Saving Seafood

Maine senators say Congress should save Sea Grant program

June 8, 2017 — Maine’s U.S. senators are signing on to a request to keep the National Sea Grant College Program funded at least at its current level.

President Trump has proposed to eliminate the program, which funds science that’s beneficial to commercial fisheries, conservation and coastal businesses. It has existed for about a half-century.

Maine Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent, are joining an effort led by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy to save the program. The group is sending a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the commerce appropriations subcommittee to stress the importance of Sea Grant.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

OREGON: Tour shows value of commercial fisheries

June 5, 2017 — Positive news about successful local efforts to build and maintain a strong fishing community in Clatsop County jostled with concerns about attracting workers at the first ever Clatsop Commercial Fisheries Tour Wednesday.

The tour, conceived of and hosted by Oregon State University’s Oregon Sea Grant, drew approximately 100 people, introducing them to fishermen working in the county’s Dungeness crab and groundfish fisheries and taking them through seafood plants and boat yards in Astoria.

The overall message was positive. Fishermen, seafood processors and boat builders talked about the sustainability of Oregon’s fisheries, the economic benefit the industry provides to the community as a whole, and the well-paying jobs that still exist on boats and in fish processing plants. “It’s organic, it’s free-range … it’s diet-free, whatever,” joked Scott McMullen, of the Oregon Fishermen’s Cable Committee, about rockfish and how certain stocks like canary rockfish have recently been delisted.

Some troubles

But concerns crept in, too.

For example, a species like canary rockfish has been off-limits and off the market for so long on the West Coast that fishermen are “fighting to get back into the shelf space,” McMullen said. While they were absent, other markets and countries filled the void.

Managers at Da Yang Seafood and processing giant Pacific Coast Seafood talked about the difficulty of recruiting labor to the area. People don’t seem to understand that processing jobs can be well-paid, they said. Pacific Coast Seafood has started to recruit farther afield and made do with fewer employees, while Da Yang has looked into automation. The lack of affordable, short-term rental housing options for seasonal workers complicates hiring, too, they say.

Read the full story at The Daily Astorian

Trump budget delivers body blows to Alaska fisheries

May 27, 2017 — The 2018 budget unveiled May 23 by the Trump administration is bad news for anything that swims in or near U.S. waters.

The Trump budget will cut $1.5 billion from the U.S. Commerce Department, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration taking the hardest hit.

The NOAA budget for its National Marine Fisheries Service operations, research and facilities would be slashed by about $43 million, eliminating NOAA’s coastal research efforts as well as its Sea Grant program.

The Trump dump also includes pulling the budget from NOAA’s Coastal Zone Management Program and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, which targets recovery of West Coast and Alaska salmon runs.

Funding for management and enforcement of U.S. catch share programs, such as halibut, sablefish and Bering Sea crab, would be cut by $5 million.

Budgets for Coastal Ecosystem Resiliency Grants, Interjurisdictional Fisheries Grants, the Chesapeake Bay project, the Great Lakes Restoration Project and the National Estuary Program also would be eliminated.

Another $193 billion would be cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over 10 years. SNAP is a program used by more than 42 million needy Americans to supplement food purchases and often includes government-purchased seafood.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told McClatchy News that the Trump administration “looked at the budget process through the eyes of the people who were actually paying the bills.”

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

Maine environmental advocates warn of ‘crippling’ cuts in Trump budget

May 26, 2017 — President Donald Trump has not backed off on a wide range of federal budget cuts and program eliminations that critics have for months warned would devastate Maine’s economy and environment.

The cuts to discretionary programs would disrupt scientific research and social services, hack funding to public broadcasting and Maine universities and scientific research institutions, and disrupt the economic prospects of fishing, forestry and former mill communities.

“It’s pretty much a full-on attack on environmental protection in America and would have a crippling impact here in Maine, because we depend so heavily on clean air, clean water, and a brand identity that is defined by our environment,” says Pete Didisheim, advocacy director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine. “There hasn’t been any positive motion with this final budget, if anything it’s gotten slightly worse.”

If the White House has its way, it would mean the end of the University of Maine’s Sea Grant program – which provides research and technical expertise to fishermen and other marine trades – the likely closure of the Wells Reserve at Laudholm Farm, the end of a successful partnership program to clean-up Casco Bay and beach water quality testing statewide.

Pine Tree Legal Assistance, which provides legal aid to indigent citizens to pursuit civil suits and whose volunteers helped uncover the national “robo-signing” mortgage scandal, would lose its funding from the federal Legal Services Corporation, which is also slated for elimination.

Read the full story at CentralMaine.com

Proposed Federal Budget Would Eliminate Sea Grant Program

May 12, 2017 — In late March, President Trump proposed a budget that would slash the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s funding by 17 percent and eliminate several educational and research programs, if Congress approves. One of the proposed cuts would eliminate NOAA’s $73 million National Sea Grant College Program, which supports coastal research conducted through 33 university programs across the country, including every coastal and Great Lakes state, Puerto Rico, Lake Champlain and Guam.

The Sea Grant program, according to Trump’s budget plan, is a low priority that primarily has a state and local impact. “Mr. Trump is trying to eliminate us, but we are one of the solutions,” says Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant. “It’s pretty evident the process the administration has gone through to identify these cuts was not articulate. It was just line-item mathematics.”

Anderson says he is “mystified” by the Trump administration and feels its decision to cut the program puts the nation’s health and safety at risk. “The things we have created in this nation are through lessons learned — from creativity and mistakes,” he says. “You create electrical safety standards because someone was electrocuted. There’s a role government has. Trump’s approach is so naive to any of those structures that it puts our nation at risk for all kinds of things. Health, well-being and good, safe, clean domestic food and water are important.”

Read the full story at Soundings

Three Contenders Emerge to Lead Fisheries Service

May 5, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS [E&E News] — A former Louisiana official, an Alaskan fishery manager and a Sea Grant program director are reportedly in the running to head the National Marine Fisheries Service.

NMFS — an agency within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — oversees fishing regulations, endangered species listings and fisheries research. It is headed by an assistant administrator for fisheries, a position that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross can fill without Senate confirmation.

It’s unclear when Ross — or the White House — will make that decision. But three names have popped up as contenders, according to several sources inside and outside the agency: Robert Barham, Chris Oliver and LaDon Swann.

Barham was once Louisiana’s wildlife and fisheries secretary, Oliver heads the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and Swann is the director of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Fishermen are split in their support.

Robert Barham

Barham served as wildlife and fisheries secretary under former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R). Some recreational fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico — as well as the shrimp and menhaden industry — recently sent letters to Ross emphasizing Barham’s Louisiana experience and his identity as a hunter and fisherman.

“We have had the opportunity to work with Mr. Barham over the years and … it is evident that he possesses the management ability and understanding of the nuances of maintaining sustainable fish populations, while maximizing their economic value,” wrote officials from Omega Protein Corp. and other companies that harvest menhaden, a tiny forage fish used in fish oil.

Some Gulf of Mexico anglers have also tried to propel Barham to the NMFS spot, with the hope that he will come down on their side in the controversy over red snapper quotas. The debate has made its way to Capitol Hill, with some Republicans newly enraged by this year’s three-day recreational fishing season.

In a Facebook post shared among anglers, fisherman Steve Hoyland Jr. provided a form letter to send to Ross that praised Barham’s ability to “manage the public’s fish and wildlife resources in a manner that balances conservation and access.”

“If Robert Barham could get this position, it would totally change how our fishery is managed,” Hoyland wrote in one post. “THIS MAN IS ON OUR SIDE!!! We need him in this seat.”

Barnum’s tenure at the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries was marred after auditors found questionable spending between 2010 and 2015. A report from the state legislative auditor found, among other things, that the department spent some Gulf oil spill recovery money on boats, cameras, iPads, clothing and “an abundance of fishing and water sports equipment.”

The money was part of $10.5 million BP PLC provided for a seafood safety program to test fish. According to the Associated Press, Barnum has said the program came in under budget and properly tested fish. He has also emphasized that it wasn’t a taxpayer-funded program.

Chris Oliver

Oliver is the longtime executive director of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which is based in Anchorage, Alaska. Commercial and charter boat fishermen have endorsed him as an experienced leader, with groups from New England, the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico sending letters of support to the Commerce Department.

Most recently, the Gulf Seafood Institute, the Louisiana Restaurant Association, the Charter Fisherman’s Association and similar groups wrote in an April letter to Ross that Oliver “has proven to be a motivated and talented leader with a passion for bridging divides among diverse fishing interest in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.”

Oliver has helmed the fishery council for 16 years. In an interview with the Alaska Journal of Commerce earlier this year, he said he would be “inclined” to take the NMFS job if asked.

“There’s no guarantee … that I would say yes if they offered it to me,” he told the newspaper. “But I’ve got a lot of people who’ve expended a lot of effort, and my understanding is I’ve got a pretty strong backing from our congressional delegation.”

Oliver began at the council in 1990 as a plan coordinator. He is from Texas and worked on Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery management issues, according to his biography on the council’s website. He has advocated for a more regional approach to fishery management.

Several council decisions in recent years have been reversed by the courts. Last year, for example, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2011 decision to remove an Alaskan salmon fishery from federal oversight. Fishing groups won a lawsuit in 2012 to overturn the council’s fishing closures to protect Steller sea lions.

LaDon Swann

Swann directs one of 33 Sea Grant programs President Trump has proposed eliminating, citing its primary benefit to “industry and state and local stakeholders.”

Congress appears unlikely to follow through with that suggestion; an omnibus spending package slated to pass this week preserves the popular program. And Swann — who has also worked at the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program — is reportedly the pick of some Alabama lawmakers who see him as a good fit for NMFS.

In his position at Sea Grant, Swann must help coastal communities become resilient without stirring up debate about climate change. He recently told ProPublica that the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium is “a neutral broker of science information” that is there to give communities the data — not persuade them of the link between climate change and coastal hazards.

Swann is also a recreational fisherman. A 2015 al.com article detailed his record-breaking catch of a 94-pound cubera snapper.

Swann, who has a master’s in fisheries biology and a Ph.D. in curriculum, is also former president of the United States Aquaculture Society. In recent years, NMFS has attempted to promote sustainable aquaculture as a way forward for the increasing demands for seafood.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

MASSACHUSETTS: Rep. Moulton bill looks to inject youth into fishing industry

April 10, 2017 — Looking to the future of commercial fishing as well as its troubling present, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton is sponsoring legislation that will attempt to inject more innovation, entrepreneurship and youth into the aging industry.

The Salem congresman is scheduled to travel to Gloucester on Saturday morning to announce his filing of the “Young Fishermen’s Development Act of 2017” at an event at Fisherman’s Wharf with fishing stakeholders and local and state officials.

“The fishing economy certainly is critical to our district and state, but it’s also critical to our country,” Moulton said Thursday. “More and more people are eating more and more seafood and it’s in our national interest to protect this food source and do everything we can to rebuild the industry.”

The tenets of the legislation, which is modeled after a similar and successful program run by the Department of Agriculture, include training, education and outreach to attract younger fishermen to the waterfront to help reverse the trend of an aging industry.

The legislation calls for Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, acting through the National Sea Grant office, to establish the program and “make competitive grants to support new and established local and regional training, education, outreach and technical assistance initiative for young fishermen.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

SEAN HORGAN: Trump looking to ax NOAA budget

March 20, 2017 — Fresh from battering the Trump administration like a pinata over its (rescinded) plan to whack the U.S. Coast Guard budget to the tune of $1.3 billion, Washington D.C.’s loyal opposition now is taking up the cause of — wait, can this be right? — NOAA.

A dozen congressional members from coastal communities throughout the U.S. are lobbying the Office of Management and Budget to reconsider the proposed cuts of $990 million, or about 17 percent, to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s total budget.

Cape Ann’s congressman, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Salem, is a signatory on a letter to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney pointing out that the cuts could have a devastating impact on coastal communities battling sea rise and other extreme weather events.

“To disarm our coastal communities, many of which are already experiencing first-hand the effects of severe weather, is dangerous and short-sighted,” the letter stated.

The letter also decried the proposed $513 million in cuts to the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service and the gutting of the Sea Grant college program.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Trump wants to end grants that support Maine fishing jobs

March 20, 2017 — The national $73 million Sea Grant program, which includes about a dozen researchers affiliated with the University of Maine, could be eliminated if Congress approves drastic budget cuts proposed for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by President Trump.

Funding for the state’s Department of Marine Resources and for collecting weather and climate data in the Gulf of Maine also could be put at risk by the president’s proposal.

Paul Anderson, director of the Sea Grant program at University of Maine, said Tuesday that the money NOAA has funded for the program has been “money well spent” because it has helped draw additional funding to Maine and has helped spur economic development.

“I think [Trump] has just got a fundamentally different attitude about government,” Anderson said Tuesday, without going into further detail. “What [people can do to try to protect the program] is write to our congressmen and senators.”

Trump’s administration already is considering slashing funding for the U.S. Coast Guard, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and for the Environmental Protection Agency, which provides about 20 percent of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection annual funding. Now, according to the Washington Post, the federal Office of Management and Budget is looking to cut funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by 17 percent.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA alarm Maine’s marine community

March 7, 2017 — A Trump administration proposal to slash funding for the federal government’s principal marine agency and eliminate the national Sea Grant program is prompting alarm in Maine’s marine sector because it depends on services provided by both.

President Trump wants to slash the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the agency responsible for fisheries management, weather forecasting, nautical surveys and assisting marine industries – by 17 percent, The Washington Post reported Friday. And he wants to eliminate NOAA’s Sea Grant program, the marine equivalent of the federal agricultural extension and research service, in the fiscal 2018 budget, which begins Oct. 1.

“There was a lot of concern when the news broke, and a flurry of messages went out to our congressional delegation from fishermen and aquaculturists who understand how they benefit from Sea Grant,” said Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine in Orono, one of 33 Sea Grant universities in the country. “I don’t now if on October 1st we will all of a sudden not exist.”

The news has sent reverberations across Maine’s marine community, which has long benefited from the partnership between UMaine and the federal government. Sea Grant researchers created the Fishermen’s Forum – the industry’s premier event – in 1976, and also helped found the Portland Fish Exchange and the university’s Lobster Institute, which researches issues of concern to the industry.

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said the cuts to NOAA would be terrible for fishermen. “The industry relies pretty heavily on their forecast reports on the wind and the wave heights and make decisions day to day if they are going to go out, so those satellites are really important,” she said. “And nobody loves (the National Marine Fisheries Service), but keeping them fully funded and their research going is essential to manage our fisheries.”

She noted that recent cuts to the agency’s right-whale monitoring program had hurt fishermen because if scientists didn’t have time to find the whales, they had to assume they weren’t there, increasing the regulatory burden on lobstermen, whose gear the whales sometimes get entangled in.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald