Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Harbor turns red for wastewater dye study

September 24, 2026 — New Bedford sailors did a double-take on a Saturday morning in mid-September when plumes of the normally blue harbor water turned a deep, wine-dark red.

The unusual color wasn’t a rust tide or environmental disaster, but a dye study conducted by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Management officials hope the study, which involves dying New Bedford’s wastewater with 100 gallons of EPA-approved red dye, will help them better understand how the city’s treated sewage moves throughout Buzzards Bay.

Dale Leavitt, a shellfisherman and aquaculture industry advocate, is particularly invested in their results. Since 2021, Leavitt has operated a 47-acre oyster farm in Nasketucket Bay in Fairhaven. In 2024, he and seven other area oyster farmers received word that the bay would be subject to more stringent food-safety regulations, due to the high volume of wastewater flowing out of New Bedford’s wastewater treatment facility.

These new rules were based on a mathematical model from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology, or SMAST. Leavitt hopes that the dye study will tell regulators something different.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Shellfish farmers warn overregulation could drive NJ aquaculture to ‘extinction’

September 18, 2026 — Legislators advanced a package of bills Thursday intended to help New Jersey’s aquaculture industry, with shellfish farmers complaining that state regulations stifle expansion and have driven some to move out of state.

The Assembly’s agriculture and natural resources committee listened to an hour of testimony during an afternoon hearing at the Statehouse, where shellfish farmers blasted a common boogeyman: the Department of Environmental Protection.

Oyster farmer Matt Gregg, co-founder and operator of the Barnegat Oyster Collective and president of the New Jersey Aquaculture Association, likened the department to a villain from a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Like Scooby’s gang of teenage detectives, shellfish farmers have had to band together to fight foes like the pandemic, marine predators, and extreme weather, Gregg said.

“But more often than not, the foe is the New Jersey DEP,” Gregg said. “If we don’t do something, we will die a death of a thousand cuts. We will regulate everyone into extinction.”

Larry Hajna, a department spokesman, declined to comment.

One of the industry’s biggest challenges, farmers testified, has been the state’s longtime narrow definition of aquaculture, which specifically bars “construction of facilities and appurtenant structures” from the definition. That has set aquaculture farmers up for zoning and permitting hurdles that land-based farmers don’t face and also discouraged commercial investors from investing, Gregg and other shellfish farmers testified.

Read the full article at the New Jersey Monitor

Nine Species of Deep-Sea Sponges Discovered in Alaska

September 11, 2026 — Scientists have discovered nine new species of sponges in the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands. The specimens were collected during the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s long-standing annual bottom trawl surveys, which monitor the condition of groundfish and shellfish stocks in Alaskan waters. For these sponge studies, researchers analyzed samples gathered during surveys dating back to 2012.

The new species were described across two recent scientific publications: four in one paper and five in the other. These discoveries raise the total number of known sponge species in Alaska to 232. The findings add to a growing body of knowledge about the richness of marine life in Alaskan waters. They also highlight the Aleutian Islands as a global hotspot for sponge biodiversity.

The studies also mapped sponge genetic codes, which contributes to a marine genetic library. This continues to build a robust catalog that enhances NOAA’s ability to detect species and estimate population abundances using non-invasive environmental DNA sampling.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts using dye to study how New Bedford wastewater impacts shellfish

September 10, 2026 — Local, state, and federal authorities are collaborating on a new hydrographic dye study to learn how wastewater flowing from the New Bedford Wastewater Treatment Plant into Buzzards Bay impacts shellfish.

“Here in Massachusetts, we pride ourselves on our nation-leading seafood industry, including culturally and economically important traditions of shellfishing in Buzzards Bay,” Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Commissioner Tom O’Shea said in a release. “We look forward to the results of this important study and are grateful for the partnership of researchers and our shellfish industry to make this possible.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Maine officials monitoring Casco Bay algae bloom

September 10, 2026 — An algae bloom in Casco Bay could be harming fish and shellfish.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources is monitoring the bloom of a common phytoplankton called Karenia mikimotoi. The phytoplankton are not harmful to humans, but they can produce compounds that can harm fish and shellfish.

The department was alerted to the bloom when the Portland Harbor Master and wharf owners in Portland Harbor noticed a dark brown tint to the water, according to a social media post by the Maine DMR .

Read the full article at Spectrum News

OREGON: Pacific Seafood and Oregon regulators are locked in battle over wastewater treatment from its coastal processing plants

September 9, 2026 — Supporting the fishing fleets that fan out to sea from the Oregon coast, there are about three dozen industrial processing businesses that clean, cut and package the products before they’re shipped to consumers around the world.

It’s not a pretty process.

One byproduct of all those fish guts and shellfish innards is wastewater packed with solids and oils, as well as possibly chemicals, bacteria and heavy metals. Whatever isn’t filtered out gets discharged back into the ocean, where it can deplete dissolved oxygen that fish and other aquatic species need to breathe, and can pose risks to public health.

Seafood processing plants have been locked in a battle with environmental regulators over water pollution, with millions of dollars in fines piling up and legal fights that have spanned years. Meanwhile, the business is consolidating and, from an employment standpoint, shrinking.

The fight pits Oregon’s environmental aspirations against one of its legacy industries — one that remains a defining part of life on the Oregon coast even as its footprint contracts.

Read the full article at The Oregonian

FLORIDA: Florida accepting public feedback on Big Bend oyster management

August 26, 2026 — The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is seeking public comments on how it should manage oyster harvesting in the Big Bend region of the state.

Once a successful commercial fishery, the Big Bend lost roughly 66 percent of its oyster reefs between 1982 and 2011. The region also faced additional pressure following the collapse of the oyster population in Apalachicola Bay in 2013, with annual Big Bend harvests peaking in 2017 with 60,000 bags sold. Landings have significantly decreased since, with the total bags sold not surpassing 10,000 bags in either of the last two years. There were only 32 commercial harvesters in 2025.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Invasive green crabs are bad for the environment so New Englanders are starting to eat more of them

August 26, 2026 — As a morning fog lifted over Maine’s York River, Mike Masi and his two interns stood on a dock sorting through a mound of one of the region’s most despised crabs and hoped to find a few that would end up on a gastronome’s plate somewhere in New England.

The trick is to identify invasive European green crabs that are about to shed their hard shell, or molt, revealing a softer exterior that has the feel of a leather couch, and are popular at restaurants. Not only do these green crabs fetch more money — Masi can get $3 a crab at market compared to as little as 8 cents for a hard shell — but catching them provides a service of sorts to the ocean’s ecosystem.

“Just about everyone hates them and we’re trying to turn them into a premium seafood product,” said Masi, whose company, shell+claw, is the only one that commercially cultivates these crabs.

Masi, a 45-year-old former marine science teacher, is part of a growing movement across New England aiming to lessen the crabs’ destructive impact by developing new markets. Others are putting green crabs in pet treats, fish sauce and even a line of green crab whiskey in New Hampshire.

The green crabs, Carcinus maenas, made their way from Europe to the East Coast in the ballast waters of ships hundreds of years ago. Numbering in the tens of millions, they outcompete Atlantic rock crab and juvenile lobster, destroy eelgrass beds and undermine salt marsh banks. They also are costing the region’s shellfish industry tens of millions of dollars each year, as they eat mussels, oysters and soft-shell clams.

Read the full article at ABC News

Lobsters and acidic seas: can shellfish help neutralise one of the greatest threats to the ocean?

August 21, 2026 — For many in the US region of New England, the lobster roll is synonymous with summertime. Loaded into a toasted bun, chunks of the sweet meat are served hot and soaked in butter, or chilled and slathered in mayonnaise with celery and herbs.

The only thing more debated than the recipe is the price: the once-humble roll now routinely fetches $30 (£22), or even $50, in a sign of the changing times – and seas.

A third-generation lobster fisherman, Scott Lord spends his days hauling traps on the Gulf of Maine, which is warming faster than 99% of the world’s oceans. “Whether you agree with who says why it’s happening, it is happening,” he says.

Bycatch that was once plentiful, such as sea urchins, sand dollars or starfish, are increasingly rare. And, most concerning, Lord has noticed the number of inshore lobsters dropping dramatically over the past 15 years, pushing fishers farther and farther offshore.

Motivated to find a remedy, Lord joined a regional shellfish committee. “Why are there not clams where there used to be clams? Why are they not coming back, no matter what we do?” he asks.

Hundreds of miles to the south in Massachusetts, on a sandy crook of land that spins out to form Cape Cod, Adam Subhas, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is trying to find the answers.

Read the full article at The Guardian