August 9, 2024 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
Press releases, meeting summaries, and motions from the Commission’s 2024 Summer Meeting are now available at https://asmfc.org/files/
August 9, 2024 — Squid operations at the Port of Hueneme are set to move to the Ventura Harbor in the next few years. The Port of Hueneme’s commercial fishing operations will be relocated to Ventura Harbor in the next several years, a win-win for both parties, officials announced Aug. 1.
August 9, 2024 — U.S. activists opposed to offshore wind development areforming a national coalition aimed at fighting projects from California to New England, according to the effort’s founder and two other organizations.
August 8, 2024 — Federal and state officials attended the Nantucket Select Board meeting on Wednesday to address ongoing concerns about the damaged wind turbine that has cast debris onto the island’s beaches since early July.
“There are still parts of the blade that are remaining on the turbine,” said Roger Martella, the chief sustainability officer of GE Vernova, the blade’s manufacturer. He estimated it to be about seven to eight percent of the mass of the blade.
Martella said that on Thursday, if weather permits, crews plan to remove that remaining part of the blade that’s currently at risk of falling into the ocean.
One resident asked if the high winds expected from Tropical Storm Debby could loosen other blades.
But Martella said that was not likely.
“The storm is not a risk for the turbines or the blades or anything like that,” Martella said during the meeting, which was livestreamed.
August 8, 2024 — It’s going to be at least another month before contenders for the state’s fourth, and largest, offshore wind procurement will be unveiled.
The state Department of Energy Resources on Tuesday indicated in a letter submitted to Department of Public Utilities Secretary Mark Marini that selection of projects will be postponed until Sept. 6. The agency’s evaluation team was originally scheduled to announce the selected bids and the start of negotiations on Aug. 7.
“The additional time is needed to consider any impacts to this solicitation from the recently announced federal grant to New England states through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Innovation Program for projects to invest in regional electric infrastructure to ready the onshore transmission system for offshore wind,” the letter reads.
August 9, 2024 — New federal regulations on the lobstering industry are being delayed after months of pushback from local lobstermen.
The rules would increase the minimum acceptable size for lobsters that can be caught and require bigger escape vents to be added to traps.
Regulators with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission told News9 the goal of the new rules, laid out in policy called Addendum 27, are aimed at protecting the population of younger lobsters and allowing them to grow to a size where they can reproduce and be suitable for harvesting.
“We’re looking at those lobsters that are kind of forecasting that would be available to the fisheries next year,” said Caitlin Starks, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator. Plan Coordinator.
The commission voted this week to delay the start of new rules from January to July.
Starks said the number of those younger lobsters have declined in research counts in recent years, triggering the new regulations.
However, local lobstermen have cast doubt on those studies and railed against the rules laid out in Addendum 27.
August 9, 2024 — Backers of red snapper legislation advancing in the United States Senate say it could protect the United States market from illegal Mexican fishing – though its approach relies on technology that has yet to be developed.
In fact, a bill backed by three Republican senators — Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, along with Ted Cruz of Texas — is a call for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to figure out the methodology needed to create nationality field test kits for red snapper. It sets a two-year deadline.
If enacted, the legislation would give the under secretary of commerce for standards & technology and the director of the NIST, a position currently held by Laurie Locascio, a two-year deadline. It calls for the under secretary to work with the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to develop a “joint standard of methodology based on chemical analysis for identifying the country of origin of red snapper.”
By the two-year deadline, the under secretary would be required to submit a report that sums up the methods developed as well as “a plan for operationalizing the methodology.” That’s clarified elsewhere as “a field kit that can be easily carried by one individual,” involves minimal processing time, and its otherwise suited to the needs of law enforcement officers in the field.
August 8, 2024 — As Cook Inlet drift gillnetters finished their first sockeye salmon season under the joint state-federal management regime, the harvest came in at about half of what they had hoped it would be. The fish were there, they say, but scant openings in federal waters prevented their rightful share of the harvest.
The cumulative Inlet catch as of July 31 shot past the 1.7 million mark, which was ahead of the 10-year average but lagging behind the 20-year average of 3.1 million. With some fish expected to return in early August, the final harvest could hit 2 million.
Of that total, 1,319,965 sockeyes were caught in state-managed waters within three miles of the shoreline, but only 310,340 fish came from the federally-managed U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which encapsulates the majority of Cook Inlet waters beyond three miles from shore.
In the advent of the season, the industry braced for complications within the entwined management systems. For the first time in the history of the fishery, drift netters needed to procure a federal permit in addition to their state-issued, limited entry permits, and comply with federal mandates, but the bigger concern was that limited openingsinfederal waters would leave too many uncaught salmon.
Read the full article at National Fisherman
August 8, 2024 — The following was released by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
The River Herring Benchmark Stock Assessment finds the coastwide populations of both alewife and blueback herring (collectively referred to as river herring) are depleted relative to historic levels, with the habitat model indicating that overall productivity of both species is lower than an unfished population before the occurrence of any habitat modifications (e.g., dams or human alterations to the environment). The depleted determination was used instead of overfished and overfishing because of the many factors that have contributed to the declining abundance of river herring, which include not just directed and incidental fishing, but also habitat loss, predation, and climate change.
August 8, 2024 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
The Commission’s Coastal Pelagics Management Board approved Addendum II to Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Cobia. The Addendum modifies the recreational allocation framework, allows the Board to update allocations quickly if the underlying data are revised, expands the range of data used in harvest evaluations, and allows the Board to set management measures for a longer period of time. Addendum II responds to increased cobia harvest in some Mid-Atlantic states in recent years, as well as concerns about high uncertainty associated with cobia recreational harvest estimates. All Addendum II measures are effective immediately, and will be used to set recreational measures for 2025 and beyond.