scott apparently convinced Zinke to exempt his state from the offshore drilling plan. Although there is skepticism of the agreement after Zinke’s office backtracked somewhat on that promise and legal questions of such an exemption surfaced.

Whitehouse and Raimondo were asked whether a state or regional carbon tax would put economic pressure on Trump and the fossil-fuel industry. Both said they favor a national or multi-state fee on fossil fuels. However, Whitehouse said his carbon tax bill in the Senate won’t advance until the head of the Senate is a Democrat.

“The Republicans are keenly interested in trying to shovel this issue under the rug as much as they can to keep the fossil-fuel money flowing into their party. It’s a sad state of affairs,” Whitehouse said.

Raimondo said she favors advancing a carbon tax along with public pushback to offshore drilling.

Read the full story at ECORI