Saving Seafood

US land-based aquaculture projects achieve permitting, funding progress

November 23, 2023 — Nordic Aquafarms has received a “notice of intent to issue” a major permit for its land-based recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) farm in Humboldt County, California, U.S.A., while across the country in Millinocket, Maine, Katahdin Salmon’s RAS project has received additional funding.

The California Coastal Commission voted 12-0 to move a wastewater discharge permit for Nordic Aquafarm’s project forward, which the company said is the final major permit between it and groundbreaking on the aquaculture facility. Nordic Aquafarms, which was originally planning to build a salmon farm, has since changed course to build a yellowtail farm on the site of the former Samoa Pulp Mill near the town of Eureka, California.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

EPA sides with tribes on petition to regulate toxic tire chemical that kills salmon

November 10, 2023 — In August, three Native tribes — two in Washington, and one in California — petitioned the EPA to regulate the use of 6PPD in tire manufacturing.

6PPD has been in use for decades as a bonding agent to prevent cracking and general wear and tear in tires. When the surface of the tire reacts with ozone or oxygen, it turns into a new compound called 6PPD-Quinone.

“6PPD-Q, which we’ve now discovered, is the second most toxic chemical ever evaluated to aquatic life,” said Elizabeth Forsyth, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Biodiversity Defense Program, who worked on the petition.

The primary result of exposure is called urban runoff mortality syndrome, which kills up to 100% of coho salmon returning to streams in an urban watershed.

The Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, Puyallup Tribe, and Yurok Tribe in California signed onto the petition asking the EPA to regulate the use of 6PPD in tire manufacturing. Proponents hope regulation will push tire manufacturers to develop alternatives to 6PPD. A letter of resolution for support was also signed by a coalition of 57 Northwest tribes.

Read the full article at KUOW

Commercial fishing groups sue 13 US tire makers over rubber preservative that’s deadly to salmon

November 9, 2023 — The 13 largest U.S. tire manufacturers are facing a lawsuit from a pair of California commercial fishing organizations that could force the companies to stop using a chemical added to almost every tire because it kills migrating salmon.

Also found in footwear, synthetic turf and playground equipment, the rubber preservative 6PPD has been used in tires for 60 years. As tires wear, tiny particles of rubber are left behind on roads and parking lots, breaking down into a byproduct, 6PPD-quinone, that is deadly to salmon, steelhead trout and other aquatic wildlife when rains wash it into rivers.

“This is the biggest environmental disaster that the world doesn’t quite know about yet,” said Elizabeth Forsyth, an attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice, which is representing the fishing groups. “It’s causing devastating impacts to threatened and endangered species.”

The Institute for Fisheries Resources and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Wednesday against Goodyear, Bridgestone, Continental and others.

In an emailed statement, Bridgestone spokesman Steve Kinkade said the company would not comment on the lawsuit, but that it “remains committed to safety, quality and the environment and continues to invest in researching alternative and sustainably sourced materials in our products.”

Read the full article at ABC News

CALIFORNIA: California commercial Dungeness crab fishing season delayed

November 8, 2o23 — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced a delay in the season opener for California commercial Dungeness crab fishing off the Central and Southern Coast to protect whales from entanglement.

The decision is based on a combination of excessive humpback whale entanglements in California Dungeness crab gear over the last three years and high numbers of recent humpback whale sightings off the central coast according to CDFW’s Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program criteria.

The recreational Dungeness crab fishery will open statewide on November 4; however, recreational crab traps will not be allowed for the Central Coast (Fishing Zones 3 and 4) due to the high abundance of whales.

Read the full article at the Triplicate

CALIFORNIA: California delays Dungeness season; next assessment Nov. 17

October 31, 2023 — California’s Dungeness crab season is delayed again past the Nov. 15 opening date, owing to high numbers of humpback whales observed off the coast, Charlton Bonham, director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, announced Thursday.

 Bonham and state officials will reassess the risks of whale entanglements in crab gear on Nov. 17, with an eye toward a possible Dec. 1 opening. But luck has not been with crab fishermen in recent years, and this is the fifth annual season delay in a row. The fall 2022 opening was delayed three times, finally opening on Dec. 31 but with a 50 percent trap reduction through January.

This time the commercial fishery opening will be delayed in Fishing Zones 3, 4, 5 and 6. Meanwhile deployment and use of crab traps in any recreational fishery is temporarily prohibited in Fishing Zones 3 and 4, with a recreational fleet advisory in all zones, according to a statement issued by Bonham’s office.

“Large aggregations of humpback whales continue to forage between Bodega Bay and Monterey and allowing the use of crab traps would increase the risk of an entanglement in those fishing zones,” said Bonham. “We will continue to work with both the recreational and commercial Dungeness crab fisheries to protect whales while working to maximize fishing opportunity.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

CALIFORNIA: ‘Another Attempt to Industrialize the Coast’: California’s Central Coast Residents Work to Stop — or at Least Slow Down — Offshore Wind

October 17, 2023 — Joey Racano used to have a dining room table. Now the sunlit nook off the family kitchen more often than not serves as a conference room. The table is covered with maps, thick binders bulging with tech reports, towers of meeting minutes, abandoned coffee mugs — the accumulation of years of community vigilance.

On this day, his home is a lively place where a handful of locals are discussing one of California’s most complex and audacious initiatives — loading the Pacific Ocean with sprawling wind farms that float 20 miles from shore.

Read the full article at Santa Barbra Independent

CALIFRONIA: Bill Expediting California’s Offshore Wind Development Signed into Law

October 12, 2023 — California’s Governor Gavin Newsom signed two new offshore wind bills into law on 7 October. Coming into effect on 1 January 2024, the Offshore Wind Expediting Act (bill SB 286) is set to shave five years off of the offshore wind permitting timeline, while under the California Offshore Wind Advancement Act (bill AB 3), relevant state commissions will develop a second-phase plan and strategy for seaport readiness.

The Offshore Wind Expediting Act aims to put the state’s offshore wind deployment on a fast track by speeding up the permitting process through the State Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission.

The legislation also mandates state agencies and key stakeholders to collaborate and develop a long-term plan to deploy offshore wind infrastructure off of the California coast.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

CALIFORNIA: First permits issuing for California deep-set swordfish captains

October 3, 2023 — The first commercial fishing permits for using deep-set buoy gear in the swordfish fishery in the U.S. state of California were issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service 15 September, marking a milestone in the long transition away from large mesh drift gillnets off the West Coast.

Gillnets are to be finally phased out by 2027, replaced largely by deep-set buoy gear – vertical mainlines around 150 fathoms in length, with a flagpole outfitted with a light or radar reflector at the surface and a heavy sinker to keep the line anchored vertically.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Reducing fishing gear could save whales with low impacts to California’s crab fishermen

October 2, 2023 — Sometimes simple solutions are better. It all depends on the nature of the problem. For humpback whales, the problem is the rope connecting a crab trap on the seafloor to the buoy on the surface. And for fishermen, it’s fishery closures caused by whale entanglements.

Managing this issue is currently a major item on California’s agenda, and it appears less fishing gear may be the optimal solution. So says a team of researchers led by Christopher Free, at UC Santa Barbara, after modeling the benefits and impacts that several  would have on whales and fishermen. Their results, published in the journal Biological Conservation, find that simply reducing the amount of gear in the water is more effective than dynamic approaches involving real-time monitoring of whale populations. There may even be solutions on the horizon that provide these benefits with fewer drawbacks.

“We were trying to figure out what types of management strategies would work best at reducing whale entanglements in the Dungeness crab fishery while also minimizing impacts to fishing,” said first author Free, a researcher at the university’s Marine Science Institute. “And what we found is that some of the simpler strategies, such as just reducing the amount of gear allocated to the fishermen, outperformed a lot of the more complex management strategies.”

Management falls into two basic categories. Static strategies remain the same regardless of conditions. These include gear reductions, season delays and early closures. Meanwhile, dynamic strategies adapt based on incoming information. These come in proactive and reactive flavors, depending on whether the change is based on surveys determining where whales are abundant or observed entanglements indicating where risk might be high.

Read the full article at PHYS.org