Saving Seafood

U.S. Moves To Start Offshore Fish Farming In Federal Waters

December 1, 2025 — The U.S. government has identified 13 locations in federal waters off California and Texas as potential sites to farm seafood and other aquaculture products.

The agency leading this effort is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through its National Marine Fisheries Service. The latter manages over 4 million square miles of ocean in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone and has jurisdiction over 163 endangered and threatened marine species.

Among the core functions of the National Fisheries is to oversee sustainable fisheries, while promoting healthy ecosystems and safe seafood.

“Americans eat roughly $15 billion in seafood farmed and imported from foreign countries, where labor and environmental standards often fall short of America’s rigorous standards. By expanding domestic aquaculture to complement wild-harvest fisheries, NOAA is driving an America-first approach that creates jobs, supports coastal communities and ensures high-quality, homegrown seafood for American families,” NOAA noted in a September statement.

Read the full article at Forbes

Groomer’s Seafood employees arrested in US immigration raid

July 18, 2025 — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested two employees of San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A.-based Groomer’s Seafood during a raid of the business earlier this month, charging them with using fraudulent documentation.

ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) conducted a search of the seafood market 2 July, claiming that audits showed 29 employees had used fraudulent legal permanent resident (LPR) cards and social security numbers to gain employment at the business since 2016. Local news provider KSAT reported San Antonio City Attorney Andy Segovia as claiming that 12 people were arrested during the raid, although it wasn’t clear if they were affiliated with the business.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

TEXAS: Texas sees soaring interest in oyster license buybacks

July 1, 2025 — The Texas Park & Wildlife Department’s commercial oyster boat license buyback program saw interest this year from 115 license holders looking to sell — more than in all of the program’s previous years combined.

Lisa Halili, vice president of Prestige Oysters, 103 First St. in Dickinson, said the increased interest is because the state has closed the harvest areas where smaller boats could go, meaning operators can’t put their licenses to use anymore.

Halili isn’t among the operators offering to sell back their licenses.

The department also has changed how the buyback program works, however, which is driving interest among license holders, Zach Thomas, a policy coordinator for department’s Coastal Fisheries division, said.

Why Texas gets 9 miles of off-shore territory but Louisiana gets 3 — and how it could change

December 2, 2024 — U.S. Rep. Garret Graves intends to sprint toward the finish line for the 118th Congress, which convenes Monday and disbands in a month, by pushing an issue he has been working since he was a Capitol Hill staffer 20 years ago.

“This has been an ongoing effort for me, for many years, to give Louisiana parity,” Graves said.

Graves, a Baton Rouge Republican who steps down when the 119th Congress assumes office on Jan. 3, teamed with Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, on a bill that would give Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama the same offshore sovereignty as Texas and Florida — moving the boundary line from three nautical miles to nine — thereby allowing Louisiana control of more energy exploration and fishing rights.

Graves said last week in announcing the Offshore Parity Act of 2024, “I’m not sure who was negotiating for us generations ago, but that is just ridiculous.”

History, rather than bonehead negotiators, played a greater role in setting state sovereignty over offshore waters.

Read the full story at NOLA.com

TEXAS: BOEM To Close TX Offshore Wind Public Comment

September 13, 2024 — Stakeholders and much of the Lone Star State’s fishing industry are holding their breath Thursday as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management closes the public comment period at midnight on some contentious potential offshore wind projects.

About 10 parties have commented on the federal BOEM registry as of Thursday afternoon.

In its comments, the Southern Shrimping Alliance (SSA) appeared alarmed at the danger it believes this offshore wind project could pose to a major Texas industry. Over 34 meticulously cited pages, it made its case, concluding, “We are regrettably compelled to call on BOEM to reject Hecate’s unsolicited request for [Wind Energy Area] D to be considered for leasing and development due, among other reasons, to an unacceptably high degree of conflict with shrimp fishing operations.”

SSA then enumerated three concerns, which include fragile wind turbines breaking up into the environment after a level 5 hurricane, a “lack of sufficient scientific research to correctly understand a range of potentially irreversible ecological impacts of offshore wind energy development and operations,” and concerns about turbines disturbing marine radar.

SSA explained its concern in a previous email exchange with The Dallas Express.

“SSA collaborates constructively with BOEM and [National Centers for Coastal Science] to deconflict offshore wind energy development in the Gulf with the shrimp industry, but the unsolicited Hecate project would rob the shrimp fleet of access to valuable fishing grounds at a time when the industry is facing an existential crisis due to shrimp imports,” said John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

Read the full article at The Dallas Express

Gulf Shrimpers Warn New Offshore Wind Interest off Texas, Louisiana Could Harm Industry

August 28, 2024 — An unsolicited proposal from Hecate Energy Gulf Wind for two commercial leases for wind energy development off the coast of Texas and/or Louisiana has raised significant new concerns for the U.S. shrimp industry, the Southern Shrimp Alliance said in a statement.

The Hecate proposal, which may potentially support hydrogen production, has the potential to close fishing grounds, interrupt maritime radar, and harm sensitive species and habitats for which shrimpers are held accountable under federal statutes, according to the SSA.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Texas one of several states included in critical sea turtle habitat proposal

July 31, 2023 — A new proposal aims to protect threatened and endangered sea turtles by preserving their habitat along critical areas of the U.S. coastline.

NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the plan mid-July, proposing 8,870 acres of coastline in California, Florida, Hawaii, North Carolina and Texas be conserved for green sea turtles basking, nesting, incubation, hatching and traveling to sea. The proposition also included the territories of American Samoa, Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands; and the commonwealths of the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico.

Read the full article at KETK

Gulf shrimp landings data showing rebound in Louisiana and decline in Texas

March 15, 2023 — The Fishery Monitoring Branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center released preliminary shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic for November 2022.

As with the agency’s reporting since July of last year, the numbers released by NOAA include substantial revisions, with reporting for the years prior to 2022 reflecting final totals tabulated by the agency. Because NOAA’s reporting for November 2022 remains preliminary in nature, the Southern Shrimp Alliance presents this data in the historical context of the agency’s previously reported preliminary figures. This means that in the summary charts prepared by the Southern Shrimp Alliance, the historical figures for the month of November in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 do not correspond to the numbers now being reported by NOAA.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Gulf’s first two zones for offshore wind farms selected off Louisiana, Texas

November 1, 2022 — The federal government has selected the first two areas for offshore wind development in the Gulf of Mexico, clearing the way for a process that could have windmills spinning over the waves near Louisiana by the decade’s end.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Monday finalized the boundaries for the two zones: a 174,000-acre area south of Lake Charles and a 508,000-acre area near Galveston, Texas.

The two areas have the potential to generate enough power for almost 3 million homes, according to BOEM. That’s enough electricity for the combined populations of Houston, New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

The commercial leasing process for the two areas is expected to begin by the middle of next year. After a multi-year site assessment, survey process and environmental review, offshore wind developers could begin installing turbines before 2030.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, said BOEM’s site selection is an “important first step” toward a stronger economy and cleaner energy for the Gulf region.

“Offshore wind is a key component to achieving our nation’s clean energy goals to lower costs and cut pollution, while creating good jobs for Americans,” he said.

Read the full article at nola.com