State and Local Archives - Page 89 of 900

MAINE: How the Maine coast will be reshaped by a rising Gulf of Maine

January 23, 2024 — Extreme weather made more frequent and ferocious by climate change has walloped Maine in the last year, and the coastal devastation wrought by recent storms is causing many Mainers to realize that climate change is happening right now.

From Kittery to Eastport, climate change came to life. Mainers could do little but watch as storms rushed in on seas elevated by climate change, buckling roads, scouring beaches and washing away our working waterfronts.

“People aren’t just waking up to climate change, but these storms have made theory into a pretty scary reality,” said Hannah Pingree, co-chair of the Maine Climate Council. “People thought we’d have more time to change, to prepare. This was our wake-up call. We’re running out of time.”

Between the two storms that hit the coast on Jan. 10 and 13, and the Dec. 18 storm that wreaked at least $20 million in damage to 10 Maine counties, there’s almost no way a Mainer could have missed the impact of this extreme weather, which can be traced back to climate change.

Read the full article at the Portland Press Herald

ALASKA: USDA partners with Alaska to strengthen local food systems

Janaury 22, 2024 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has partnered with the state government of Alaska on strengthening the supply chain of local and regional food systems.

Together, the USDA and Alaska are offering more than USD 1.9 million (EUR 1.7 million) in competitive infrastructure grants for projects that can “build resilience across the middle of the supply chain.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFORNIA: Southern California Conservationists and Fishermen Reach Compromise over Cowcod and Corals

January 22, 2024 — After a 20-year rockfish recovery effort, marine scientists and fishermen reached an unlikely compromise to protect fragile areas of the seafloor off Southern California’s coast while reopening others to fishing.

According to Oceana, an ocean conservation organization, the eight new Groundfish Exclusion Areas cover more than 425 square miles — in and around the Santa Barbara Channel — which are now closed to all groundfish fishing to protect the living seafloor.

Simultaneously, more than 4,800 miles of ocean waters in the region are re-opened for non-trawl groundfish fishing.

Dr. Geoff Shester, Oceana’s senior scientist, called it a “win-win.” The compromise protects brittle, potentially millennia-old colonies of deep-sea corals that are easily damaged by fishing, while also allowing fishermen to access valuable fishing spots that have been essentially untouched for decades.

“It’ll probably be some of the best fishing anyone’s seen in their lives,” Shester said.

Read the full article at The Independent

CALIFORNIA: Fishing crews head to sea as delayed Dungeness crab season opens

January 21, 2024 — Thursday was the day local crab fisherman had been waiting for after months of delays because of whale entanglement restrictions.

Jonathan Tin is a deckhand aboard the commercial fishing boat Pale Horse and he was ready to get to work to bring home the paycheck he hasn’t seen in months.

“We started rigging the gear in October. We’re really excited to see what’s in these crab pots,” Tin said.

The San Francisco native has been working as a commercial fisherman for seven years after getting hooked doing the job while attending college.

“I love everything about it. I love being out here in the ocean. I love working hard, running the gear. The harder you work the more money you’re going to make,” Tin said.

Read the full article at CBS News

RHODE ISLAND: Portsmouth Town Council begrudgingly approves host agreement with SouthCoast Wind

January 18, 2024 — Faced with receiving $23 million or nothing, the Portsmouth Town Council begrudgingly approved an agreement that allows a Massachusetts offshore wind farm developer access to town property under which to bury power cables.

The 18-page host community agreement, approved by a 5-1 vote of the council Tuesday, gives SouthCoast Wind Energy LLC access to town property. The easements will be used so the Massachusetts wind developer can bury 2 miles of high-voltage, underground transmission lines below town roads, meant to connect its offshore wind farm to the electric grid in nearby Brayton Point. In exchange for use of town land, the developer will pay $23.2 million in host fees and taxes, to Portsmouth over the next 33 years.

Councilman David Gleason cast the sole vote in opposition.

The council’s decision came after a nearly four-hour public hearing at Portsmouth High School, marked by impassioned testimony and pointed questions from community residents. Some criticized the lack of protections for the town in the agreement, as well as murkiness surrounding the exact route of the cable burial plan – for which there are two options. Others focused their opposition on how the offshore wind farm as a whole will upset the delicate ocean ecosystem so critical to fishermen’s livelihoods. Still others lobbed accusations based on self-described evidence that ties the company ownership to China, or insisted climate change was a “hoax.”

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

MASSACHUSETTS: Officials press to end child labor in New Bedford seafood plants

January 18, 2024 — The photograph was passed from one top official to the next. It was passed first to Police Chief Paul Oliveira, then to City Councilor Shane Burgo, then to schools Superintendent Andrew O’Leary and to state Rep. Chris Hendricks.

The 8×11 print showed scabbed, purple boils forming a ring around the wrist of a child who had been burned by chemicals while working an overnight shift at a New Bedford seafood processing plant.

“The chemical went through the glove and burned his hand,” explained Dax Crocker, of labor activist group Centro Comunidad de Trabajadores (CCT), which on Monday hosted a meeting with civic leaders to address the issue of child labor in New Bedford’s fish houses.

The picture was an example of a quiet but pervasive problem in New Bedford — illegal child labor in the city’s seafood processing plants and the risks that the dangerous jobs pose to undocumented, underage workers with little protection or other options for work.

In November, the U.S. Department of Labor launched a sweeping investigation into child labor and other potential labor law violations at multiple New Bedford seafood processing plants. The Labor Department has levied fines at meatpacking and food processing companies across the country for violating child labor laws. But with no action or fines yet imposed here, local officials have stepped up, saying it’s time to end the exploitative and often illegal labor trend.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

LOUISIANA: Louisiana seeing a tough start to crawfish season in 2024

January 16, 2024 — Boiled Louisiana crawfish go for as much as $16.99 a pound in the New Orleans metropolitan area. This is as the local crawfish industry faces many problems in this new year.

Seafood businesses said last year’s drought and the freezing weather are the causes.

Denny Lacoste is the owner of Dennis’ Seafood in Metairie. Lacoste said 2024 has not been good for his Metairie business.

Pots that sit in his kitchen would usually hold lots of crawfish this time of year. But right now, they are empty.

“This does not look good right now,” Lacoste said.

The 2023 drought killed crawfish that grow underground. This leaves Lacoste with no mudbugs to sell.

“It’s a big part of the business,” he said. They’re saying they are going to be very expensive and hard to get.”

He said crawfish would cost him $10 a pound wholesale. Lacoste said that is not something he is willing to do.

Read the full article at Fox 8

MAINE: Maine fishermen look to rebuild higher after harbors took ‘a real beating’

January 16, 2024 — Last week’s back-to-back storms inflicted some of their worst damage on Maine’s fishing industry, and the extent of the devastation has some fishing communities considering how to be more prepared for it next time.

Working waterfront property owners along the entire Maine coast witnessed destruction as extreme winds and storm surge flooded buildings, set some adrift and tore docks apart. Some already are planning to rebuild — with sturdier and maybe higher piers in mind as they consider the future — but it’s too early to tell how long it will take and how much it might cost.

Commercial lobster docks where fishermen offload and sell their catch were damaged in Milbridge, Corea, Southwest Harbor, Stonington and New Harbor, to name a few places.

Storm breaks Portland high tide record set in 1978

“A lot of docks and wharves took a real beating,” said Jeff Nichols, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Nichols and Commissioner Patrick Keliher flew over affected areas in Maine Forest Service helicopters to assess the damage. In New Harbor, part of the town of Bristol, six docks were destroyed in the Jan. 10 storm.

“We saw damage in practically every harbor,” Nichols said.

John Williams, a longtime lobsterman in Stonington, said the dock where he ties up his boat on Atlantic Avenue suffered little damage in the two storms, but his father’s property didn’t fare so well. Robert Williams, also a local lobsterman, owns a granite pier on Burnt Cove on Whitman Road. The storm surge flooded the pier and damaged everything on it.

“He lost three buildings,” the younger Williams said. “The surge kept coming in, two to three feet at a time. The surge is what did the damage.”

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Iconic fishing shacks in Portland, Maine, destroyed as coast sees historic water levels

January 16, 2024 — Iconic fishing shacks in Portland, Maine, were washed away on Saturday when the coast saw record water levels, as storms sweep across the country.

Water levels at the Portland tide gauge set a new record just after noon, surpassing the previous record set in 1978. The gauge registered 14.57 feet MLLW (mean lower low water), breaking the record of 14.17 feet MLLW set at that location on Feb. 7, 1978. Records at the Portland gauge extend back to 1912.

Amid the flooding threat, all three fishing shacks at Willard Beach were “completely destroyed” in the storm, the city of South Portland said in a Facebook post Saturday afternoon.

Work had been ongoing in recent years to preserve the historic shacks, which were the only three remaining from the region’s fishing heyday during the 1800s.

Read the full article at ABC News

VIRGINIA: Virginia lawmakers could order sweeping study of menhaden

January 16, 2024 — The Virginia State Legislature is considering a three-year study of the ecology, fishery impacts, and economic importance of the Atlantic menhaden population in the waters of the Commonwealth.

House Bill 19 was introduced in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 10 by Delegate R. Lee Ware of Powhatan County. The bill directs the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in collaboration with Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) and with the cooperation of relevant stakeholders, including recreational anglers, Omega Protein – the lone company in the state’s reduction fishery – bait fishery sectors, and nongovernmental organizations, all to participate in the three-year study.

The bill states that the study must address nine concerns, which will include the seasonal abundance of Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay; the movement rates of Atlantic menhaden between the Atlantic coast and Chesapeake Bay; and the impacts of predator demand and consumption of Atlantic menhaden on the menhaden population.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman