Saving Seafood

Uncategorized

Aquinnah tribe supports wind lawsuit

December 11, 2024 — The leader of the Martha’s Vineyard Native American tribe, and a tribal citizen who runs a popular charter fishing business, are supporting a lawsuit against a wind farm that is undergoing construction off Aquinnah’s coast.

The chair of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, filed a declaration in federal district court in Washington, D.C., stating that the tribe has suffered as the result of the government’s actions approving Revolution Wind, a development under construction 12 miles from the Vineyard.

William (“Buddy”) Vanderhoop has filed a similar declaration; both read like witness statements. Vanderhoop said that the fishing grounds that he brings customers to have not been as productive as in prior years, and he worries about his business as a result.

Describing themselves as a grassroots organization, the Rhode Island group Green Oceans is alleging in the lawsuit filed at the beginning of this year that the federal government has violated a number of laws — including the Endangered Species and Clean Water acts — by approving the construction of Revolution Wind. Some 35 other plaintiffs are part of the lawsuit, including the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance and Save Right Whales Coalition.

Revolution Wind is expected to consist of 65 Siemens Gamesa turbines — which feature blades more than 300 feet long — with the capacity to generate up to 400 megawatts for Rhode Island and 304 megawatts for Connecticut, enough to power more than 350,000 homes.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the wind farm in November last year.

But tribal members, including Andrews-Maltais, worry about the impact the offshore wind development is having on many significant cultural practices, the environment as well as wildlife in the area.

Read the full article at Martha Vineyard Times

Should Offshore Oil Rigs Be Turned into Artificial Reefs?

November 20, 2024 — Even before I could make out the silhouette of Platform Holly on the foggy horizon, I could see and smell oil. Ripples of iridescent liquid floated on the sea’s surface, reflecting the cloudy sky. But the oil wasn’t coming from a leak or some other failure of the rig. Milton Love, a biologist at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, explained that it was “kind of bubbling up out of the seafloor.” Our boat, less than two miles from the central California coast, was sailing above a natural oil seep where the offshore energy boom first began.

For thousands of years the Chumash, an Indigenous group native to the region, identified these oceanic seeps and their naturally occurring soft tar, known as malak, which washed up on the shore. Sixteenth-century European explorers noted oil off the coast of modern-­day Santa Barbara, and in the 1870s the U.S. oil boom reached California. In the late 1890s the first offshore oil wells in the world were drilled from piers off of Summerland Beach; 60 years later the state’s first offshore oil platform was deployed to drill the Summerland Offshore Field.

Since then, 34 other oil platforms have been installed along the coast, and more than 12,000 have been installed around the world. These hulking pieces of infrastructure, however, have finite lifetimes. Eventually their oil-producing capacities tail off to the point where it is no longer economically viable to operate them—that, or there’s a spill. Today 13 of California’s 27 remaining offshore platforms are what’s known as shut-in, or no longer producing oil.

Read the full article at Scientific American

WASHINGTON: Fishing Washington’s urban wilderness

December 14, 2022 — Muckleshoot tribal fisherman pursue chum salmon along the heavily industrialized Duwamish River  

Clouds blanket Puget Sound and the rain starts at dawn. “Do you have oil gear?” Leeroy Courville asks as we sit in the wheelhouse of his boat, the High Liner.

“Just this Red Ledge.”

Leeroy laughs and digs out some Grundens gear for me. It’s a good thing too, because the rain starts to beat down.

The High Liner lies tied to the Muckleshoot tribal dock in a heavily industrialized stretch of the Duwamish River. A pair of 454 Mercruiser gas engines power the 32-foot by 11-foot bow picker, but one is broken down. Nonetheless, one is enough to get us out to Elliot Bay, where Courville hopes to gillnet a few more chum salmon before the Tribe closes the season.

“This could be the last day,” he says. “I might just make one set and come in. But if I get 40 fish, I’ll make another set. A hundred fish is $2,000.”

Leeroy bought the boat from his father. “I had that one over there,” he says pointing at a nearby bowpicker. “I sold it and my father gave me this one. I just bought that gray bowpicker over there for my kids.”

Leeroy’s son Kobe arrives with a skiff, and I get into the open boat with him to follow his father out to the fishing grounds. “Only people from the Muckleshoot Tribe can go on our boats,” Leeroy has informed me. The Muckleshoot are among the tribes whose ancestral fishing rights were recognized by the 1974 Boldt decision, a federal court ruling that upheld Washington tribes’ treaty fishing rights.

“My father was fishing before that,” Leeroy says. “And he has some stories.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

USDA proposes rule to add more seafood to WIC program

November 29, 2022 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a proposal that would see more seafood added to food packages for the Women, Infants and Children’s Supplemental Nutrition (WIC) program.

The proposed rule, the first food package update of the WIC program since 2009, includes  revisions incorporating recommendations from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, USDA said in a press release.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The search for the source of plastic pollution

July 21, 2022 — From large pieces, such as bottles, cups, and even a Smurf action figure, to tiny microplastics — fragments, films, fibers, or foams less than 5 mm long — plastic is one of the most common pollutants this group will find, mirroring what cleanup crews regularly see across the country. 

Recently, international attention has homed in on the problem, which is only growing worse as plastic doesn’t decompose but degrades into smaller pieces that will remain in the environment for thousands of years. Single-use plastics will be phased out of national parks by 2032 after an announcement in June from the Biden administration, and by the end of 2024, the United Nations plans to have a legally binding plan to end plastic pollution globally. 

These volunteers are following the “Escaped Trash Assessment Protocol,” which was developed in Washington state from 2018 to 2021 and is now being used by volunteer groups around the country with guidance from the Environmental Protection Agency. The idea is to provide standardized data to state and local regulators so they can better attack sources of pollution.

While the fibers the volunteers find on the beach are mostly too large to be categorized as microplastics, some of these materials could ultimately break down to that size. 

And although groups like this conduct cleanups around the country every day, they are starting to direct their attention away from the end life of plastic to focus on the beginning. If anything is going to change, they say, plastic production and packaging choices around the world need to shift.

Marine debris and plastic bags found along rivers are visible reminders that plastic is in the waters we rely on, but it’s also most likely coming out of your water tap at home. Highway litter is an obvious sign the land is contaminated with plastic, and now ice and snow samples at remote locations on the planet, including in the Arctic, have been shown to contain plastic, suggesting it’s traveling through the very air we breathe. 

Luckily, with a rising interest in microplastics research over the last decade, scientists are starting to understand the sources and what can be done to stop them.

Read the full article at Grist

COOKE AQUACULTURE INC. APPOINTS PHILIP WIESE AS MANAGING DIRECTOR OF EAST COAST AQUACULTURE OPERATIONS

July 14, 2022 — The following was released by Cooke Aquaculture Inc:

Blacks Harbour, N.B. – Cooke Aquaculture Inc. is very pleased to announce the appointment of Philip Wiese as Managing Director of East Coast Aquaculture Operations in Canada.

Mr. Wiese joins family-owned Cooke from his most recent leadership role as Chief Executive Officer at Huon Aquaculture Group Limited, Australia’s second largest, vertically integrated salmon farming company employing 800 Tasmanians.

Wiese brings significant aquaculture expertise to Cooke having successfully delivered for nearly 15 years with Huon including as Chief Financial Officer with responsibility for financial management, information technology, human resources and operations.

Over the course of his career, Wiese was Director of the Tasmania Salmon Growers Association where he led collaboration across the Tasmanian salmon industry and managed the Tasmanian salmon brand globally. He has held various senior commercial management roles in finance, insurance and trading in the manufacturing, distribution and retail business areas.

In response to significant global growth in recent years, Cooke has created the role of Managing Director of East Coast Aquaculture Operations to augment North American leadership and provide additional structure, ensuring the company’s long-term success while maintaining an employee-centric culture.

Reporting to Glenn Cooke, Chief Executive Officer, the Managing Director oversees and leads all operations of Cooke Aquaculture’s Atlantic Canadian organization by fostering the alignment of people and resources and championing operational excellence and sustainability by driving efficiency, financial performance and profitability, employee engagement and stakeholder relations.

Read the full release at Cooke Aquaculture Inc.

ALASKA: Pebble mine supply camp a ‘near total loss’ in Southwest Alaska wildfire

July 14, 2022 — A supply camp that supported operations for the controversial Pebble Mine prospect in Southwest Alaska was destroyed by a wildfire last weekend.

The camp suffered a “near total loss” during the Fourth of July weekend, said Mike Heatwole, a spokesman with mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership.

The fire razed several items such as a quonset-like facility that stored tools, safety equipment and other gear, shack-like structures that supported crews and operations, he said.

The Pebble copper and gold prospect is located about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage in a remote area, near headwaters that support the Bristol Bay salmon fishery. The wildfire is one of several fires in the region this summer and is known as the Upper Talarik fire.

The supply camp was used to support exploration and environmental studies in year’s past, Heatwole said. But activities have slowed at the deposit, which is currently awaiting decisions from two federal agencies about whether a mine can be built.

This summer, the camp supported a small maintenance and reclamation program that includes closing off holes from drilling in previous years, Heatwole said. He said the crew had recently finished its work and left the site before the blaze reached the camp.

The Environmental Protection Agency in May, under the Biden administration, proposed an effort to block the mine. It’s taking public comment on the issue. The agency’s proposal would prevent waterbodies such as Upper Talarik Creek, the fire’s namesake, from being used as disposal sites for dredged or fill material that would result from mining activity.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Area M, Where Alaska commercial and subsistence fishing interests collide

July 14, 2022 — There have been clashes over regulating Area M for decades, but the battle heated up after the Yukon-Kuskokwim chum crashes began. This is the first in a three-part series.

Kuskokwim fisherman Fritz Charles grew up in Tuntutuliak, on the lower river. There were so many fish then that his parents would put away literal barrels of them. His job as a child was to pack the dry fish tight in the barrels using a special method.

In 2021, chum runs took a sharp downward turn. It was the worst year on record for them on the Yukon River, and it’s the same story on the Kuskokwim. This year, the runs on both rivers are at their second lowest.

In 2021, 153,497 summer chum salmon swam up the Yukon River. That’s compared to an average of about 1.7 million summer chum. The river was missing about 1.5 million fish.

At the same time, Area M commercial fishermen caught 1,168,601 chum at sea while subsistence fishing on the rivers was closed. In the midst of the smallest chum run western Alaska subsistence users had ever seen, Area M fishermen were catching more than ever before.

Do the subsistence fishermen in the Y-K Delta or the commercial fishermen in Area M have a greater claim to the chum? About a decade ago, a comprehensive salmon genetics study of the Area M fishery confirmed that most of the chum caught in the region, around 60%, are bound for coastal Western Alaska. But when you start to break that number down further, that’s where things get complicated.

Read the full story at KTOO

World’s Largest Fish Factory Vessel Stays on IUU List

February 6, 2019 — Following an investigation by Oceana, the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO) has decided to keep the fish factory vessel Damanzaihao (now named Vladivostok 2000) on its list of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing vessels. The organization has also issued warnings to China, Panama and Cook Islands for providing assistance to the vessel.

The Commission has currently 15 members: Australia, Chile, China, Cook Islands, Cuba, Ecuador, E.U., Denmark, South Korea, New Zealand, Peru, Russia, Chinese Taipei, the U.S. and Vanuatu.

Oceana investigated the Damanzaihao’s movements using Global Fishing Watch’s mapping platform. “Oceana applauds SPRFMO’s decision and views this as an important example of how transparency at sea can help enforce rules that combat IUU fishing,” said Beth Lowell, deputy vice president of U.S. campaigns at Oceana. “With the help of technology, we can see what vessels are doing beyond the horizon and take steps, like Oceana did, to hold the responsible parties accountable.”

The Vladivostok 2000, currently flagged to Moldova, is one of the world’s largest vessels with a history of changing names and reflagging to different countries. Originally designed as an oil tanker measuring 228 meters, the vessel was rebuilt to function as a one-stop-shop fish processor, with the ability to store, freeze, process and transfer fish. According to a New York Times article, the vessel (named Lafayette and flying a Russian flag when the article was published in 2012) can process up to 547,000 metric tons of fish each year.

Read the full story at Maritime Executive