Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: Dominion pauses offshore turbine installation for whale migration

November 5, 2024 — Dominion Energy has halted some construction on its massive offshore wind project off the coast of Virginia to allow endangered whales to migrate through the area in the winter.

The 176-turbine project will be the largest offshore wind farm in U.S. waters if completed on schedule in 2026, at a cost of nearly $10 billion. So far, Dominion Energy has installed 78 steel turbine foundations and four offshore substation foundations in its federal lease area, which is located 27 miles off the Virginia coast.

The Richmond utility has paused further foundation installation — which requires hammering steel structures into the seafloor — until May 1 to allow endangered North Atlantic right whales to migrate through the area with less noise disturbance.

Read the full article at E&E News

VIRGINIA: Once locally extinct, Virginia’s bay scallops nearing sustainable levels

October 25, 2024 — Sweet, tender, briny bay scallops are making a comeback in Virginia, according to researchers at the College of William & Mary, who say this year’s population may be approaching sustainable levels.

“The Atlantic bay scallop is a species that ranges from New England, down to Florida, and around the Gulf Coast,” said Richard Snyder, director of Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Eastern Shore Lab and a professor of marine science at William & Mary’s Batten School of Coastal and Marine Sciences.

With a creamy texture, he said bay scallops are smaller than sea scallops.

For the past 24 years, scientists at the ESL have been working to restore the seagrass, which plays a crucial role in the survival of bay scallops.

“The young scallops will attach to the grass blades, and that’s how they grow and survive,” Snyder said. “And the adults will then drop to the bottom, but they live in the grass beds, even as adults.”

Starting in 2010, researchers brought wild scallops from North Carolina into the research hatchery.

Read the full article at WTOP

More Striped Bass Restrictions Possible for Chesapeake Bay Fisheries

October 25, 2024 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) held a meeting this week to review recent studies that suggest the Chesapeake Bay’s striped bass (or rockfish) populations continue to struggle.

According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation,a 2024 stock assessment update showed the number of rockfish remains below sustainable numbers despite multiple recent efforts to reduce their mortality. Studies conducted in Maryland and Virginia suggest similar issues with lower levels of juvenile fish in consecutive years.

“If an upcoming stock assessment prior to the rebuilding deadline of 2029 indicates that the stock is not projected to rebuild by 2029, with a probability greater than or equal to 50 percent, the Board can respond via Board action, essentially by changing management measures via a vote to pass a motion, as opposed to an addendum or an amendment,” Dr. Katie Drew said at the ASMFC meeting.

Read the full article at WBOC

VIRGINIA: Dominion Energy Receives $2.6B as Stonepeak Acquires Share of Wind Farm

October 24, 2024 — Dominion Energy Receives $2.6B as Stonepeak Acquires Half of Offshore Wind Farm

Dominion Energy completed the previously announced deal to sell a 50 percent interest in its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project to Stonepeak, a leading alternative investment firm specializing in infrastructure and real estate. The transaction continues the trend of investment firms entering the offshore wind sector while for Dominion Energy it reduces risk and is part of a broader effort to lower corporate debt. The company has said it does not signal a change in its support of offshore wind energy power generation.

“We are pleased to partner with Stonepeak on CVOW,” said Robert Blue, Chair and CEO of Dominion Energy. “Stonepeak is one of the world’s largest infrastructure investors in large energy projects such as offshore wind, and its financial participation in CVOW will benefit both the project and the people who will rely on electricity from CVOW to keep the lights on and fuel economic growth in the Commonwealth.”

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

VIRGINIA: Virginia’s juvenile striped bass numbers down for 2nd straight year, raising concerns

October 22, 2024 — The number of juvenile striped bass in Virginia waters is down for the second straight year, a concerning development, researchers say.

The 2024 survey of the juvenile numbers was released last week by William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and its Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences.

They say the 2024 mean value of 3.43 stripers per seine haul (in which a long net is used to trap fish) is significantly lower than the historic average of 7.77 fish (the survey’s been conducted annually since 1967).

Read the full article at WAVY

Bay Rockfish Survey Brings Bad News, Possible Fishing Bans

October 21, 2024 — Concerns about striped bass have been mounting for years, and catch limits have been tightening. But the tighter limits apparently aren’t doing enough to help this popular fish rebound. And when coastwide fishery managers meet next week, there will be some tough conversations.

On Thursday, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) released the results from their annual surveys of juvenile striped bass (rockfish) in the Chesapeake Bay. For the sixth consecutive year in Maryland and second consecutive year in Virginia, both states’ juvenile indexes came in well below the states’ long-term averages.

The surveys are conducted by field biologists in multiple locations over three months during the summer with 100’-foot long beach seine nets. These surveys track reproductive success and juvenile survival for rockfish spawned in the spring in upper tidal reaches of the Bay’s big rivers. According to this year’s surveys, the 2024 young-of-year index for Maryland was 2.0 fish per sample, much lower than the long-term average of 11.0. In Virginia, the index was 3.43 fish per sample, against the historic average of 7.77.

Read the full article at Chesapeake Bay Magazine 

VIRGNIA: A look into revival of bay scallops along Virginia’s Eastern Shore

October 16, 2024 — Bay scallops along Virginia’s Eastern Shore are no longer extinct thanks to a decades-long seagrass restoration project, known to be one of the largest and most successful in the world.

The recent annual population survey shows the density of bay scallops in southern coastal bays has climbed by nearly 0.07 scallops per square meter. But when did the decline of the popular saltwater native actually begin?

Dr. Richard Snyder, Virginia Institute of Marine Science Eastern Shore Laboratory Director and Marine Science Professor, said wild bay scallops disappeared from Virginia in 1932, also marking the last commercial harvest for the scallops in the Commonwealth. The extinction of the population was attributed to a chronic wasting disease that wiped out their critical seagrass habitat.

Read the full article at WRIC

VIRGINIA: Reedville, VA to Get Watermen’s Heritage Park Thanks to Land Donation

September 24, 2024 — The Reedville Fishermen’s Museum in Reedville, Virginia, will create a new space in the middle of town for the public to honor the town’s waterman tradition.

Helen M. Birkel recently gifted the museum 2.3 acres of land on Main Street in town to allow expansion for a watermen’s heritage park and to provide the community with more public space.

Since 1988, the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum has spread the story of Reedville’s commercial fishing heritage through programs and exhibitions. The cultural landscape of the unincorporated community of Reedvillle was shaped by the menhaden fishery that was introduced to Chesapeake Bay in the late 19th century by Maine fisherman Captain Elijah Warren Reed, the community’s namesake.

Read the full article at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

VIRGINIA: Virginia proclaims Commercial Waterman Safety Week

September 23, 2024 — As a reminder that commercial fishing is an important part of the State of Virginia’s economy, Commonwealth’s governor Glenn Youngkin issued a proclamation recently that the week of September 15-21 is “Commercial Waterman Safety Week.”

The proclamation notes that the “Commonwealth’s commercial watermen and seafood industry generate over $1 billion in economic impact to the state and that there are 1,500 commercial watermen who “risk their lives sustaining a tradition passed down through generations.”

It further states that “Virginia stands as the largest seafood producer on the East Coast based on volume of landings,” which includes “scallops, clams, blue crabs, oysters, flounder, mackerel, menhaden and other species integral to the culinary industry . . . around the world.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman 

VIRGINIA: Dominion ups investments in offshore wind energy as industry surges forward

August 16, 2024 — As President Joe Biden’s presidential term comes to a close, the administration is bearing down on its goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy and 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035.

As of 2021, the administration had approved two commercial-scale offshore wind projects, and seven have been approved within the past year.

As of 2023, only seven offshore wind turbines were providing power to American homes, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This year has seen the addition of the 12-turbine South Fork Wind farm off the coast of New York and initial operations from Vineyard Wind 1 off the coast of Massachusetts.

Ten turbines delivered power to the grid until a test turbine broke and shed pieces of a 115,000-pound, 350-foot wind blade into the sea. Power generation and blade installation have been halted as debris continues to wash up on the shores of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

It’s been a busy summer for Virginia’s largest utility, Dominion Energy. This week, it announced the installation of the 50th monopile, or turbine foundation, of the long-anticipated Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project and the purchase of another 176,500-acre lease area east of the project.

Read the full article at The Center Square