Saving Seafood

Bay Rockfish Survey Brings Bad News, Possible Fishing Bans

October 21, 2024 — Concerns about striped bass have been mounting for years, and catch limits have been tightening. But the tighter limits apparently aren’t doing enough to help this popular fish rebound. And when coastwide fishery managers meet next week, there will be some tough conversations.

On Thursday, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) released the results from their annual surveys of juvenile striped bass (rockfish) in the Chesapeake Bay. For the sixth consecutive year in Maryland and second consecutive year in Virginia, both states’ juvenile indexes came in well below the states’ long-term averages.

The surveys are conducted by field biologists in multiple locations over three months during the summer with 100’-foot long beach seine nets. These surveys track reproductive success and juvenile survival for rockfish spawned in the spring in upper tidal reaches of the Bay’s big rivers. According to this year’s surveys, the 2024 young-of-year index for Maryland was 2.0 fish per sample, much lower than the long-term average of 11.0. In Virginia, the index was 3.43 fish per sample, against the historic average of 7.77.

Read the full article at Chesapeake Bay Magazine 

VIRGNIA: A look into revival of bay scallops along Virginia’s Eastern Shore

October 16, 2024 — Bay scallops along Virginia’s Eastern Shore are no longer extinct thanks to a decades-long seagrass restoration project, known to be one of the largest and most successful in the world.

The recent annual population survey shows the density of bay scallops in southern coastal bays has climbed by nearly 0.07 scallops per square meter. But when did the decline of the popular saltwater native actually begin?

Dr. Richard Snyder, Virginia Institute of Marine Science Eastern Shore Laboratory Director and Marine Science Professor, said wild bay scallops disappeared from Virginia in 1932, also marking the last commercial harvest for the scallops in the Commonwealth. The extinction of the population was attributed to a chronic wasting disease that wiped out their critical seagrass habitat.

Read the full article at WRIC

VIRGINIA: Reedville, VA to Get Watermen’s Heritage Park Thanks to Land Donation

September 24, 2024 — The Reedville Fishermen’s Museum in Reedville, Virginia, will create a new space in the middle of town for the public to honor the town’s waterman tradition.

Helen M. Birkel recently gifted the museum 2.3 acres of land on Main Street in town to allow expansion for a watermen’s heritage park and to provide the community with more public space.

Since 1988, the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum has spread the story of Reedville’s commercial fishing heritage through programs and exhibitions. The cultural landscape of the unincorporated community of Reedvillle was shaped by the menhaden fishery that was introduced to Chesapeake Bay in the late 19th century by Maine fisherman Captain Elijah Warren Reed, the community’s namesake.

Read the full article at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

VIRGINIA: Virginia proclaims Commercial Waterman Safety Week

September 23, 2024 — As a reminder that commercial fishing is an important part of the State of Virginia’s economy, Commonwealth’s governor Glenn Youngkin issued a proclamation recently that the week of September 15-21 is “Commercial Waterman Safety Week.”

The proclamation notes that the “Commonwealth’s commercial watermen and seafood industry generate over $1 billion in economic impact to the state and that there are 1,500 commercial watermen who “risk their lives sustaining a tradition passed down through generations.”

It further states that “Virginia stands as the largest seafood producer on the East Coast based on volume of landings,” which includes “scallops, clams, blue crabs, oysters, flounder, mackerel, menhaden and other species integral to the culinary industry . . . around the world.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman 

VIRGINIA: Dominion ups investments in offshore wind energy as industry surges forward

August 16, 2024 — As President Joe Biden’s presidential term comes to a close, the administration is bearing down on its goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy and 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035.

As of 2021, the administration had approved two commercial-scale offshore wind projects, and seven have been approved within the past year.

As of 2023, only seven offshore wind turbines were providing power to American homes, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This year has seen the addition of the 12-turbine South Fork Wind farm off the coast of New York and initial operations from Vineyard Wind 1 off the coast of Massachusetts.

Ten turbines delivered power to the grid until a test turbine broke and shed pieces of a 115,000-pound, 350-foot wind blade into the sea. Power generation and blade installation have been halted as debris continues to wash up on the shores of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

It’s been a busy summer for Virginia’s largest utility, Dominion Energy. This week, it announced the installation of the 50th monopile, or turbine foundation, of the long-anticipated Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project and the purchase of another 176,500-acre lease area east of the project.

Read the full article at The Center Square

VIRGINIA: Dominion secures another offshore wind lease — right next to Virginia Beach project

August 15, 2024 — The new lease site could yield enough electricity to power up to 1.4 million homes, according to the federal government.

Dominion Energy has snagged another offshore wind lease about 35 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced after an online auction Wednesday.

Dominion’s winning bid was just over $17.6 million for the 176,000-acre site, which directly adjoins its Coastal Virginia Offshore Project already under construction off the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.

That’s more than 10 times what the company paid for its current 112,000-acre lease more than a decade ago, when the U.S. offshore wind industry was yet to fully emerge.

The new lease site could yield enough electricity to power up to 1.4 million homes, according to BOEM.

Dominion’s ongoing CVOW project will include 176 wind turbines and is expected to power about 660,000 homes. The company has installed 54 turbine foundations since construction began in May, and plans to finish by late 2026.

Read the full article at WHRO

Feds’ offshore wind sale nets $93M

August 15, 2024 — The Biden administration scooped $93 million from offshore wind developers Wednesday in a sale off the coast of Delaware and Virginia, striking a bullish note for President Joe Biden’s offshore wind legacy despite the industry’s economic headwinds.

Just two leases were up for bid in the central Atlantic sale. A wind lease off the coast of Delaware netted $75 million, from the Norwegian energy giant Equinor, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s preliminary results.

A second lease area, off the coast of Virginia Beach, was scooped up for almost $18 million by the Richmond-based utility Dominion Energy. Dominion was the sole bidder for that lease, which lies adjacent to the 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm that Dominion is currently building.

Read the full article at E&E News

ASMFC vote to create workgroup to study Virginia’s menhaden fishery

August 8, 2024 — The saga of the future of Virginia’s menhaden reduction fishery on Chesapeake Bay continues to unfold as the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) Menhaden Management Board approved a motion on Tuesday Aug 6 that could lead to further regulations of the fishery.

The management board approved a motion to establish a “workgroup” to consider and evaluate “precautionary options” in the regulation of the state’s menhaden fishery.

This includes considering time and area closures of Virginia’s menhaden reduction fishery “to be protective of piscivorous birds and fish during critical points of their life cycle.”

The approval to create a workgroup came on the heels of a motion made by Maryland commissioner Lynn Fegley, who serves as director of Fishing and Boat Services at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

She introduced a motion to “initiate an Addendum (document) to the Atlantic Menhaden Interstate Management plan that would regulate menhaden purse net fishing of boats over 300 tons.” This was specifically directed at the Virginia owned Ocean Harvesters fleet out of Reedville, Va., the only menhaden reduction fishery fleet on the East Coast.

Fegley’s motion stated that the “document should include seasonal (fishing) closures of Chesapeake Bay waters (inside the COLREGs line)” but should not consider changes in the bay menhaden cap of 51,000 metric tons currently allowed from Virginia waters.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

VIRGINIA: Dominion bills will rise to fund wind farm

July 26, 2024 — Dominion Energy customers will see bills rise this fall to pay for the continuing costs of the electric company’s $9 billion project to erect a wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean 27 miles off the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.

The State Corporation Commission approved an 80% increase in the surcharge on bills that finances the offshore wind project.

The increase in the surcharge will boost a benchmark bill of $138 a month or 1,000 kilowatts of electricity by $3.89.

The increase takes effect on Sept. 1.

That increase will generate $485.9 million over the following 12 months.

Read the full article at the Richmond TimesDispatch

VIRGINIA: Fish factory workers rescue two kayakers

July 25, 2024 — On Wednesday, July 10, four Omega Protein employees went above and beyond their daily protocols when they rescued two overturned kayakers near the facility.

It was a regular, windy day when lead fish bailer Darvell Kelly noticed something strange a ways away in the water.

According to Kelly, the waters were rough that day as he was unloading fish from the boat to the dock at the facility.

While getting on and off the boat unloading, Kelly realized what he had seen in the distance in Cockrell Creek were two people stranded in need of some help.

Read the full article at the Rappahannock Record