State and Local

April 11, 2014 — A state senate bill seeks to curb the ecological and health hazards of mislabeled seafood.

State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) last week introduced Senate Bill 1138, which would make it illegal to knowingly sell mislabeled seafood.

Padilla’s bill requires that any label of fresh, frozen, or processed fish or shellfish offered for sale must clearly identify the species by its common name.

It follows a seafood fraud investigation by the conservation group Oceana, the bill’s sponsor.

Between 2010 and 2012 the organization collected more than 1,200 seafood samples from grocery stores, restaurants, and sushi venues across 21 states to determine if they were honestly labeled.

Read the full story from the Union Tribune San Diego

NEW BEDFORD — April 12, 2014 — British fishing consultant Tom Watson had some good news for Massachusetts fishermen: offshore wind farms will make the industry adapt, but they won't kill it.

Hailing from Fleetwood, England, a deepwater fishing port surrounded by three offshore wind farms, Watson said having to deal with the turbines was an adjustment, but not insurmountable.

"Before they were built everyone thought they would have to go to the Salvation Army for dinner every night," he said. "But I don't know a single person who had to sell their boat because of a wind farm."

He said the best advice for the New Bedford fleet was to cooperate with the wind farm developers as early as possible in order to have a say in the process.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times 

 

 

April 11, 2014 — The California Department of Public Health is advising consumers not to eat anchovies or sardines caught in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties due to dangerous levels of domoic acid that have been detected in the fish.

Consumers are also advised not to ingest the internal organs of crabs from Monterey and Santa Cruz counties due to domoic acid toxicity. 

Domoic acid is a naturally occurring marine toxin that doesn't hurt marine animals but can be dangerous for humans. 

In anchovies and sardines, the acid resides in the digestive tract, which presents a danger because the fish are typically not gutted before consumption.

Read the full story at The Berkeley Daily Planet 

 

April 13, 2014 — A century-old research lab near Beaufort may be saved from the chopping block, depending on the success of legislative wrangling by two North Carolina congressmen.

The facility, owned and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean Service, sits on Pivers Island, just across the bridge from Beaufort. The lab opened in 1902 and employs more than 100 workers, including seven staff members from the state Division of Coastal Management. Research conducted there encompasses almost every aspect of marine and coastal science, including algal blooms, estuary habitats and endangered sea turtles, among many others. The majority of those issues have direct ties to Southeastern North Carolina.

"You name the coastal issue, they've got their neck in it," said Josh Bowlen, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones, a Republican who represents the 3rd Congressional District. "Whether it be turtles, marine mammals, dolphins and whales or any of the fish populations that are present off North Carolina – they are working on or have worked on all of those."

The lab is in danger of shutting down because a line item in President Barack Obama's budget proposal for the coming fiscal year recommends its closure for financial reasons. According to NOAA, the lab "requires infrastructure repairs and improvements exceeding agency budget resources now and for the foreseeable future." But Jones and 7th District U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre have protested that logic, noting that the agency invested roughly $14 million to upgrade the research facility in the past few years.

Read the full story from Star News Online

April 13, 2014 — The North Carolina Fisheries Association begins its sixth decade as one of the oldest commercial fishing organizations in the country with a reorganization to again become a strong voice in the volatile culture involving the trade.

A new leadership team has been named that includes the return of one of the association’s most notable spokesmen — President Jerry Schill.

Schill was the association’s president and lobbyist for nearly two decades before he left in 2005 to pursue other interests, including a move to a farm in his native Pennsylvania.

Schill returned several years ago and has been active in other local groups, including serving as chairman the Craven-Pamlico Christian Coalition and heading STAFF House maternity home. Recently, he took over the interim director job for the fishing association before being named its president.

Schill said he will continue his leadership role with the Christian Coalition and do some administrative work and serve as a STAFF House board member in a volunteer role.

Brent Fulcher of B&J Seafood in New Bern is the new board chairman, with Leslie Daniels of William Smith Seafood in Beaufort as treasurer.

The new board includes representation from Dare County to Brunswick County, and all aspects of commercial fishing — harvesting, processing and trucking. Affiliate groups such as the Carteret County Fishermen’s Association and the Albemarle Fishermen’s Association also have voting representatives on the board.

Read the full story from the Sun Journal

April 8, 2014 — Workers from the federal office in charge of leasing offshore lands to wind farms knew they were facing a skeptical audience when they traveled to Montauk Tuesday morning to discuss their leasing program with Montauk fishermen.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is responsible for the leasing of lands to Deepwater Wind, which is building a small demonstration wind farm of the coast of Block Island and plans to build a bigger wind farm, which could be the first in the country, 30 miles offshore from Montauk.

Those leases are already in place, and BOEM is currently looking for feedback from New York fishermen on two other Atlantic areas that could be used for wind production, including one near the New York Bight off the southwestern coast of Long Island and one off the coast of New Jersey.

The meeting served as the opening session for a three-day long meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council in Montauk. Though only four people RSVP’d for the session before it began, the room was packed with fishermen who took a mixed view on offshore wind.

BOEM’s Renewable Energy Program Manager Maureen Bornholdt told the crowd of fishermen who gathered in the Montauk Yacht Club Tuesday morning that, though the leases for Deepwater Wind are already in place, there are still several phases of data gathering and analysis that must be done by the developers before the project is built.

Captain Joe McBride of the Montauk Boatman’s and Captain’s Association said his group wants to give BOEM a chart of important fishing and transit areas to help them avoid political roadblocks while running the electric cables and building the turbines.

“We support sound renewable energy,” he said. “It will bring new jobs and industry into New York State. It would be to your advantage to know what areas are important to us.”

Ms. Bornholdt said BOEM and the Coast Guard do not try to keep fishermen out of areas where wind turbines are built, but they do provide guidelines to keep fishermen safe when traveling through the areas.

NOAA Fisheries Northeast Region Administrator John Bullard, a former mayor of New Bedford, Mass., said fishermen already deal with many cables in the water, and he’s heartened to see that they’re looking for input from fishermen.

“The fishing industry is counting on you to protect their interests,” he said, adding that he’d recently attended a Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Council conference on climate change in Washington, D.C.

Read the full story from the East End Beacon

April 11, 2014 —  The following was released by The Maine Department of Marine Resources:

Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher has been appointed by President Obama to serve as Commissioner of the Council of North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO). The appointment does not interfere with his role as commissioner of DMR.
 
NASCO is an international organization, established by an inter-governmental Convention in 1984. The objective of NASCO is to conserve, restore, enhance and rationally manage Atlantic salmon through international cooperation taking account of the best available scientific information.
 
“This is a tremendous honor,” said Commissioner Keliher. “I have spent the majority of my career working to restore and sustain Maine’s marine resources, and I am looking forward to working with NASCO’s international membership to foster cooperation and information exchange on the wide range of issues impacting a species that is so important to our state’s history.
 
“This position will in no way impact time and commitment I devote to the work of the Maine Department of Marine Resources,” said Commissioner Keliher. “I am confident that I will be able to work effectively with NASCO to advance its objectives while at the same time continuing to give my full attention to DMR’s constituents.”
 
Governor Paul R. LePage appointed Keliher first as Acting Marine Resources Commissioner and then Commissioner. Throughout his career he has held numerous leadership positions in fisheries management organizations.
 
Atlantic salmon once returned by the hundreds of thousands to most major rivers along the northeastern United States, but now only return in small numbers to rivers in Maine. Commercial fishing for the species currently is prohibited by law and the Gulf of Maine population is protected under the Endangered Species Act.
 
The Maine Department of Marine Resources Division of Searun Fisheries and Habitat’s mission is to protect, conserve, restore, manage and enhance diadromous fish populations, including Atlantic Salmon, and their habitat in all waters of the State; to secure a sustainable recreational fishery for diadromous species; and to conduct and coordinate projects involving research, planning, management, restoration or propagation of diadromous fishes.

Aptil 11, 2014 — The following was released by the Working Waterfront Festival:

The Working Waterfront Festival is a non-profit organization which is committed to celebrating the culture of the working waterfront and strives to educate the public about its history and culture.  A Festival is held every September on the historic waterfront of New Bedford and we would greatly appreciate your assisting us to inform the public by listing our event on your website and/or magazine.

Below is a description of this year’s Festival:  

Working Waterfront Festival, New Bedford, MA (September 27-28, 2014). An award winning, family friendly event celebrating the history and culture of New England's commercial fishing industry featuring live music, children’s activities, cooking demonstrations, vessel and harbor tours, fisherman’s contests, author readings, film screenings, local seafood, festival bookstore, maritime artisans marketplace & more. The FREE festival presents all that goes into bringing seafood from the ocean to the table in a way that is hands-on, educational and fun.  

This year, we put the spotlight on the historic and contemporary role of fishing families, both on shore and at sea.  Programming will highlight the skills, knowledge, and traditions which are passed from one generation to the next.  We will explore what it means to grow up in a fishing family; consider the important support role family members play; and pay tribute to the many family businesses which are part of the industry.

Learn more about the Working Waterfront Festival

April 8, 2014 — Some potential effects are already known. Scallop fishing would be curtailed by a wind-farm project proposed in the South Shore waters off western Long Island by the Long Island Power Authority, Con Edison and the New York Power Authority, according to maps shown at the meeting. Two other energy firms also are bidding for that lease, which hasn't yet been awarded.

"We're very concerned about it," said Andrew Minkiewicz, an attorney representing scallop industry interests. "We will use all means at our disposal to fight" the loss of fishing grounds, he added.

A 256-square-mile lease already has been awarded for waters off Rhode Island to Deepwater Wind, which proposes selling energy to LIPA. Bornholdt said similar wind farm proposals are being considered in waters of nearly every state along the East Coast from Massachusetts to Florida.

Larry Penny, a biologist and former East Hampton Town natural resources director, suggested the bureau scale back those plans to "do a few of these and see what the impacts will be."

Bornholdt said the step-by-step process of approvals and monitoring would help prevent unforeseen problems. "We can build in some monitoring capability . . . and stop project activity once we approve a plan," she noted.

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, an industry group in Montauk, expressed concern about wind farms' impact on sea bottom.

"You're blasting [wind towers] onto the ocean floor," she said, potentially creating "mini dead zones" where fish cannot live.

Read the full story at Newsday

BATON ROUGE, La., — April 9, 2014 — The following was released by Share the Gulf:

Fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico will be facing an even shorter recreational season for red snapper as the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, a group of state and federal fishery managers that oversee offshore fisheries, works to comply with several standards set by the Magnuson-Stevens Act after a federal court ruled their years of management of the recreational fishery illegal.
 
On Tuesday the Council's Reef Fish Committee, which makes recommendations to the full Council, voted in favor of an 11-day recreational season with a two-fish per day, per angler limit.
 
"Nobody wants 11 days and shortened seasons will not solve the problem the fishery is facing," said Billy Archer, Share the Gulf member and a charter captain from Panama City, Florida. "The good news is that better solutions for recreational fishermen exist and we urge the full Council to adopt comprehensive management measures instead of the same old failed approaches."
 
The full council will consider the recommendation of the reef fish committee on Thursday and will likely vote to request that the Secretary of Commerce take this emergency action to reduce the likelihood of quota overages during the 2014 season.

Some Council members are attempting to attach new must-pass accountability measures for the recreational fishery to Amendment 28, a proposal to take a portion of the commercial fishery's quota and give it to recreational fishermen, so that the Council will be forced to pass the amendment and reallocate the red snapper fishery.
 
"These types of maneuvers are wrong and confuse a fish grab with real changes that can improve fishing for anglers across the Gulf of Mexico," said Bubba Cochrane, Texas Co-Chair for Share the Gulf and commercial fisherman. "Reallocation is a false promise to recreational fishermen and a distraction from improving the management of the recreational fishery. It will take fish out of Gulf seafood industry and do nothing to help anglers in the long-term. Combining new accountability measures with Amendment 28 will only cause more chaos and more division in the Gulf."
 
The Gulf Council has been presented with several alternative management programs that could improve fishing opportunities for recreational fishermen while improving accountability, but have yet to move any of them forward for serious consideration. "The Council cannot continue to ignore the demands for new management options," said Archer.
 
The Council must implement an adequate management plan for the 2014 season by May 15, 2014 in order to comply with the federal court's ruling, and has until next year to implement permanent changes to the management program for the recreational red snapper fishery.
 
"The Council should permanently end the reallocation distraction so that it can avoid further legal action and fulfill its obligations under the law to improve recreational management and ensure long-term sustainability of the fishery," said Cochrane.