Saving Seafood

News for the New England Region

Knives out on Maine-Canada border as lobster fishery gray zone dispute gets pointed over poaching accusations

September 16, 2024 — A long-running dispute over lobster fishing rights on the disputed border between the Canadian province of New Brunswick and the U.S. state of Maine is heating up.

After being “harassed, threatened, and attacked” with shotguns, knives, and bear spray, Canadian fisheries enforcement officers appear to be pulling back on enforcement efforts, with as many as many as 35 percent of agents assigned to marine patrols in the area refusing to report for duty, according to Union of Health and Environment Workers President Shimen Fayad. Fayad’s union represents fishery enforcement officers across Canada, including around 100 conservation and protection supervisors and fishery officers in Nova Scotia and southwestern New Brunswick.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NEFMC September 24-26, 2024 Meeting – Gloucester, MA – Listen Live, View Documents

September 16, 2024 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold a three-day meeting from Tuesday, September 24 through Thursday, September 26, 2024.  This will be an in-person meeting coupled with a webinar option for individuals who cannot or prefer not to attend in person.  Please participate remotely if you do not feel well.

 

LOCATION:  Beauport Hotel, Gloucester, Massachusetts.

 

START TIME:  9:00 a.m. all three days.  The webinar will end shortly after the Council adjourns each day.

 

COUNCIL PUBLIC OUTREACH:  Join the Council on Tuesday, September 24, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. for an informational exchange to foster open lines of communication among Council members, staff, industry, and meeting attendees.  The event will be held at the Beauport Hotel.  All are welcome.

 

PUBLIC COMMENT OPPORTUNITIES:  The Council wants to hear from you.  Here’s how you can let the Council know what you think.

 

  • WRITE A LETTER:  The deadline for submitting written comments for consideration at this meeting is 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 19, 2024. Please note that written comments must address items listed on the agenda for this meeting.

 

  • TALK TO THE COUNCIL:  You’ll be able to address the Council directly through two different avenues:

 

  1. By commenting on motions at the discretion of the Council chair (if commenting remotely, raise your hand on the webinar and unmute yourself when called upon); and

 

  1. By speaking during the open period for public comment.  Here are the Guidelines for Providing Public Comment.

 

  • OPEN PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT:  On Tuesday, September 24, 2024 at 2:00 p.m., the Council will offer the public an opportunity to provide comments on issues relevant to Council business but not listed on this agenda.  Given the Council’s busy meeting schedule, we ask that you limit remarks to 3-5 minutes.

 

    • SIGN UP:  Interested in speaking?  If attending in person, fill out the sign-up sheet on the table at the entrance to the Council meeting room.  To speak remotely, email Janice Plante at jplante@nefmc.org to get on the list.

 

WEBINAR REGISTRATION:  Online access to the meeting is available at Listen Live.  There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

 

 

  • We have a Help Desk in case you get stuck joining the webinar or have trouble along the way.  Just email helpdesk@nefmc.org and we’ll get right back to you.

 

CALL-IN OPTION:  To listen by telephone without joining the webinar, dial +1 (562) 247-8422.  The access code is 530-706-239.  Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.  This phone number provides a “listen-only” option without the webinar component.  You will not be able to speak if you do not first join the webinar.

 

AGENDA:  All meeting materials and the agenda are available on the Council’s website at NEFMC September 24-26, 2024 meeting webpage.  Additional documents will be posted as they become available.

 

THREE MEETING OUTLOOK:  A copy of the New England Council’s Three Meeting Outlook is available HERE.

 

COUNCIL MEETING QUESTIONS:  Anyone with questions prior to or during the Council meeting should contact Janice Plante at (607) 592-4817, jplante@nefmc.org.

MAINE: What Maine hopes to learn from its offshore wind research array

September 13, 2024 — Maine has big goals for adding offshore wind to its energy repertoire with hopes that it will not only be a friendlier option for the planet, but help revitalize communities through its economic and labor opportunities. But before those benefits can be realized, there are still a number of outstanding questions.

Last month, the state and the federal government reached an agreement on a lease for an offshore wind research array that will sit about 30 miles southeast of Portland. It will take up about 15 square miles in federal waters and include up to 12 floating turbines that will help inform how floating offshore wind operates and interacts with ecosystems in the water.

Just last week, the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released its final environmental assessment that showed leasing activities such as surveys and installing meteorological buoys in the Gulf of Maine won’t harm the surrounding environment.

And while that assessment did not look at the impact of the offshore turbines, the goal of the research array is to better understand how they will interact with the Gulf of Maine ecosystems.

“The only way we really can answer those questions is to have this type of a program and this kind of a unique in-water opportunity to actually answer those questions,” said Stephanie Watson, offshore wind program manager for the state.

Research has been a throughline of Maine’s offshore wind efforts, Watson said, especially when thinking about the pioneering research and development from the University of Maine for semi-submersible floating turbines.

The next step in that process is to understand how to responsibly deploy the budding industry and actually transmit the energy back to shore, all while reducing impacts to the fisheries that are vital to the economy and culture of Maine, Watson said.

Read the full article at Maine Morning Star

Broken Blades, Angry Fishermen and Rising Costs Slow Offshore Wind

September 12, 2024 — The collapse of a giant wind turbine blade off the Massachusetts coast confirmed Peter Kaizer’s worst fears about the dangers a new clean energy business could pose to fishermen like him.

Jagged pieces of fiberglass and other materials from the shattered blade drifted with the tide, forcing officials to close beaches on Nantucket and leaving Mr. Kaizer worried about the threat the fragments might pose to his vessel and other fishing boats, especially at night when the debris would be harder to avoid.

“All these small boats could be subject to damage,” Mr. Kaizer said. “Everyone wants this green legacy, but at the cost of what?”

The blade, which was more than 300 feet long, failed in July, but the repercussions are still unfolding at the $4 billion project that it came from — Vineyard Wind 1. Developers had hoped to finish the project this summer, making it the first large-scale wind farm completed in U.S. waters, but now that goal will take a lot longer than expected.

The blade failure is the latest problem slowing the fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry, which the Biden administration and East Coast states are counting on to deliver emission-free energy to millions of people from Virginia to Maine. President Biden and governors of those states had hoped to follow the examples of European countries like Britain and Denmark, which have plunked down thousands of wind turbines around the North Sea.

But the American offshore wind business has struggled to get going because of cost overruns, delays in issuing permits, and opposition from local residents and fishing groups. Several large projects were canceled or postponed even before the blade failure in Massachusetts because their costs increased sharply and developers did not anticipate supply chain problems and higher interest rates.

Read the full article at The New York Times

American lobster show resilience amid climate change

September 12, 2024 — Experiments conducted at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) have shown that female American lobsters groom their offspring, and the grooming behaviors appear to remain stable despite the temperature and acidity conditions projected for Maine’s coastal waters by the end of the century. A study by researchers at William & Mary’s Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences shows that the species may be more resilient to the effects of climate change than previously thought.

The study examines how a changing climate may impact the reproductive success of species that brood or incubate and hatch their eggs. The findings were published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series and suggested that American lobsters can handle future ocean changes well, as their egg care and survival rates stayed stable under different conditions through the study’s tests.

Digging into the study

The study’s researchers partnered with the Maine Department of Marine Resources to obtain 24 lobsters from commercial operations for the study for five months. They secured female lobsters at market size with all legs intact, which are commonly lost in the wild.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: Maine instituting workforce development programs to tackle aquaculture labor shortages

September 11, 2024 — The U.S. state of Maine’s USD 137 million (EUR 124 million) aquaculture industry is attracting investment and creating new job opportunities, but filling those jobs as fast as they’re opening has become an issue.

The Maine Aquaculture Association estimates that based on current growth trends, aquaculture businesses statewide will be short 1,300 employees 15 years from now, making workforce development a crucial issue for the industry if it wants to expand as planned.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Study offers hope for the resilience of the American lobster fishery

September 11, 2024 — According to a study by researchers at William & Mary’s Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences, the American lobster may be more resilient to the effects of climate change than expected. For the first time, experiments performed at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) have documented how female American lobsters groom their offspring, providing evidence that these behaviors are not significantly impacted by temperature and acidity levels forecasted for Maine’s coastal waters by the end of the century.

The findings are published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

Despite being one of the largest commercial fisheries in the U.S. with an annual economic impact of more than $460 million in Maine alone, few studies have documented the reproductive  of female American lobsters. With the Gulf of Maine warming faster than nearly any other ocean surface on the planet, it’s important to understand how the effects of climate change will impact the sustainability of the species and the fishery it supports.

“Brood grooming by female lobsters has been anecdotally observed, but it had not been quantitatively recorded before,” said Abigail Sisti, who is completing her Ph.D. in Marine Science at the Batten School and is lead author on the study. “In other crustaceans, these behaviors can have a significant impact on the survival of their offspring. Because the environment supporting the lobster fishery is rapidly changing, we wanted to understand how it might impact the way they care for their offspring.”

Female American lobsters can produce thousands of eggs that they hold under their tails for long periods of time, between five to 12 months, as the embryos develop. In other crustaceans, grooming behaviors help clear out parasites, remove dead eggs and facilitate the flow of water carrying oxygen and nutrients through the densely packed egg masses.

The study was part of a larger effort to determine how multiple stressors affect the reproductive success of the species. In this study, the researchers were testing whether increases in  and acidity had an impact on grooming behaviors and embryo survival.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

MAINE: Great Northern Salmon beginning pre-construction work on Maine-based salmon RAS

September 10, 2024 — Great Northern Salmon (GNS) announced it is commencing pre-construction work in preparation for its salmon recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility in Millinocket, Maine, U.S.A., in mid-September.

The company – formerly known as Katahdin Salmon – is a project of Xcelerate Aqua and is aiming to build a 10,000-metric-ton (MT) salmon RAS in two phases, with its first phase of construction capable of 5,000 MT, which can later be expanded. Great Northern Salmon plans to build the facility on the site of the former Great Northern Paper Co. mill, as part of the One North industrial site.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island will ramp up on offshore wind as part of a massive project with Massachusetts

September 9, 2024 — Rhode Island is set to ramp up its supply of offshore wind power with the announcement Friday that the state is will procure 200 megawatts of capacity from a much larger project that would send most of its electricity to Massachusetts.

The 1,278-megawatt total project, known as SouthCoast Wind, would be the largest offshore wind farm to be built so far in the Atlantic Ocean waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Rhode Island would take only a small portion of the project’s power capacity, with the vast majority – 1,078 megawatts – going to Massachusetts.

Read the full article at The Providence Journal

Mass. and Rhode Island pick 3 new wind projects, with less power than originally sought

September 9, 2024 — Massachusetts and Rhode Island announced the winners of their joint offshore wind auction on Friday. The three projects selected will be built south of Nantucket and collectively produce up to 2,878 megawatts of electricity — or about what it takes to power 1.6 million homes.

While this total is less than half of what the states originally sought to procure, it helps bring them closer to their legally binding offshore wind targets.

Connecticut, which was also part of the multi-state effort to solicit proposals, did not select any bids on Friday, but left the door open to doing so in the future. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the state was still evaluating projects and would announce “a final decision” about its solicitation “at a future date.”

When the three states announced their partnership, they had hoped to procure 6,800 megawatts of power — Massachusetts wanted 3,600 megawatts, Connecticut wanted 2,000 megawatts and Rhode Island wanted 1,200.

Though they missed that target, Massachusetts officials touted the bids as great news, noting that it is the largest offshore wind procurement to date in New England.

“We’re going big,” Gov. Maura Healey said at a press conference Friday. “These projects will help create a stronger economy, massive economic development, and importantly, lower electricity costs for our residents and our businesses.”

Read the full article at wbur