State and Local

BOSTON — April 29, 2013 — Officials from the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game (DFG) are urging boaters to be on the lookout for North Atlantic right whales – a critically endangered species, which have begun to congregate and feed in large numbers in Western Cape Cod Bay.  The North Atlantic right whale is one of the most endangered large whales in the world, with a population of approximately 550.

On April 27, approximately 113 right whales were documented in Cape Cod Bay (CCB).  A dense aggregation of around 60 animals is clustered in the western portion of CCB from Green Harbor to Sandwich. DFG’s Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) is issuing a high risk advisory due to the number of whales, their behavior, their proximity to shore and the local abundance of zooplankton – tiny marine creatures on which the whales feed.  An aerial survey is being conducted to fully ascertain the number of whales in the area. Right whales gather annually in the waters off of Cape Cod to feed. Last year, approximately 50 percent of the known population was sighted in Massachusetts waters.

Right whales engage in surface and subsurface feeding and are often difficult to see, putting them at great risk to be struck by vessels. Vessel strike is a major cause of human-induced mortality for right whales.  For the safety of both mariners and whales, vessel operators in the Cape Cod Bay area are strongly urged to proceed with caution, reduce speed (less than 10 knots), and post lookouts to avoid colliding with these highly endangered whales.

Highly concentrated amounts of zooplankton at and just below the surface are driving the whales’ behavior. Based on a survey of zooplankton performed on April 27, it is expected that this aggregation of whales will persist for several more days to perhaps a week. DMF will lift the advisory when the right whales depart the area.

Vessels are prohibited by state and federal law from approaching within 500 yards of a right whale. Massachusetts Environmental Police and U.S. Coast Guard are authorized to enforce the 500-yard rule. Vessels that find themselves within 500 yards of a right whale should slowly and cautiously exit the area.

Management of maritime activities near right whales is part of the DMF Right Whale Conservation Program. The Right Whale Conservation Program is a cooperative effort between DMF, the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (CCS), and the National Marine Fisheries Service to study and protect right whales in Cape Cod Bay.

Please report all sightings of right whales immediately. Call the NOAA Fisheries Hotline at 866-755-NOAA (or hail the Coast Guard on Channel 16).

For more information:

Visit the Division of Marine Fisheries website

Contact Erin Burke — erin.burke@state.ma.us or 978-551-0152

Contact Dan McKiernan — dan.mckiernan@state.ma.us or 617-626-1536.

 

April 28, 2013 — A fishway on the Cumberland Mills Dam in Westbrook will lead alewives into a part of the Presumpscot River this week for the first time in more than a century.

The fishway, which the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in 2009 ordered Sappi Fine Paper to build at its dam, was constructed over the past two years and required to be completed by May.

"As a result of significant collaborative efforts and teamwork, Sappi expects to complete the fishway on time, within budget, and most importantly, safely," the company said in a statement. Sappi declined to comment further about the fishway.

The company has two more years to create a fish passage at Saccarappa Falls, a mile upriver, and is considering removing the dam entirely instead of building a fish ladder — possibly because it would be cheaper. The company has said the fish ladder at Cumberland Mills cost $5 million.

Eventually, Sappi will have to create passageways at its four dams farther upriver, the timing of which depends on how quickly the fish come back.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been stocking 600 alewives per year above Saccarappa Falls since 2009, so a good number of the fish — which take four years to mature — would return to spawn just in time for the opening of the fishway at Cumberland Mills, said Gail Wipplehauser, a scientist for the department.

Wipplehauser said Friday she expected the run to start in about a week and for about 1,000 alewives to pass through the dam over a three-week period.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

GRENAA, Denmark — April 28, 2013 — The New Bedford trade delegation arrived dockside Friday in Grenaa shortly after 11:30 a.m. A week of Powerpoint presentations, panel discussions, and visits to manufacturing plants and port facilities had been building to this moment: a two-hour boat tour to the Anholt Wind farm, about 15 nautical miles off the Danish coast.

"This is the first time we've all seen a wind farm in construction," New Bedford Economic Development Council Executive Director Matthew Morrissey told the captain of the "Elegant Tern," one of two boats that carried the city team out to the site. "We're all kind of giddy about it."

Work related to the park, which is owned by Danish utility Dong Energy and two pension funds, started about four years ago. On Friday, officials at Siemens, which is supplying and installing 111 3.6-megawatt turbines at the site, said 46 were already generating energy. The rest were on schedule to be completed by the end of the year.

The 400-megawatt wind farm — slightly smaller than Cape Wind's 468—megawatt plans for Nantucket Sound — is expected to meet five percent of Denmark's electricity demand. (Denmark's population is 5.6 million people; Massachusetts is home to 6.6 million people.)

All told, about 3,000 people are involved in the project, the majority of them in blue-collar positions, according to Mikkel Moller Madsen, the site manager for Siemens.

Siemens, which is responsible for about 70 percent of the world's offshore wind market and will be supplying the windmills for the Cape Wind site, uses subcontractors to supply 80 percent of the workforce, he said.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

 

April 28, 2013 — An amendment to the House budget for fiscal year 2014 directs $425,000 to fisheries research, state Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral, D-New Bedford, announced.

The research will focus on finding techniques to yield more accurate fish counts, which have been a major point of contention between the fishing industry and federal regulators who set quotas.

Cabral filed the amendment, which still needs approval of the overall budget by the House and Senate. He called it the largest state commitment to fisheries research funding.

The earmark, if passed, would send the money to the School for Marine Science and Technology at the UMass Dartmouth in collaboration with the state Division of Marine Fisheries to assess the number of groundfish, including cod and yellowtail.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

 

April 25, 2013 — The purpose of the meeting is to obtain potential feedback on ideas for 2013 menhaden regulations that Maryland must implement to comply with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

The deadline for public comment on regulatory ideas has been extended to Wednesday May 1, 2013. The scoping presentation can be found on the DNR website.

For more information:

Visit the Maryland Department of Natural Resources website

Read the full announcement at the Coastal Conservation Association

 

 

 

 

 

April 27, 2013 — Several coastal residents, along with a county panel focused on the fishing industry, are adamantly against parts of a House bill that if passed, would stop commercial fishermen from being allowed to catch and sell three fish species.

House Bill 983 was introduced to the General Assembly April 17 and is currently before the assembly’s Committee on Commerce and Job Development. If the bill passes, it will declare red drum, spotted sea trout and estuarine striped bass as gamefish, meaning only recreational fishermen will be allowed to catch them.

Brit Shackleford, owner and operator of Doghouse Sport Fishing of Manteo and president of N.C. Watermen United, a nonprofit organization of commercial fishermen, said this bill “flies in the face of the law of the land,” namely the Fisheries Reform Act, the state legislation that guides fishery management in North Carolina.

“It (the bill) is taking fish, which science has proven commercial fishing has little impact to, and gives it to the group that has 90 percent of it,” he said. “They (state legislators) are saying recreational fishermen should be given full control of the fishery.”

This isn’t the first time such a bill has been introduced in the General Assembly, and coastal counties and organizations have approved resolutions in opposition to the proposal. Those entities include Outer Banks Visitor’s Bureau, the N.C. Travel and Tourism Bureau and the N.C. Hotel and Motel Association.

Mr. Shackleford said NCWU is going to do anything and everything it can to stop H.B. 983. He said the group was in Raleigh on Wednesday, meeting with state department heads and legislators.

“They’ve been misled to think we don’t have any (commercial fishing) rules established,” Mr. Shackleford said. “We need to make them aware of the law, which deals with all users.”

Previous bills focused solely on making the four species gamefish; the new bill, however, has other provisions, including providing funds for coastal dredging projects, increasing the fee for a recreational fishing license and providing compensation for commercial fishermen due to the gamefish designation.

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

 

 

April 27, 2013 — A Canadian firm that is a subsidiary of the largest aquaculture operator in Maine pleaded guilty Friday in a Canadian courtroom to using illegal pesticides that killed hundreds of lobsters a little more than a mile from Maine’s border.

Cooke Aquaculture, based in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, agreed Friday to pay $100,000 in fines and an additional $400,000 in penalties that will fund environmental research and study at University of New Brunswick and restoration and enhancement of fish habitat in the Bay of Fundy region, according to Canadian court documents. The total amount, $500,000 in Canadian currency, is about $490,000 in U.S. currency.

Environment Canada has been investigating Cooke Aquaculture subsidiary Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd. in connection with the 2009 lobster deaths off Deer Island and Grand Manan Island, both of which are easily visible from Maine. According to Canadian court documents, four fishermen found dead lobsters in their traps off Grand Manan in November 2009, and the following month, two more fishermen found several hundred pounds of dead lobsters they had stored in Clam Cove by Deer Island. Clam Cove is roughly a mile and a half away from Pleasant Point in Maine.

In both cases, the dead and dying lobsters eventually were found to have been exposed to cypermethrin, a pesticide that is banned in Canada but which can be used in Maine with advance approval from state officials. Officials believe the cypermethrin was applied in salmon pens to combat the spread of sea lice, parasitic crustaceans that weaken the farmed fish and expose them to infection and disease.

In Maine, Cooke rotates its operations among two dozen salmon aquaculture sites in Hancock and Washington counties that are licensed to several subsidiary companies. The firm also has used legal sea lice treatments in Maine and New Brunswick within the past several years, according to industry officials.

According to a Cooke official, the court case in New Brunswick has no bearing on the company’s operations in Maine.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News 

 

 

April 28, 2013 — More than 75 fishermen from Seabrook to Portsmouth and about a dozen community volunteers on Saturday converged on the beaches of Rye and Hampton to clean up nearly 35 tons of lobster traps and fishing gear.

"We started at low tide about 7:30 (Saturday morning)," said Eric Anderson, president of the New Hampshire Commercial Fishermen's Association. "The cleanup went along quickly with the nice weather. There was a lot more debris this year."

The cleanup, now in it's 20th year, usually nets about 10 tons of traps and gear.

This year's cleanup effort is a partnership between the fishermen's association, N.H. Fish and Game Department, the N.H. Division of Ports and Harbors, Hampton Public Works Department and the Fishing for Energy Partnership, which funded a UNH Sea Grant for large equipment and dumpsters at the cleanup.

"It's our responsibility as fishermen to clean up after the winter," Anderson said.

The event took place at the state marinas at Rye Harbor and Hampton Harbor. Following the cleanup, the fishermen and volunteers had a cookout at the Rye location.

Read the full strory at the Portsmouth Herald 

 

 

April 29, 2013 — The following was released by the Northeast Seafood Coalition:

WHO: The Northeast Seafood Coalition (NSC) will host a Groundfish Industry Rally to unite the groundfish industry and call upon the federal government for federal fishery disaster assistance and mitigation needs to keep small businesses viable. The groundfish fishery is defined by small, family-owned businesses that operate from ports all along the Northeast coastline. This industry is comprised of fishing businesses, shore-side businesses, fishing dependent communities and seafood consumers.

Rally speakers include: Thomas P. Glynn, Massport CEO; Jackie Odell, NSC Executive Director; Vito Giacalone, NSC Policy Director; Richard Canastra, BASE New England; United States Senator Elizabeth Warren; United States Senator William “Mo” Cowan; United States Congressman John Tierney; United States Congressman Jim Keating; Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley; Secretary of the MA Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs, Richard K. Sullivan Jr.; Massachusetts State Senator Bruce Tarr; Massachusetts State Representative Ann-Margaret Ferrante; Mayor of Gloucester, Carolyn Kirk; and Mayor of New Bedford, Jon Mitchell

WHAT: Groundfish Industry Rally

WHEN: Monday, April 29, 2013
Program begins at 11:00 a.m.

WHERE: Boston Fish Pier
Rally event will take place alongside 212 Northern Avenue, Boston, MA 02210

WHY: Crippling reductions for the Northeast region’s Groundfish Fishery are about to come into play on May 1, 2013. These reductions will have devastating economic impacts on all businesses, communities and economies affected by the groundfish industry. This industry cannot survive these reductions.

Through the Groundfish Industry Rally, our industry will come together to bring their fate to the attention of federal and state leaders who are in a position to help.  Our industry did not cause these problems and there is nothing they can do to fix them.  We need their help.

Read a PDF of the announcement

Read a press release on the rally from the Northeast Seafood Coalition

Read the list of speakers at the rally

Read about the reasons for the rally

Read background information on the groundfish fishery

Read about the Northeast Seafood Coalition

View a poster advertising the rally

 

 

April 26, 2013 — The following was released by Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay is pleased the EPA has taken a significant step to ensure the continuation of America’s greatest wild salmon fishery by releasing its Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment and starting a 30-day comment period. This important science-based report describes the impacts and severe risks of large-scale hard rock mining in Bristol Bay’s highly productive wild salmon stronghold, and makes clear that the world’s largest and most valuable sockeye salmon fishery is no place for a mega project like the proposed Pebble Mine.

“We are fighting to protect 14,000 American jobs and an entire industry from a risky proposal to dig the largest open-pit mine in North America in the heart of the Bristol Bay salmon nursery,” said Bob Waldrop, executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. “Once again, EPA’s findings make it clear that delay is not an option for protecting the Bristol Bay salmon economy. We hope the EPA quickly finalizes the assessment so we can get back to growing Bristol Bay’s world-class sustainable fishery.”

The EPA’s science-based report, based on documents submitted by Pebble’s backers, finds that even without a catastrophic breach of the massive earthen dams that would be required to store up to 10 billion tons of toxic mine waste, a large mine the size of the proposed Pebble project will destroy miles of salmon streams and up to 4,300 acres of salmon wetland habitat. This destruction is unacceptable to Bristol Bay’s fishermen and a 125-year-old commercial fishing industry.

Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay has urged EPA to follow through on its extensive science and not let its report gather dust on a shelf, especially as the threat of the Pebble Mine has created a cloud of uncertainty over future investments in Bristol Bay’s fishery. All of the Assessment’s data and analysis makes clear that it’s time to enlist the Clean Water Act to protect Bristol Bay’s powerhouse fishery, economy and 14,000 jobs from a risky mega mine. Every year, an average of 37.5 million wild sockeye return to Bristol Bay, making up nearly half of the world’s supply of sockeye salmon. Under the Clean Water Act, the EPA has a clear responsibility and a duty to protect waters of national significance like Bristol Bay and its tributaries from the unacceptable adverse impacts of mined dredge and fill materials.

The agency’s process has now taken more than two years and has involved two rounds of review by independent scientists, eight public hearings and a previous public comment period that generated more than 230,000 comments, with more than 90% of them in support of EPA’s findings. In addition, more than 80% of Bristol Bay residents oppose the Pebble mine, as do nearly 60% of Alaskans and 85% of Bristol Bay commercial fishermen.

Following the public comment period, the EPA is expected to finalize the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment by fall.