Saving Seafood

Feds raise protections for North Atlantic right whales, but sea turtles may suffer

May 17, 2021 — North Atlantic right whales have gained protections and sea turtles are more imperiled under a new federal calendar for harbor dredging that came to light May 14 in a federal lawsuit that seeks to protect sea turtles.

The entire calendar for dredging at some seaports along the East Coast has been modified in an effort to increase protections for North American right whales, according to a federal report with the new calendar. This species has been reduced to a population of some 360 animals.

The change allows harbors to be dredged in warmer months in North Carolina and continuing south through Georgia and Florida, to the islands of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dredging is routine maintenance and typically involves vacuuming up debris that has filled a shipping channel and impedes ships as they use a port. The process has a history of harming certain sea life.

Read the full story at The Saporta Report

Federal Judge Halts Blood Harvest of Horseshoe Crabs

May 13, 2021 — A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the planned blood harvest of thousands of horseshoe crabs in a South Carolina wildlife refuge until a lawsuit seeking to require the practice be conducted sustainably is resolved.

Defenders of Wildlife and the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a motion in March seeking to stop a pharmaceutical company’s practice of harvesting horseshoe crabs for their blood as they come ashore to lay eggs each spring in the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Bruce H. Hendricks released a 29-page opinion granting the groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction and halting a planned harvest while the case is pending.

The Atlantic horseshoe crab is a protected species and critical contributor to biomedical research. Medical researchers value the arthropod’s milky-blue blood because it is the only known natural source of limulus amebocyte lysate —a substance that can detect dangerous endotoxins in drugs and vaccines.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Judge’s ruling likely ends seismic testing off coast for years

October 9, 2020 — Seismic testing off the coast of South Carolina is likely finished for several years after a federal judge dismissed a 2018 lawsuit on Tuesday.

The suit, filed by the Coastal Conservation League, took aim at the National Marine Fisheries Service for issuing preliminary seismic testing permits off the state’s coast.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel dismissed the suit because there are currently no pending applications for either of the two permits needed to proceed with seismic testing, and a Nov. 30 application deadline for one, coupled with a lengthy approval process, means any approvals would be moot by the time a trial occurred, Gergel said.

Read the full story at the Charleston Regional Business Journal

NC environmentalists alarmed after Trump order bans offshore drilling in nearby states

September 10, 2020 — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday in Florida imposing a 10-year moratorium on offshore drilling in waters from Florida to South Carolina, leaving North Carolina open to potential activity.

Under the order, leases of areas along the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina for the purposes of offshore exploration or development are prohibited between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2032. What is not clear is why the order omits North Carolina and Virginia, where residents have been vocally opposed to offshore drilling, often citing the potential impact to fisheries and coastal tourism.

Sierra Weaver, a senior attorney in the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Chapel Hill office, said, “There has been no explanation for why to stop at the South Carolina line, and based on what we know, there is no basis for that decision at all. We all know there is every bit as much worth protecting here in North Carolina as below.”

Read the full story at The Charlotte Observer

Oyster farming bills brewing in Virginia, Maryland legislatures

January 10, 2019 — Jockeying has already begun in Virginia over legislation to determine the fate of the state’s coal ash pits, and new oyster-related measures are in the works in both Maryland and Virginia as the two states’ lawmakers begin their annual legislative sessions today.

In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam last week declared his support of legislation that would require coal ash produced by the state’s power plants to be removed from unlined pits and either recycled or deposited in safer, lined landfills.

The byproduct of coal-fired electricity generation, the ash is laced with heavy metals and has been linked to cancer, respiratory problems and other illnesses. An estimated 30 million tons are being stored at sites near Chesapeake Bay tributaries.

Dominion Energy, which owns the sites, estimates that such a cleanup would cost billions of dollars. The Richmond-based company has long advocated leaving the ash where it is, capping it with a layer of soil and a synthetic liner. Legislators have delayed that plan for the last two years, though, amid opposition from environmental groups.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Lawsuit filed over Trump plans for offshore drilling tests

December 12, 2018 — Environmental groups sued the Trump administration Tuesday over offshore drilling tests, launching a legal fight against a proposal that has drawn bipartisan opposition along the Atlantic Coast.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina, claims the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it issued five permits for the use of seismic air guns.

“This action is unlawful and we’re going to stop it,” Diane Hoskins, campaign director at OCEANA, said in a news release. “The Trump administration’s rash decision to harm marine mammals hundreds of thousands of times in the hope of finding oil and gas is shortsighted and dangerous.”

The coalition includes OCEANA, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, Center for Biological Diversity, Surfrider Foundation, Defenders of Wildlife, One Hundred Miles and the Sierra Club, as well as the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League and the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

The blasts are conducted in preparation for potential offshore drilling, which the administration has proposed to expand from the Atlantic to the Arctic and Pacific oceans. The five-year plan would open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore reserves to private development.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

Federal appeals court orders halt to work on Atlantic Coast Pipeline

May 17, 2018 — A federal appeals court has nullified a key permit for Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline, finding that restrictions against harming wildlife are inadequate and halting some work on the controversial 600-mile natural gas project.

Three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said in a ruling issued late Tuesday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to set clear limits for impact on threatened or endangered species.

The judges said that “the limits set by the agency are so indeterminate that they undermine . . . the enforcement and monitoring function under the Endangered Species Act.” The decision came in a brief unsigned order after being reviewed by Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory and judges Stephanie D. Thacker and James A. Wynn Jr.

The case was brought against the pipeline by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Virginia Wilderness Committee.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

 

South Carolina: Gov. McMaster makes official request for South Carolina oil drilling exemption

January 17, 2018 — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has formally requested that federal officials take South Carolina off the list for oil and natural gas leases in the Atlantic Ocean.

This is after U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke unilaterally removed Florida from the 2019-2024 proposed plan for offshore drilling following a brief meeting with Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Jan. 9.

Zinke had announced on Jan. 4 that the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had opened 98 percent of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in federal offshore areas available to consider for future exploration and development. Zinke said Florida is exempt because it is “unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.”

On Jan. 10, McMaster stated during a press conference: “I am opposed to offshore drilling off the South Carolina shore. I am opposed to seismic testing off the South Carolina shore. Our tourism industry and our glorious natural resources particularly in the Lowcountry are beyond compare in the United States. They are the source of enormous economic growth and prosperity and we can’t take a chance with those resources, those industries and that economy. It’s just too important.”

On that same day, McMaster officially made the request to Zinke’s office for a meeting to discuss removing South Carolina from the list. McMaster did not respond to questions from the Georgetown Times concerning the request.

Members of a grassroots group called Stop Oil Drilling in the Atlantic, or SODA, based in Pawleys Island say they are excited about McMaster’s request. They are urging the public to contact McMaster and other U.S. elected officials to express their support for removing South Carolina from the list.

“We trust that the will of the people most impacted by this public decision will be taken very seriously and heard,” said SODA leader Rev. Jim Watkins. “That is why it is really important to get behind the governor and thank him and and urge him on.”

He also said, “I hope that the state legislature and public officials all across the state will have a united front to help us get removed from the plan. I think that the governor’s action should be a rallying point for not only public officials but everyone.”

Watkins stressed that the issue is not a partisan issue and drilling for oil and natural gas is opposed by many Republicans and Democrats. Governors of both parties from most East Coast states are opposed to offshore drilling, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Jew Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, according to the Associated Press.

Read the full story at South Strand News

 

Have the Tides Turned Against Offshore Drilling?

Low oil prices and local resistance have stalled plans to drill off the southeastern coast, for now.

August 11, 2017 — Last month, in one of the North Carolina’s most popular beach towns, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced his opposition to offshore drilling.

“It’s clear that opening North Carolina’s coast to oil and gas exploration and drilling would bring unacceptable risks to our economy, our environment and our coastal communities – and for little potential gain,” Cooper said from Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. “As governor, I’m here to speak out and take action against it. I can sum it up in four words: not off our coast.”

When oil drilling off the southeast coast was proposed by President Barack Obama in 2015, Cooper’s press conference may have stood apart from the bipartisan consensus that supported the idea.

But now, two years later, the Democratic governor’s stance is less noteworthy. More than 125 municipalities along the coast have formally opposed drilling or seismic testing, and just one coastal governor in the Southeast still supports it.

What changed? Not local opinion, says Sierra Weaver, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.

“The local communities have always been against offshore drilling, it’s really a matter of them getting educated about what’s at stake,” Weaver says. “What has shifted is interest at the state level or the political level.”

Read the full story at U.S. News & World Report

North Carolina Marine Fisheries to consider contentious shrimping proposal

February 16, 2017 — For centuries, shrimping has been central to North Carolina’s coastal economy, a practice two conservation groups are asking the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission to curb in order to protect vulnerable juvenile fish that are often collected along with shrimp.

The commission is expected to vote Thursday on the petition, which would limit how, when and where shrimpers could operate. Brought by the N.C. Wildlife Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center, the petition includes particularly contentious provisions such as limiting the time a trawl can stay in the water to 45 minutes and reducing the days shrimpers can operate to three per week on inner waterways, including the Intracoastal Waterway and the state’s extensive sounds.

“The amount of finfish bycatch in the North Carolina shrimp trawl fishery is unsustainably high, and the negative impact of shrimp trawl bycatch is felt coast wide,” N.C. Wildlife Federation CEO Tim Gestwicki wrote in his petition to the commission.

Read the full story at Star News Online