Saving Seafood

News for the New England Region

MASSACHUSETTS: Improvements on the horizon in New Bedford Harbor. Feds see what their money is buying.

May 8, 2024 — On a tour of New Bedford Harbor on Tuesday, the administrator of the federal department that oversees federal programs to improve and modernize the nation’s maritime network saw for herself the progress on the city’s North Terminal and plans for Leonard’s Wharf.

Rear Admiral Ann C. Phillips, U.S. Navy (Ret.), administrator of the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration, met with Mayor Jon Mitchell, New Bedford Port Authority Executive Director Gordon Carr and other officials for an update on the federally funding projects.

The North Terminal is nearly completed, and Mitchell said work on Leonard’s Wharf has started with actual construction expected to begin in January 2025.

Phillips said it’s exciting to see that the North Terminal is almost completed, and welcomed the opportunity to tour the harbor and see for herself how the federal funding is making a difference.

Read the full article at the Standard-Times

MAINE: Nordic Aquafarms loses bid to use eminent domain to secure land for Maine RAS

May 8, 2024 — Nordic Aquafarms has lost a key vote by the Belfast, Maine, U.S.A. city council, adding yet another roadblock to the company’s goal of building a salmon recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) in the city.

In a 5–0 decision, the Belfast city council vacated its 12 August 2021 move to use eminent domain to give Nordic access to a key piece of intertidal land. The vote followed an earlier meeting in April 2024 that saw the council vote to have Belfast City Attorney Kristin Collins draft an order of vacation, which was approved on 7 May.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

South Coast oyster growers say sewage-related restrictions will hurt

May 7, 2024 — After a storm wiped out Luke Sebesta’s Dartmouth aquaculture business in 2022, he was looking forward to purchasing 20,000 seed oysters this spring to get it back up and running. But this March, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries announced new restrictions on shellfish beds in parts of Buzzards Bay. Now, his re-opening of his Nonquitt oyster farm — Buzzards Bay Oysters — is at a “standstill.”

“It’s making me question whether it’s even worth it,” he said.

On March 12, the state announced new regulations of the shellfish beds surrounding the New Bedford and Fairhaven wastewater treatment plant outfalls — the main discharge pipes for treated sewage. These changes are part of a statewide effort to expand the areas around these pipes that are closed to shellfishing — called “buffer zones” — to comply with requirements in the National Shellfish Sanitation Program.

These buffer zones are based on computer modeling of how treated sewage flows from treatment plants out of these pipes, and dilutes and disperses into its receiving waters near shellfish beds. They are meant to protect consumers from the risk of getting sick when eating shellfish grown near a wastewater treatment plant, if it fails and dispenses untreated sewage into the water.

Roughly 90,000 acres of Buzzards Bay shellfish beds, stretching from Dartmouth to Mattapoisett, changed from fully approved to conditionally approved as a result of the computer modeling. That means oyster growers using these beds could now be shut down for seven to 21 days after episodes of “rainfall or seasonally poor water quality or other predictable events.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Light

Scallop Research Set-Aside projects for 2024

May 7, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries announced 14 projects to be funded through the 2024 Scallop Research Set-Aside Program, with researchers partnering with the scallop fleet to investigate sea scallop research priorities developed by the New England Fishery Management Council. 

Participants conduct research and harvest their set-aside award, generating funds for the research. Based on an ex-vessel price estimate of $14 per pound, NOAA Fisheries expects the awards to generate approximately $22 million; $5 million to fund research, and $17 million to compensate industry partners who harvest the set-aside scallops.

“In RSA programs, researchers compete for funding through a federal grant competition managed by NOAA Fisheries,” according to the announcement from the NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic office. “No federal funds support the research. Instead, the programs award pounds of sea scallops from amounts “set-aside” annually for this purpose.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Dutch Harbor and New Bedford named top fishing ports

May 7, 2024 — Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released the top two commercial fishing ports in 2022. By volume, Dutch Harbor, Alaska, was the biggest, but by value, New Bedford, Mass was top.

According to the Kodiak Daily Mirror, a staggering 613.5 million pounds of seafood across various species was landed in Dutch Harbor in 2022. This diverse range of landings paints a vivid picture of the richness and variety of the seafood industry. Over the past 20 years, Dutch Harbor has consistently recorded the most landings by volume, a fact that speaks volumes about its importance. Empire-Venice, Louisiana, was listed as the second biggest port by volume, coming in at 489.8 million pounds of seafood.

New Bedford had landed $443.2 million worth of seafood, which has been at the top of NOAA’s revenue list for the past 20 years. The Kodiak Daily Mirror reported that 84% of the value comprised scallop landings. Naknek, AK, came in second with $298.2 million in 2022. The Mirror also shared that Kodiak has dropped out of the top five fishing ports in the U.S. in 2022 for the first time in the past 37 years.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Feds reveal Outer Cape locations for offshore wind

May 6, 2024 — Locations for offshore wind development have been selected off the Outer Cape.

The Biden administration this week published the location of eight areas proposed for lease in the Gulf of Maine, a body of water that runs from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia.

Wind energy developers will have the opportunity to bid on the leases in a future auction.

Six of the areas lie off the coast of Massachusetts and two off New Hampshire and Maine.

The closest to Cape Cod starts 25 miles off the Outer Cape. For comparison, that distance is about the same as the distance from Hyannis to Nantucket Harbor.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

 

New England-focused king mackerel and Spanish mackerel port meetings

May 6, 2024 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has scheduled three New England-focused webinar port meetings to gather stakeholder perspectives on the future of the king and Spanish mackerel fisheries given that changing environmental conditions are altering fishery dynamics.

New England: The New England-focused meetings, which all begin at 6:00 p.m., will be held:

  • Tuesday, May 14, 2024;
  • Wednesday, May 15, 2024; and
  • Thursday, May 16, 2024.

Webinar registration is required.  Visit the South Atlantic Council’s website for registration links and other information.

  • Download a copy of the New England Mackerel Port Meetings flyer.

The South Atlantic Council said, “Input gathered during these port meetings will directly affect future management efforts for king and Spanish mackerel.”

Mid-Atlantic: A Mid-Atlantic-focused in-person port meeting will be held June 4, 2024 in Riverhead, New York in conjunction with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s scheduled June meeting.

QUESTIONS?  Please contact the South Atlantic Council’s Christina Wiegand at Christina.Wiegand@safmc.net.

 

Mussel shells are changing as the ocean warms, study finds

May 3, 2024 — In Massachusetts, common blue mussels may not have the star power of Wellfleet oysters or the charisma of quahogs. But like all shellfish they play an important role in marine ecosystems. Mussels are filter feeders that clean water as they eat; and they clump into reefs that create habitat for other critters and buffer coasts from storms.

But mussels are threatened by the warming waters and ocean acidification arriving with climate change. New research shows that mussels from several East Coast locations, though not yet Massachusetts, have shells speckled with tiny holes — far more than the mussels of yesteryear.

This increased porosity is not enough to weaken the shells, yet, “but if we continue down this route, they might get there,” said study author Leanne Melbourne, a postdoctoral researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, who used historic mussel shells from museum’s collections for the study.

Melbourne, who studies the impact of climate change on marine organisms, said that ocean warming is the “most likely driver” of the increased porosity.

Read the full story at WBUR

 

NEFMC: Scallop Research Set-Aside Program to Support 14 New Projects; Several 2024 Announcements Include Multi-Year Awards

May 2, 2024 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The Atlantic Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) Program will support 14 new projects that were selected from the 2024 RSA solicitation. Several awards will support multi-year research, including a four-year regional survey effort. The set-aside harvest is expected to generate $22 million in revenue. Of that total, $5 million will fund the targeted research and $17 million will compensate industry partners who harvest the set-aside scallops. To determine the award amounts, the price of sea scallops was projected to average $14 per pound of meats.

Council Priorities and Research Partners

Seven different institutions will lead the projects, partnering with fishermen, fishing businesses, and non-profit fishery research organizations. The new RSA projects address 2024-2025 research priorities identified by the New England Fishery Management Council in June 2023. At that meeting, the Council asked NOAA Fisheries to modify the Scallop RSA Program to allow for longer-term RSA awards for regional survey work, which the agency accommodated in this latest round of funding with a four-year award. Other Council priorities are listed here on page 1. RSA-funded scallop surveys have been a long-standing priority. They have become increasingly important in: (1) providing information that directly helps scientists determine the status and distribution of the resource; and (2) guiding the Council in making management decisions for this valuable resource.

The new awards were announced on May 2, 2024 by the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) of NOAA Fisheries. The Council and NOAA Fisheries work together to support the Scallop Research Set-Aside Program. While the Council sets the research priorities, NOAA Fisheries manages the RSA competition and administers the program.

Read the full release from the NEFMC

8 Gulf of Maine sites picked for possible commercial offshore wind leases

May 2, 2024 — The federal government is proposing eight areas in the Gulf of Maine as possible sites for commercial offshore wind farms.

The proposed lease areas cover about 1 million acres and have the potential to generate 15 gigawatts of energy, enough to power five million homes, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said Tuesday.

Two of the sites, encompassing nearly 254,000 acres, are off the Maine coast. The remaining six are located off Massachusetts.

In choosing the lease sites, BOEM said it wanted to avoid offshore fishing grounds and transit routes for ships. The eight proposed sites represent about half of the 2 million acres that BOEM chose as its “final wind energy area” for the Gulf of Maine, which the agency announced last month.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News