Saving Seafood

Virginia Marine Resources Commission approves menhaden harvest limit

December 9, 2020 — On Tuesday, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) reduced Virginia’s menhaden harvest by 10 percent to comply with the newly adopted menhaden fishery quota from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC).

Virginia’s harvest was cut from 168,213 metric tons to 151,392 metric tons. The Chesapeake Bay harvest cap remains unchanged.

In August, the ASMFC committed to using Ecological Reference Points, which consider menhaden’s important role in the food chain when setting menhaden harvest limits.

Read the full story at WAVY

Pandemic prompts extension of crab-pot season in Virginia

December 4, 2020 — Regulators of Virginia’s fisheries have decided to extend the traditional crab pot season. And they say it shouldn’t have a big impact on the crab populations in the Chesapeake Bay.

The Virginian-Pilot reported Thursday that the Virginia Marine Resources Commission extended the crab pot season by 20 days, until Dec. 19. The goal is to make up for losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WTOP

With offshore wind, Virginia hopes a 21st-century manufacturing boom will offset a hefty price tag

November 30, 2020 — Maybe, if you squint really hard and the skies are clear, you might be able to convince yourself that you see them, out on the horizon: two turbines spinning far offshore of Virginia Beach.

You can’t, of course — the distance to the Dominion Energy-owned offshore wind outpost is too great. Bill Murray, a senior executive with Dominion, describes it this way: Imagine, he says, that the USS Wisconsin, a World War II-era battleship now docked at Norfolk, were to be beached at Sandbridge and from there fire its 16-inch guns, capable of traveling 21 miles. “Those guns could not hit these turbines,” said Murray.

Until recently, Virginia’s offshore wind dreams seemed to many an equally long shot. Dominion’s two test turbines, known as the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Pilot, were a decade in the making. During that time offshore wind boomed in Europe and China, but the U.S., preoccupied with the glut of natural gas unlocked by the shale revolution, made few inroads into the technology. Rhode Island’s Block Island wind farm was the nation’s first offshore wind venture in state waters; Dominion’s CVOW pilot 27 miles off the coast is the first in federal waters.

Read the full story at The Virginia Mercury

Portland-based fishing boat sinks off Massachusetts coast with 4 aboard

November 24, 2020 — The Coast Guard was searching overnight for four crew members who were aboard a Portland-based fishing boat that sank off the coast of Massachusetts early Monday.

The Coast Guard cutter Vigorous, which is home-ported in Virginia Beach, Virginia, would search through the night for the crew members of the 82-foot Emmy Rose, and an HC-144 Ocean Sentry fixed-wing aircraft based at Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod was scheduled to fly over the search area at first light Tuesday, Coast Guard spokeswoman Amanda Wyrick said on Monday night.

The Coast Guard had not released the names of the boat’s captain, its crew, and the boat’s owner by Monday night, but the daughter of one of the crewmen told News Center Maine (WCSH/WLBZ) that she was not giving up hope.

“I just know if he’s out there. He won’t give up,” Reyann Matthews said of her father, Jeff Matthews.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

For the first time, Virginia is setting aside capital funds to restore its oyster population

November 23, 2020 — Virginia is setting $10 million in new funding for oyster restoration in the Chesapeake Bay, focusing on the Piankatank, Great Wicomico and York Rivers.

It marks the first time the state is using capital funds, usually reserved for building state facilities and roads, to restore natural resources.

Bringing oyster populations back has been a top priority because the shellfish play a key role in cleaning the bay. Oyster reefs also protect shorelines from erosion and are habitats for crabs and fish, and oysters are an important commercial fishery.

The state’s stepped up efforts with the signing of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement in 2014 have restored 240.5 acres of oyster habitat, on top of the earlier restoration of 473 acres. The agreements set a goal of restoring oyster populations in 10 Bay tributaries by 2025.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

MARYLAND: Ocean City hopes multi-state wind deal brings more collaboration to local level

November 5, 2020 — Last week Gov. Larry Hogan announced that Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina would work together to develop the offshore wind industry off the three states. Now Ocean City is hoping that same collaboration trickles down to their level.

The agreement between the three Mid-Atlantic states will form a joint partnership called the Mid-Atlantic Regional Transformative Partnership for Offshore Wind Energy Resources (SMART-POWER), according to a copy of the agreement.

The new partnership goal is to help more rapidly develop the offshore wind industry and “promote the Mid-Atlantic and southeast United States as an offshore wind energy industry hub.”

Maryland is currently in the process of building two offshore wind projects off the state’s coast.

Read the full story at Delmarva Now

North Carolina will work with Maryland, Virginia to grow offshore wind industry

November 2, 2020 — An agreement announced Thursday could help North Carolina turn winds over the Atlantic Ocean into electricity sooner, according to an industry official.

North Carolina will join Maryland and Virginia in the “Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Transformative Partnership for Offshore Wind Energy Resources,” which they are calling SMART-POWER for short. Unlike those states, North Carolina doesn’t have legislative mandates or executive orders with targets for offshore wind production, much less actual turbines in the water like Virginia.

The new partnership means North Carolina can apply the lessons already learned in nearby states, said Katharine Kollins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for the growth of wind energy.

“North Carolina has been trying to get traction within the wind industry for a while, and some of these states farther north are further along in the process,” Kollins told The News & Observer.

Read the full story at The News & Observer

Lawsuit: Pipeline could push 2 fish species to extinction

October 29, 2020 — Environmental groups have filed a legal challenge against the Mountain Valley Pipeline that says the project could push two endangered species of fish to extinction.

The Roanoke Times reports that the legal challenge was filed Tuesday in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. It involves the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter species of fish.

The route of the 300-mile long pipeline would go from northern West Virginia to southwestern Virginia and connect with an existing pipeline in North Carolina.

The coalition of environmental groups also asked the federal appeals court to review a recent biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency had found that construction of the pipeline is not likely to jeopardize protected fish, bats and mussels.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CBS 19

Surveys find mixed spawning success for striped bass this year in Chesapeake

October 26, 2020 — Striped bass can’t get a break, it seems. With their East Coast population in decline from overfishing, the migratory species had mixed success reproducing in the Chesapeake Bay this year, surveys show.

The state Department of Natural Resources reported last week that its annual trawl survey of newly spawned striped bass in Maryland waters yielded just 2.5 little fish per net haul — far below the long-term average of 11.5 per sample.

“We just didn’t have good recruitment [of young fish] this year,” said Mike Luisi, the DNR’s director of fisheries monitoring and assessment. “It kind of just goes along with everything else in 2020 that’s just been tough.”

This is the second straight year and the 10th in the last 15 years that the DNR survey found evidence of below-average striped bass reproduction.

A separate study done by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science found an above-average number of juvenile striped bass in that state’s tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. It was the eighth straight year in which the survey tallied an average or above-average abundance for the species.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

VIRGINIA: Glimmer of hope for striped bass: Numbers of young fish show stability

October 23, 2020 — The Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s annual count of young striped bass once again yielded a number higher than the historic average.

But the significant increase — 13.89 fish per sample, compared to last year’s 9.54 and the historical average of 7.77 from 1980 to 2009 — may be a fluke of bad weather and the pandemic, VIMS cautioned.

The survey has yielded results above that historic average for eight years running. It counts juveniles — typically 1-1/2 to 4 inches long — that will grow to the size fishermen want to catch in three to four years.

The survey is based on what nets haul from 18 sites in the James, York and Rappahannock river watersheds. Its biologists usually draw samples from July to early September, but this year, Tropical Storm Isaias and COVID-19 precautions mean 19% of samples weren’t completed. Other indices suggest juvenile striped bass populations are fairly stable, VIMS said. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources, for instance, reported a below-average count in its 2020 survey, but the pattern of below average Maryland and above average Virginia counts has been seen in 2013, 2016 and 2019.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot