Saving Seafood

Law

Environmentalists sue New York, New Jersey and Delaware over endangered sturgeon

October 25, 2024 — New York, New Jersey and Delaware were accused in federal lawsuits Thursday of improperly allowing Atlantic sturgeon to be killed by commercial fishing operations even as the prehistoric fish is on the brink of disappearing.

The three parallel lawsuits filed by the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Hudson Riverkeeper accuse the states of violating the Endangered Species Act by not obtaining necessary permits that allow commercial fisheries to catch and kill Atlantic sturgeon while they fish for other species such as striped bass and summer flounder. The environmentalists say the once thriving fish’s recovery is threatened because they are unintentionally caught in commercial nets as “bycatch.”

Atlantic Sturgeon in the Delaware River and Hudson River were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2012.

“The Atlantic sturgeon of our two rivers are at risk from being wiped from the face of this earth within our lifetime,” Delaware Riverkeeper Maya van Rossum said during an online news conference.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

More Vineyard Wind blades must be removed, repaired

October 24, 2024 — The Vineyard Wind project must remove an unknown number of blades that have already been installed south of Martha’s Vineyard while it repairs others, the company announced Wednesday. The project also received permission from the federal government this week to resume blade installation after it removes and repairs the components in the coming weeks.

The latest announcement suggests investigations found more defective blades similar to the blade that failed in July, and comes after the project quietly delivered at least four turbine blades from New Bedford to Cherbourg, France, where GE Vernova operates a blade manufacturing plant.

Both companies had not responded to questions as to why blades were being shipped to Europe from the U.S., but on Wednesday, a GE spokesperson told The Light the repair work will occur “in the water/at the turbine, in other cases at the [marshaling] harbor and our factory in Cherbourg, France.”

The companies said they would be “strengthening” the blades “as needed to support the safety and operational readiness of this project,” but it is unclear what is meant by “strengthening” — whether it means applying more adhesive or fiberglass — or where in the blade the repair work will occur.

During an earnings call with investors Wednesday morning, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said the last few months for offshore wind have been “difficult for us.”

“We can say today that a very small proportion, low single-digit proportion of our manufactured blades in totality also had a manufacturing deviation similar to the blade” that failed at the Vineyard Wind site, Strazik said. “In those cases, we are taking action on those blades.”

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Vineyard Wind is given the OK to move forward after blade failure in July

October 24, 2024 — After months of delay, Vineyard Wind has announced it was given the OK to remove a damaged blade and complete its wind turbine project 15 miles south of Nantucket.

In July, a GE Genova-manufactured wind turbine blade broke off, falling into the ocean and littering nearby beaches with floating debris and sharp fiberglass, which angered residents.

The failure occurred at Vineyard Wind’s offshore wind farm, which began delivering energy from five of its planned 63 wind turbines in February.

Read the full article at Boston.com

Marine Debris From Hurricanes Helene And Milton Could Take Years To Remove

October 24, 2024 — The recovery and cleanup process following hurricanes Helene and Milton will take months or even years to fully complete.

But the cleanup extends well beyond people’s homes and businesses. Marine debris has also found its way onshore, as well as into Florida’s canals and rivers, adding another layer to the cleanup.

“After hurricanes, they create a large pulse of debris in a short amount of time,” explains Ashley Hill, the Florida Regional Coordinator for NOAA’s marine debris program.

Hurricanes are so powerful that they are able to move large amounts of water. The water displacement, combined with the wind and storm surge, pushes trash, plastic and debris that has been floating around the Gulf of Mexico on the Florida coast and inland. All the trash now has to be picked up and removed.

What is marine debris?

Marine debris is any persistent, manufactured or processed solid material that intentionally or unintentionally ends up in our oceans or Great Lakes, according to NOAA.

“Anything human-made and solid can become marine debris once lost or littered in these aquatic environments,” says NOAA. “Our trash has been found in every corner of our ocean.”

Just one year after Hurricane Irma hit Florida in 2017, more than 250,000 cubic yards of marine debris had been reported removed at an estimated cost of $43 million, according to NOAA.

Hurricanes carry marine debris well inland

Hill explains that the marine debris removal following hurricanes Helene and Milton will take a very long time and is also very expensive.

“We’re finding things months, sometimes years after a particular hurricane,” said Hill. “A great example of that is we’re getting close to funding projects that will be removing some debris that we still have remaining from Hurricane Ian, which made landfall about two years ago.”

Read the full article at The Weather Channel

China’s Pacific fleet reportedly using squid ship as hospital to evade scrutiny

October 24, 2024 — Lack of transparency is a constant in the Chinese fleet dedicated to squid fishing in South American waters. Turning off their satellite-tracking systems, duplicating their identities within satellite-based monitoring systems, and transshiping their catch onto other vessels without informing the authorities: These are some of the strategies Chinese fishing vessels use to circumvent the law, according to organizations that monitor the fleet’s activities.

This is particularly worrying because several of the vessels that make up this huge fleet have a history of illegal fishing and forced labor.

What happens on board these vessels that operate in shadows?

In an attempt to answer this question, at least partially, Artisonal, a civil society organization based in Chorrillos, Peru, that’s dedicated to monitoring fishing fleets, followed the course of the Zhe Pu Yuan 98. The fishing vessel operates as a makeshift hospital attending to sick crew members from sister ships in the same fleet.

In the last three years, 37 crew members in critical condition and one who died were transferred from Chinese vessels to the Port of Callao on the central coast of Peru. The Zhe Pu Yuan 98 alone transferred 15 of the crew members in critical condition, according to the Artisonal report, which is based on disembarkation records.

A hospital at sea

“The vessel Zhe Pu Yuan 98 was repeatedly entering the Peruvian port, which was rather unusual,” said Eloy Aroni, director of Artisonal. Moreover, all of its entries were so-called forced arrivals, a protocol used when a ship needs to enter a port in an emergency. All this raised the organization’s suspicions.

According to Aroni, in July 2020 a team from The Outlaw Ocean Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit journalism group, confirmed that the Zhe Pu Yuan 98 was being used as a floating hospital for the Chinese fleet of squid vessels operating on the high seas.

“The ship was modified to provide medical assistance to fishermen who operate in the South Pacific. A small operation room was established, and a doctor was brought on board to attend to the sick or injured crew members,” Artisonal wrote in a summary of the report.

However, according to The Outlaw Ocean Project, when the patients’ conditions became critical and the only doctor on board was no longer able to assist them, the patient was transferred to port to be taken to a hospital on land.

Read the full article at Mongabay

Ocean Harvesters and Omega Protein Call for 15-Mile Buffer Zone from Offshore Wind on Central Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf

October 24, 2024 — The following was released by Omega Protein and Ocean Harvesters:

Ocean Harvesters, owner and operator of nine menhaden purse seine vessels, and Omega Protein, which develops healthy products from menhaden, have called for a 15-mile buffer from offshore wind development on the Central Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. Responding to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) recently proposed Central Atlantic 2 Call Area (Docket No. BOEM-2024-0040), the two Reedville, Virginia-based companies wrote that their operations are incompatible with wind turbine arrays, and that critical adjustments are needed to protect the menhaden fishing industry.

Ocean Harvesters vessels harvest Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay and in Atlantic Ocean waters from the mouth of the Bay to northern New Jersey, providing these catches exclusively to Omega Protein. This fishery, active in the communities of Virginia’s Northern Neck for over 140 years, supports the production of essential products for aquaculture, agriculture, and human nutrition.

On average, nearly 70 percent of Ocean Harvesters’ catch occurs in federal waters, with approximately 93,000 metric tons of menhaden harvested annually in the Exclusive Economic Zone between the Virginia-North Carolina border and Long Island. These operations rely on aerial spotter planes and a complex netting process to harvest menhaden, a method that is incompatible with wind turbine arrays. The range of the nets, the need for spotter planes to fly at low altitudes, and the drift of vessels during harvesting make it essential that a buffer zone be established around wind energy sites.

The companies recommend that BOEM move the boundary of Central Atlantic 2 Call Area seaward from the current six miles to 15 miles to prevent conflicts. Such a change would not only reduce conflicts with the menhaden fishery, but with many other small and large-scale commercial fisheries as well.

Maintaining an appropriate buffer zone is particularly crucial off the coast of Virginia because waters around the Chesapeake Bay are where conflicts with the menhaden fishery would be most acute. Additionally, the confluence of shipping lanes, military operations, and recreational traffic makes this a congested area in the ocean, of importance to numerous existing ocean users.

Ocean Harvesters and Omega Protein remain committed to working collaboratively with BOEM to find a solution that balances offshore renewable energy development with the preservation of vital commercial fisheries.

About Omega Protein
Omega Protein Corporation is a century old nutritional product company that develops, produces, and delivers healthy products derived from menhaden, a fish found abundantly off the U.S. Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. Omega Protein Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary and division of Cooke Inc., a family-owned company based in New Brunswick, Canada.

Through its subsidiaries, Omega Protein owns three menhaden manufacturing facilities in the United States. Omega Protein also has a long-term supply contract with Ocean Harvesters, which owns 30 fishing vessels which harvest menhaden. All fishing vessels owned and operated by Ocean Harvesters, an independent company, were formerly owned by Omega Protein. Any references to commercial fishing of menhaden relate to Ocean Harvesters, not Omega Protein or Cooke Inc.

ALASKA: Red king crab harvest looking ‘very good’ so far for Bristol Bay fleet

October 24, 2024 — The Bering Sea’s biggest and most lucrative crab fisheries opened last week, and so far, fishing is looking good.

“Fishing has been very good for the [Bristol Bay red king crab] fleet this season and the crab delivered so far has been of high quality — new shell, large size, good meat-fill,” said Alaska Department of Fish and Game Area Management Biologist Ethan Nichols.

As of Wednesday afternoon, about 29% of the total allowable catch (TAC), for the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery had been harvested, according to Nichols. He said so far, reports from captains and from observer catch reports show signs of productive fishing.

Nichols said 14 vessels had landed about 680,000 pounds of king crab. The average weight is 6.84 pounds, and the catch rate is 35 legal males per pot. Both of those numbers are up slightly from last year.

The state set the harvest level at about 2.3 million pounds earlier this month, just 7% more than last year’s cap. The fishery was shut down for the two years prior, due to low abundance.

Former Unalaska mayor and fisheries advisor Frank Kelty said recent surveys show that king crab stocks are looking better this year, but the fishery still has room to grow.

“This fishery is still in a depressed state,” Kelty said. “But you know, we saw improvement in some of the mature males and the six-and-a-half legal size crab, but still not a big surge in the juveniles and pre-recruits moving into the fishery yet.”

Read the full article at KYUK

Gauge increase, a top concern for lobstermen, is delayed to July 2025

October 24, 2024 — Implementing a change in the legal size of lobsters caught in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank was pushed back six months, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission announced this week, after determining that postponing implementation “would reduce negative impacts to the U.S. and Canadian lobster industries in 2025 and allow Canada more time to consider implementing complementary management measures.”

The ASMFC, the regulatory agency that oversees the fishing industry, voted Monday to delay the resolution from Jan. 1, 2025 to July 1, 2025.

This second postponement of the gauge change — it originally was meant to take effect this year — will at least temporarily assuage lobstermen, many who attended October union meetings held along the coast from Rockland to Ellsworth and Jonesport, where the gauge change was a top concern.

“[Lobstermen] are worrying that that’s going to price them out of a business that is precariously turning a profit,” said Virginia Olsen, Maine Lobstering Union Local 207’s executive liaison and political director. “For instance, my husband was going through some landing receipts from 1992 to today [and] there’s a 50 cents difference [more paid per pound]. But a trap that costs $70 now costs $200. Bait that was so inexpensive is now one of our biggest expenses. That margin of how much profit you have is shrinking for us every year.”

Read the full article at the Mount Desert Islander

VIRGINIA: Dominion Energy Receives $2.6B as Stonepeak Acquires Share of Wind Farm

October 24, 2024 — Dominion Energy Receives $2.6B as Stonepeak Acquires Half of Offshore Wind Farm

Dominion Energy completed the previously announced deal to sell a 50 percent interest in its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project to Stonepeak, a leading alternative investment firm specializing in infrastructure and real estate. The transaction continues the trend of investment firms entering the offshore wind sector while for Dominion Energy it reduces risk and is part of a broader effort to lower corporate debt. The company has said it does not signal a change in its support of offshore wind energy power generation.

“We are pleased to partner with Stonepeak on CVOW,” said Robert Blue, Chair and CEO of Dominion Energy. “Stonepeak is one of the world’s largest infrastructure investors in large energy projects such as offshore wind, and its financial participation in CVOW will benefit both the project and the people who will rely on electricity from CVOW to keep the lights on and fuel economic growth in the Commonwealth.”

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Atlantic Striped Bass Stock Assessment Update Finds Resource Remains Overfished with a Less Than 50% Chance of Rebuilding by 2029

October 24, 2024 — The following was released by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board reviewed the results of the 2024 Atlantic Striped Bass Stock Assessment Update, which indicates the resource is not experiencing overfishing but remains overfished relative to the updated biological reference points. Female spawning stock biomass (SSB) in 2023 was estimated at 191 million pounds, which is below the SSB threshold of 197 million pounds and below the SSB target of 247 million pounds. Total fishing mortality in 2023 was estimated at 0.18, which is below the fishing mortality threshold of 0.21 and above the fishing mortality target of 0.17. The 2024 Assessment Update included data through 2023 and used the same model from the approved peer-reviewed 2018 Benchmark Stock Assessment. The model structure was the same as the 2022 Stock Assessment Update, which accounted for the period of low recruitment the stock is experiencing and for new management changes starting in 2020.

 
The Board continued to express concerns about low recruitment and the lack of strong year-classes to support the stock and the fishery. Six of the last seven year-classes since 2015 have been below average, with only the 2018 year-class being above average. The 2018 year-class is starting to grow into the slot limit for the ocean recreational fishery and will become more available to ocean harvest in 2025.


 
The 2024 Assessment Update also included short-term projections to determine the probability of SSB being at or above the SSB target by 2029, which is the stock rebuilding deadline. The model structure for projections from 2024-forward was modified to explicitly account for the narrower slot limits implemented in 2023 and 2024. A range of projection scenarios were considered to explore two primary sources of uncertainty for the rebuilding trajectory through 2029: the level of fishery removals for the current, in-progress 2024 fishing year and the fishing mortality rate from 2025 through 2029.
 
The Board agreed with the Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee that the most likely projection scenario is lower removals in 2024 compared to 2022 and 2023, followed by an increase in fishing mortality in 2025, and a subsequent decrease and stabilization of fishing mortality from 2026 through 2029. A decrease in removals for 2024 is projected based on preliminary low 2024 catch data, likely due to the strong 2015 year-class growing out of the current recreational ocean slot limit and the implementation of Addendum II measures to reduce fishing mortality in 2024. An increase in 2025 fishing mortality would correspond to the 2018 year-class entering the current recreational ocean slot limit, and the subsequent decrease and stabilization from 2026 through 2029 would align with the 2018 year-class growing out of the slot limit and the lack of strong year-classes behind it. In this scenario, the probability of rebuilding by 2029 is less than 50%.
 
Based on these projections, the Board will hold a special Board meeting in December 2024 to consider Board action to change 2025 management measures to reduce fishing mortality and increase the probability of rebuilding to at least 50%. Under Addendum II to Amendment 7, the Board can change management measures through Board action, instead of developing an addendum, if the stock assessment indicates a less than 50% probability of the stock rebuilding by 2029. Ahead of the December meeting, the Board tasked the Technical Committee with updating the projections based on additional 2024 catch data and developing recreational size limit and seasonal closure management options for consideration.
 
A subsequent press release will provide details on the meeting date and format (in-person or virtual), and the anticipated timeline for the availability of meeting materials and the public input process (which may differ from the standard public comment timelines to allow for the compilation and summary of public comment in advance of the meeting).
 
The 2024 Atlantic Striped Bass Stock Assessment Update will be available athttps://asmfc.org/species/atlantic-striped-bass under stock assessment reports early next week.
For more information, please contact Emilie Franke, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, atefranke@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.