Tag Archives: Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs

Judge denies bid for temporary halt to lobstering in Massachusetts

A federal judge has declined to issue a temporary restraining order to temporarily stop commercial lobster pot fishing in Massachusetts costal waters to protect North Atlantic right whales. The emergency motion seeking the order, filed May 4 by marine animal conservationist Richard Maximum Strahan, named the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association as defendants, although Strahan’s broader lawsuit, filed Feb. 28, includes federal agencies as well. >click to read<11:58

State DMR rejects the so-called “Gloucester Plan” for more inclusive fishery aid plan

cashThe full grant of $6.9 million contained in the third phase, or Bin 3, of federal funding being funneled through the state is the final installment of the roughly $21 million in federal fishery disaster funds designated for Massachusetts from the $75 million appropriated by Congress in January 2014. The final plan excludes permit banks from receiving the . Gronendyke said the state will use about $200,000 of the $6.9 million “to partner with industry in developing a viable industry-funded buyback program” with the bulk of the remaining $6.7 being distributed to the fishermen in direct aid. Read the rest here 07:41

Cape Cod National Seashore joins cry against clam dredging off Provincetown

PROVINCETOWN — The citation issued by the Mass. environmental police against one of the fishing vessels engaged in the hydraulic dredging of surf clams off Herring Cove Beach in early March was explained by state officials as the consequence of an unplanned encounter that took place while an EPO patrol vessel was on a routine patrol.However, the chronology of events and the dispatch of two important letters to state decision-makers just days before the March 3 intervention involving the F/V Aimee Marie speaks to,,, Read the rest here

Bureaucratic Run Around – Fishing crews still playing waiting game for disaster aid

“It’s just not right that these guys are having to wait as long as they have,” said longtime Gloucester boat owner Joe Orlando said. Peter Lorenz, spokesman for the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, which oversees the Division of Marine Fisheries, said DMF hopes to begin supplying applications for the crew and shore-side portions of the financial assistance by the end of March.”The crews were told they would have money for Christmas,” said Manchester captain and boat owner Richard Burgess. Read the rest here  20:41