State and Local

November 28, 2013 — The hard northwester that’s been blowing since the coastal storm passed by Wednesday has calmed the ocean, and could provide another period of hot striper fishing — particularly for surfcasters.

The last time we had that situation, there was a blitz of legal stripers at Island Beach State Park as well as at some other areas in Ocean County. That fishing dropped off, but Bob Matthews at Fisherman’s Den in Belmar Marina said there was some good surf action before the storm from Sandy Hook to Asbury Park for school bass up to 25 inches.

Those smaller bass had been largely missing as stripers in the teens dominated during the last blitz. Ironically, there was also a lack of large bass after the last northwester — with relatively few weighing in the 20s. Grumpy’s Tackle in Seaside Park records both length and weight on their weigh-ins, and out of dozens listed recently there weren’t any over 39 inches. Some larger bass may have been released, such as the 40½-incher I put back while fishing from John Green’s beach buggy at Lavallette, but it was surprising that there were no reports of at least one much larger bass during the last blitz.

Read the full story at NJ.com 

 

WASHINGTON — November 22, 2013 — The operator of the dragger F/V Norseman and an associated fish dealer were sentenced today in federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., for criminal violations stemming from their role in systematically underreporting fluke (summer flounder) that was being harvested as part of the federal Research Set-Aside Program, the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division announced.

On Aug. 15, 2013, Wertz pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and two counts of falsification of federal records for knowingly submitting 137 falsified dealer reports from May 2009 through December 2011, and 70 falsified fishing logs, known as fishing vessel trip reports (FVTRs), from May 2011 through December 2011, as part of a scheme to defraud the United States of overharvested and unreported fluke.   C&C Ocean Fishery Ltd. pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and three counts of falsification of federal records for its participation in the scheme, which included aiding and abetting the submission of falsified dealer reports and FVTRs.

C&C Ocean was not only aware of the false Norseman FVTRs, but it aided and abetted the perpetration of the FVTR scheme through its preparation of federal dealer reports.   As a federal dealer, C&C Ocean was required to prepare and submit federal dealer reports to NOAA.

Read the full story at eNews Park Forest

ELLSWORTH, Maine — November 23, 2013 — It may not be like 30 years ago, when Maine’s coastal scallop fishery was at its peak, but 2012 produced the highest value for the annual fishery in the past 12 years.

According to state officials, this is a sign that the strict conservation approach that Maine has pursued since 2009 is starting to show positive results. That strict approach is expected to continue, though some specific regulations may be changing, for the 2013-2014 season, which is set to begin early next month.

Scallop fishing in the 2012 calendar year netted nearly 290,000 pounds of scallop meat for Maine’s statewide scallop fishing fleet, according to statistics compiled by the Maine Department of Marine Resources. That is the highest landings total for the fishery since 2002, when 348,000 pounds were harvested.

Thanks to continued strong consumer demand for sea scallops, Maine fishermen earned a record average statewide price of $11.18 per pound in 2012, making the total value of last year’s haul $3.24 million. The highest statewide total prior to that was in 2000, when fishermen had a cumulative gross revenue of $3.88 million.

“Maine’s scallop fishery is vital to our state,” Gov. Paul LePage said recently in a prepared statement, adding that it helps to provide jobs and income for people who work in other fisheries, too. “I commend the dedication by those in the industry to make the necessary sacrifices to restore a resource that fuels our coastal economy.”

Patrick Keliher, head of DMR, said in the same statement that the new management approach has been “challenging,” but gave credit to fishermen for making it work.

Read the full story from The Bangor Daily News

FAIRHAVEN, Mass., — November 22, 2013 — A $2 million grant to rebuild Union Wharf in Fairhaven was one of 11 projects statewide to be awarded funding from the Seaport Advisory Council recently. Grant awards total more than $18 million in funding.

Union Wharf is home to 12 lobster/small fishing vessels and 12 large fishing vessels, plus numerous transient vessels, according to the Seaport Advisory Council, which said the wharf represents more than 60 jobs.

The repair project involves replacing a bulkhead wall surrounding the east and south sides of the wharf. A new sheet pile wall will replace a deteriorated steel sheet wall and unstable granite block wall, allowing for needed dredging to occur to return the area to more productive use.

Funding for projects approved by the Seaport Advisory Council is supported by the Energy and Environmental Bond Bill, approved by the legislature and authorized by Governor Patrick in 2008.

Read the full story at the Southcoast Business Bulletin 

 

November 22, 2013 — Each winter, the North Carolina Aquaculture Development Conference draws more than 200 fish farmers, scientists and industry newcomers from across the Southeast to discuss research and current marketing trends for farm-raised fish and seafood. The 2014 gathering will be held in New Bern, Feb. 20-22.

The conference theme, Navigating Currents of Change, focuses attention on how aquaculture fits into emerging consumer markets. The keynote speaker will be Debbie Hamrick, director of specialty crops for the NC Farm Bureau Federation. Hamrick has tracked macro-trends affecting consumer spending and agriculture, including urbanization and the role of millennials as economic drivers. Her address will cover topics such as how to position farm-raised fish into a market dominated by urban consumers, and how to use metrics to determine future demand.

Hamrick is an influential figure in North Carolina’s booming local-foods sector. She has served on the statewide Local Sustainable Foods Advisory Council, the North Carolina Catch Board, the aquaculture conference board, and also advises more than a dozen specialty-crops organizations. Prior to joining the Farm Bureau, Hamrick spent nearly 20 years with Ball Publishing and was the founder of FloraCulture International magazine.

Read the full story the Jacksonville Daily News

November 24, 2013 — A sizable cut to summer flounder catch limits will affect the state's commercial fishermen next year, but it could also impact area restaurants – and diners – accustomed to a steady supply of fresh, local flounder throughout the year.

"It's our top-selling item, and has been since we opened eight years ago," said Tripp Engel, chef at Brasserie du Soleil in Wilmington. "I've had instances where I haven't been able to get flounder to the quality I would like, so I substitute another fish, and people would get up and walk out because we didn't have flounder. It could definitely affect us."

The new commercial quota, which will take effect Jan. 1, is 10.51 million pounds, nearly a million pounds less than this year's quota of 11.44 million pounds. The quota is a coastal limit, meaning that Atlantic states from North Carolina to Massachusetts are allocated a percentage of the total. North Carolina has the largest piece of the pie at 27.44 percent, or 2.88 million pounds – an 8 percent decrease from the current allowance of 3.14 million pounds.

Read the full story from Star News Online

November 25, 2013 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

Augusta, Maine — Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher announced today the appointment of a board for the newly created Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, an entity formed in October as a result of legislation to provide for the effective marketing and promotion of Maine Lobster.  This is a first major action for the new marketing initiative.

“Maine Lobster is an iconic American product that has a long history of feeding seafood lovers around the world while fueling Maine’s coastal economy,” said Maine Governor Paul R. LePage. “Maine’s lobster industry has a rich tradition of independent fisherman dedicated to sustainably harvesting this deliciously sweet seafood.  We are confident that our industry’s cooperative marketing investment and direct involvement on the new MLMC board from lobstermen, dealers and processors will help drive up profitable demand for branded Maine Lobster and further strengthen the overall Maine economy.”

“We sought out a board of leaders, innovators, marketing experts, harvesters, processors, dealers, small business owners and people who are eager to re-energize the Maine Lobster brand,” said Commissioner Keliher.  “I am confident that they will be successful in setting an effective marketing course for the future and creating a new high level of excitement and demand for Maine Lobster.”

The following have been named the new MLMC board:

– Karan Cushman, President of Cushman Creative, a cross-media branding company
– George Gervais, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development
– Frank Gotwals, Commercial lobsterman and board member of the Stonington Lobster Coop
– Patrick Keliher, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources
– Luke Holden, President and Founder of Luke’s Lobster and a Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Cape Seafood LLC
– Emily Lane, Vice President of Sales, Calendar Island Maine lobster and former Maine Lobster Promotion Council board member
– Peter Miller, Commercial lobster harvester, owner of Miller’s Wharf Lobster and former MLPC board member
– Paul Paradis, Bar Harbor town councilor and owner of Paradis True Value in Bar Harbor
– Hugh Reynolds, Owner of Greenhead Lobster in Stonington, one of Maine's largest purveyors of live, fresh lobster
– Vaughn A. Stinson, Chief Executive Officer of the Maine Tourism Association

The formation of the MLMC board is the first step in a five-year, multi-million-dollar investment that the industry has committed to marketing Maine Lobster.  By law, the MLMC board is comprised of 11 members, including representatives from the lobster harvester, dealer and processor sectors as well as public members with a marketing background. To date, 10 of those members have been appointed, and Commissioner Keliher, who led the board selection process, will continue to review nominees for the eleventh spot.

To read full bios of each person, please visit: www.lobsterfrommaine.com

 

November 23, 2013 — In what critics call a desperate bid to avoid the most expensive toxic cleanup in New Jersey history, the companies responsible for polluting the Passaic River are promoting a plan they say will help keep people safe: swapping contaminated fish pulled from the river with healthy ones.

The plan would involve a less-extensive cleanup along with the establishment of an indoor fish farm so anglers along the Passaic — one of the most polluted rivers in the nation and a federal Superfund site — can exchange the fish they catch with fish that are safe to eat.

The fish exchange is the latest idea by 70 companies that have been waging a public relations campaign for more than a year against the Environmental Protection Agency, which is developing a cleanup plan that could cost them billions.

The companies say that one of the most likely ways the public comes in contact with the contamination is through recreational fishing. By giving people healthy fish to eat, the companies say they can lessen the impact of the pollution. It would also mean they would not have to dig up nearly as much contamination as federal officials are likely to require.

The plan, which the companies call the “Sustainable Remedy,” has been sharply criticized by environmental officials, who believe the companies are looking for a way out of the massive bill.

“They are panicked and scrambling,” said Ray Basso, an EPA official who is overseeing the Passaic cleanup.

“Their motivation is that they don’t have to dig as much stuff out of the river,” he said. “We would not take it seriously.”

The EPA is expected to unveil a cleanup plan in January. EPA officials have revealed few details of the cleanup except to say it will be “bank to bank,” focusing on every part of the river, from Belleville eight miles south to Newark Bay. Last year they said they were in favor of a $1 billion to $1.8 billion project to dredge about 4.3 million cubic yards from the bottom of the Passaic — enough to fill 358,000 dump trucks — over six years. The area would then be backfilled to prevent the remaining pollution from spreading. The EPA is also considering another plan, which would include dredging all of the contaminated sediment — 9.6 million cubic yards — at a cost of $1.4 billion to $3.5 billion.

Read the full story from The Record

November 22, 2013 — “We’re in danger of closing,” said Molly Lutcavage, the [University of Massachusetts Large Pelagics Research Center's] director and research professor. “We’re in jeopardy of shutting our doors in June 2014 due to lack of funding opportunities.”

It doesn’t get any more stark than that.

As Lutcavage gazes off toward the horizon of 2014, she openly wonders what will come of the center and the phalanx of young doctoral and post-doctoral scientists lured by its highly regarded work, sterling reputation and its setting along the shores of America’s oldest seaport.

“We want to be in Gloucester,” she said. “This where our work is.”

But will they be able to stay as the current funding withers away?

Will they be able to remain within the embrace of UMass — which provides the Gloucester facility and little else financially — or be forced to seek sponsorship elsewhere, such as MIT or the University of New Hampshire, where the center actually began in 2003 and which is said to be interested in a reconciliation?

And even if Lutcavage manages to cobble together the approximately $1.3 million from state, federal, corporate and private sources needed to keep moving forward, can she do it before her half-dozen staff scientists and another half-dozen affiliated scientists scatter to the winds in search of opportunities elsewhere?

In that way, Lutcavage and the LPRC are running a race against the clock and doing so in a field populated with other publicly funded research facilities looking to root out every possible dollar. It is a race made even more complicated by its ever-changing course over a ever-shifting landscape.

Through much of its history, the LPRC has been funded with federal earmarks and line-item appropriations in the annual budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

From 2003 to the present, it received $11 million in federal appropriations, drawing $3 million in each of the peak years from 2004 to 2007.

Since 2007, it has largely relied on the competitive grants from NOAA and other university-based research programs, as well as assistance from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries after moving to Gloucester in 2011. It has also have benefited from almost $340,000 in private and corporate donations.

Largely, those funds have funded research by the LPRC and its scientists credited by NOAA and other influential international players such as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas for shedding enormous new light on the life, migration, maturation and breeding habits of large pelagics — such as bluefin and big-eye tuna, swordfish, leatherback turtles and various species of sharks.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

November 21, 2013 — As the second day of Seattle’s Pacific Marine Expo kicked off Thursday, the buzz among the attendees — fishermen and legislators alike — was a newly released economic report boasting of Washington’s $30 billion maritime industry.

In the state, a maritime industry that traces its roots back to Hudson’s Bay Co.’s commissioning of the S.S. Beaver, the first steamship in the Pacific Northwest, generates $15.2 billion in direct revenues and is responsible for 57,700 jobs.

When combined with indirect revenues, the numbers increased to $30 billion and more than 148,000 jobs in 2012, according to the comprehensive study commissioned by the Economic Development Council of Seattle and King County and the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County.

Among the 250 people at the Maritime Industry Forecast Breakfast on Thursday morning at CenturyLink Field was state Rep. Gael Tarleton, D-Seattle, who said she was blown away by the numbers.

“It is staggering,” said Tarleton, a former Port of Seattle commissioner. “The maritime industry is much more intertwined in the critical economy of Washington state than anyone would have imagined.”

Read the full story at the Seattle Times