Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: Virginia’s 2.6 GW offshore wind project remains on schedule for late-2026 completion despite rising costs

November 13, 2025 — The US wind sector has faced some troubling times as of late, with US President Donald Trump rolling back permits and forcing wind operators to cancel planned projects. Despite that, Virginia’s 2.6 GW offshore wind project remains on track for a late-2026 completion date. The project is being developed by Dominion Energy and has been subject to some problems due to rising costs, but it remains on schedule. Virginia is set to become the home of the US wind sector once the project has been completed and is feeding clean, renewable energy to the millions of Virginia households.

Dominion has stated that the project will be the largest by capacity in the United States

The planned 2.6 GW offshore wind project will easily be the largest by capacity in the United States, once it has been completed. Dominion Energy is an exceedingly large energy company that provides electricity to over 3.6 million customers in Virginia and the Carolinas. Additionally, the firm also provides regulated natural gas services to about 500,000 customers in South Carolina.

Dominion’s quarterly performance for Q3 has been a sight for sore eyes in the American energy sector, boasting operating earnings of $921 million, which is significantly higher than the same period last year. In Q3, Dominion’s regulated electric sales rose 3.3% year over year, marking an important milestone in the company’s future in the United States.

Read the full article at Energies Media

Stakeholders nearing update on Chesapeake Bay Agreement with multiple goals for fisheries

November 6, 2025 — Federal and state stakeholders are getting close on an update to the Chesapeake Bay Agreement – a voluntary accord that sets goals for conservation and clean water – laying out desired outcomes for some of the region’s fisheries.

First established in 1983, signatories to the agreement include the governments of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, New York, and the District of Columbia, along with the Chesapeake Bay Commission and federal agencies.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Coastwide Menhaden Catch Limit Cut by 20% as Potential Bay Cuts Loom

October 29, 2025 — In a marathon four-hour fishery management meeting on Tuesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC)’s Menhaden Management Board grappled with menhaden catch limits up and down the East Coast. Under pressure from environmentalists to cut catch limits and from menhaden fishermen to protect their livelihoods, board members for the ASMFC voted to reduce the coastwide menhaden catch by 20% in 2026, allowing fishermen to land 186,840 metric tons. The total allowable catch will be revisited in time for the 2027 and 2028 seasons. This motion passed 16-2, with only Virginia and Pennsylvania voting against it.

Inside the Chesapeake Bay, however, the rules are different. The Virginia menhaden reduction fishery, led by purse seine operator Ocean Harvesters, adheres to its own limit, known as the “Bay Cap”, which is currently set at 51,000 metric tons of fish. But environmentalists argue that a much lower Bay Cap is needed to protect the environment. They want to cut the reduction fishery’s limit by 50%. Groups like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation believe menhaden are in trouble, and since menhaden are an important forage fish, that there isn’t enough food to go around for predators like osprey and rockfish. The Virginia menhaden fishing industry disputes the claim that menhaden are in trouble, or that the Bay’s osprey and rockfish population struggles are directly related to a lack of menhaden.

The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) just funded a new project that will pull together all of the existing research on menhaden in the Bay, identify gaps in the research, and propose new study methods to fill these gaps. This would lead to solid research for setting a meaningful Bay harvest cap for that is based on data and is scientifically defensible.

Scientists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Maryland, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and NOAA, will lead the project to develop a “research roadmap” for Bay fishery managers.

Since that future research won’t be available for some time, the ASMFC Menhaden Management Board moved to initiate a new addendum that would potentially change how the Bay Cap is used, or lower the limit. This addendum would “develop periods for the Chesapeake Bay Cap that distributes fishing effort more evenly throughout the season” and it would also develop “a range of options to reduce the Bay Cap.” These options could be anything from keeping the cap at its current level to a 50% reduction. The hope is to have a draft of the addendum ready to present at ASMFC’s next meeting this winter.

Read the full article at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine 

Virginia, Maryland spawning surveys spell trouble for prized Atlantic coast gamefish species

October 24, 2025 — The most recent Chesapeake Bay striped bass spawning surveys are in and the news is not good.

A young-of-the-year survey done by the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences shows spawning recruitment just below historical averages in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries. A survey conducted by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay waters shows numbers significantly lower than historical averages.

That makes seven straight years of poor Chesapeake Bay spawns. Because 70% to 90% of all Atlantic striped bass are spawned and reared in the Chesapeake, the numbers are even more alarming. Striped bass numbers are declining. The fish has a billion dollar sport and commercial fishing impact on the economy of every state from North Carolina to Maine.

Read the full article at WAVY

VIRGINIA: America’s biggest offshore wind farm will be online in 6 months

October 22, 2025 — About 30 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, workers have been building America’s largest offshore wind farm at a breakneck pace. The project will start feeding power to the grid by March — the most definitive start date provided by its developer yet.

“First power will occur in Q1 of next year,” Dominion Energy spokesperson Jeremy Slayton told Canary Media. ​“And we are still on schedule to complete by late 2026.”

In an August earnings call, Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue provided a vague window of ​“early 2026” when asked when the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, or CVOW, project would start generating renewable power for the energy-hungry state.

As of the end of September, Dominion had installed all 176 turbine foundations — ​“a big, important milestone,” per Slayton. That accomplishment involved pile-driving 98 foundations into the soft seabed during the five-month stretch when such work is permitted. Good weather helped the work move along quickly, as did the Atlantic Ocean’s unusually quiet hurricane season.

Speed is key when building wind projects under the eye of a president who has called turbines ​​“ugly” and ​​“terrible for tourism” — and who has followed up with attempts to dismantle the industry.

Had CVOW not finished foundation installation by the end of this month, turbine construction would have been delayed until next spring. Federal permitting restricts pile-driving to a May-through-October window to protect migrating North Atlantic right whales. Such a delay would have made CVOW more vulnerable to the wrath of the Trump administration, which has already issued stop-work orders to two offshore wind farms under construction.

Read the full article at Grist

Seven years of bad luck for striped bass, survey shows

October 22, 2025 — Striped bass reproduction has remained below average in parts of the Chesapeake Bay since 2018, and this year is no different.

The annual juvenile striped bass surveys from Maryland and Virginia give insight as to how the next generation of striped bass will sustain the population. With continuing poor results, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering stronger catch limits.

Striped bass are top predators in the Bay and support commercial and recreational fishing. They are found along the East Coast from Canada to Florida, but they spawn and spend the first few years of their lives in the Bay.

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science has conducted its annual survey on striped bass since 1967. This year, scientists caught more than 1,000 juvenile striped bass at 18 sites in the Rappahannock, York and James rivers with a 100-foot seine net. Fish are captured, counted, measured and thrown back.

Read the full article at Bay Journal

Dam removals boost fish passage in Chesapeake region

October 21, 2025 — The Chesapeake Bay region opened more than 300 miles of rivers and streams for migratory fish in 2022-2023, a tenfold increase from the preceding two-year period.

Thirteen dams were taken down during that span, but more than two-thirds of the total mileage came from the demolition of the Oakland Dam on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. Another key removal was the Wilson Creek Dam in Virginia.

“In addition to restoring native and recreational fisheries, these projects can improve wildlife habitat along stream corridors and reduce long-term maintenance needs of aging infrastructure, flooding and public safety hazards to local communities,” said Ray Li, a fishery biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Read the full article at the Bay Journal

An average year for juvenile rockfish in Virginia waters in 2025

October 20, 2025 — Preliminary results from an ongoing long-term survey conducted by researchers at William & Mary’s Batten School & VIMS suggest that an average year class of young-of-year rockfish, or striped bass, was produced in the Virginia tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay in 2025. The 2025 year class, representing fish hatched this spring, will reach fishable sizes in three to four years.

The Batten School & VIMS Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey recorded a mean value of 5.12 fish per seine haul in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay. The 2025 value is similar to the historic average of 7.77 fish per seine haul and represents an improvement over the previous two years of below-average recruitment in Virginia tributaries.

Rockfish are an important top predator in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and a valuable resource for commercial and recreational anglers. Mary Fabrizio, a professor at the Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences & VIMS, directs the Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey and notes that the economic and ecological values of rockfish lend significant interest to the year-to-year status of their population.

Read the full article at Shore Daily News

Bay scallops in Virginia were extinct. Now, they’re ‘multiplying exponentially.’

Octobr 16, 2025 — An “unprecedented resurgence” in bay scallops in Virginia could soon open the door for recreational fishing of the species, said scientists at William & Mary’s Batten School and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Until the 1930s, Virginia held a significant chunk of the scallop industry — even hosting the largest bay scallop fishery in the country. Then, within three years of the population’s peak in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay waters in 1930, scallops were nearly extinct, according to a VIMS report from 2017. A wasting disease killed eelgrass, the habitat for the scallops, and essentially led to the steep decline. The scallop harvest peaked before wildlife managers noticed any issues with the grass. In response, harvesters turned to clams and the bay scallop population never recovered.

About 10 years ago, though, VIMS researchers began bringing back the shelled creatures, releasing larvae, juvenile and adult scallops into the Chesapeake Bay. Work on restoring underwater grasses in the area had already begun in the early 2000s, and by the time research on scallop restoration started, scientists had restored about 6,000 acres of underwater meadows. According to VIMS, it is the largest and most successful seagrass restoration in the world. It represents “a significant societal and ecological achievement,” said Richard Snyder, director of VIMS’s Eastern Shore Lab.

Read the full article at The Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA: Bay scallop population bounces back after extinction threat in the Eastern Shore

October 13, 2025 — Bay scallops were once “locally extinct” in the Eastern Shore — however, restoration work from local research groups has resulted in the population “multiplying exponentially.”

William & Mary’s Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences along with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Eastern Shore Laboratory (VIMS ESL) led the initiative to bring back the bay scallop population.

Read the full article at WTKR