Category Archives: Mid Atlantic
Hurricane Dorian Update: Life threatening storm surge, flooding along Southeast and Mid Atlantic coasts
At 800 PM EDT (0000 UTC), the large eye of Hurricane Dorian was located near latitude 30.9 North, longitude 79.8 West. Dorian is moving northward near 8 mph (13 km/h). A turn to the north-northeast is anticipated on Thursday, with a turn toward the northeast on Thursday night. A northeastward motion at a faster forward speed is forecast on Friday. On the forecast track, the center of Dorian will continue to approach the coast of South Carolina tonight, move near or over the coast of South Carolina on Thursday, and then move near or over the coast of North Carolina Thursday night and Friday. >click to read< 20:09
Coast Guard sets Port Condition Zulu in Morehead City and Wilmington, North Carolina >click<
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 44.11′ Fiberglass Dragger, Resident NY State Marine Permit
Specifications, information and 3 photos >click here< To see all the boats in this series, >click here< 11:55
Hurricane Dorian Update: Hurricane warning extended northeastward alomg the coast of North Carolina coast
At 1100 AM EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Hurricane Dorian was located near latitude 29.8 North, longitude 79.7 West. Dorian is moving toward the north-northwest near 9 mph (15 km/h) and this motion is expected to continue today. A turn toward the north is expected tonight, followed by a turn toward the northeast on Thursday. On this track, the core of Hurricane Dorian will move parallel to the Florida east coast and the Georgia coast through tonight. The center of Dorian is forecast to move near or over the coast of South Carolina and North Carolina Thursday through Friday. >click to read< 11:03
Hurricane Dorian skirts Florida and Georgia coasts, but landfall in the Carolinas not out of the question
Current forecasts show the storm remaining in the Atlantic Ocean as it churns along the edge of the coasts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.,, The Category 2 storm had sustained winds of 105 mph winds early Wednesday and as it was passing east of Cape Canaveral its rain bands moved onshore on the coast of northeastern Florida. The hurricane had slightly picked up speed, moving at 8 mph north-northwest toward Georgia’s coast, where it will dump up to 6 inches of rain. >click to read< 08:12
Hurricane Dorian Update: Finally Moving Northwestward and Growing in size
1100 AM EDT (1500 UTC), the eye of Hurricane Dorian was located near latitude 27.1 North, longitude 78.6 West. Dorian is moving toward the northwest near 2 mph (4 km/h), and a slightly faster motion toward the northwest or north-northwest is expected later today and tonight. A turn toward the north is forecast by Wednesday evening, followed by a turn toward the north-northeast Thursday morning. On this track, the core of extremely dangerous Hurricane Dorian will gradually move north of Grand Bahama Island through this evening. The hurricane will then move dangerously close to the Florida east coast late today through Wednesday evening, very near the Georgia and South Carolina coasts Wednesday night and Thursday, and near or over the North Carolina coast late Thursday and Thursday night. >click to read< 11:23
Hurricane Dorian Update: Public Advisory, an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane
At 1100 AM EDT (1500 UTC), the eye of Hurricane Dorian was located near latitude 26.8 North, longitude 78.3 West. Dorian is moving very slowly toward the west near 1 mph (2 km/h). A slow westward to west-northwestward motion is forecast during the next day or so, followed by a gradual turn toward the northwest and north. On this track, the core of extremely dangerous Hurricane Dorian will continue to pound Grand Bahama Island through much of today and tonight. The hurricane will then move dangerously close to the Florida east coast late tonight through Wednesday evening and then move dangerously close to the Georgia and South Carolina coasts on Wednesday night and Thursday. >click to read< 10:59
Review: “A Speck in the Sea”, A Story of Survival and Rescue by John Aldridge and Anthony Sosinski
Man overboard! Montauk lobsterman John Aldridge only wished someone had shouted out that little missive the summer evening of 2013. But when the skilled sailor (he was a fisherman for two decades) slid off the flat open stern and into the sea while preparing his boat for a night of fishing, the two-man crew was “dead asleep and snoring” in the nose of the boat. The required life vest, a safety must aboard every commercial fishing boat? “We never wear ours,” Aldridge said, recounting his near-drowning almost four years ago. >click to read< 20:53
NJ leads country in fishing production
“The Jersey Seafood industry is a tremendous benefit to the state’s economy with the responsible supply that is landed in our state each year,” NJ Secretary of Agriculture Doug Fisher said. “New Jersey is among the leaders in the country in several seafood categories because of our hard-working commercial fishermen and successful seasons year after year.”,,, Viking Village in Barnegat Light is dedicated to keeping local and U.S. fishermen fishing and harvesting responsibly. >click to read< 10:15
Judge tosses NY’s lawsuit over fluke quotas
A federal judge has dismissed New York’s lawsuit seeking to challenge the state’s relatively small portion of the East Coast commercial fluke quota as a congressman called for local fishermen to not comply with the restrictive allotment. With little fanfare, U.S. District Judge Sandra Feuerstein on July 30 issued an order dismissing the case, allowing the state 10 days to file a notice to reargue its claims by next April Court records showed no such filing had been made. New York’s original complaint was filed Jan. 14 Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo first threatened to sue over New York’s low quota at an event in Montauk in 2013. Meanwhile, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) on Friday recommended that New York commercial fishermen go out of compliance with the fluke quota system in what would be a clear signal to Washington of their frustration with the process. >click to read< 19:37
Spacing of Deepwater RI Ocean Wind Turbines Ignored After Deaths
Where is the investigation of what effect the spacing of the Block Island Wind Farm had on the death of two fishermen New Years Eve? On January 1, 2019, New Year’s eve while almost everyone was celebrating the new year drinking, watching parades and fireworks the fishing industry boats were hard a work bringing in their catch. The Mistress a 52-foot fishing trawler in the vicinity of the Block Island wind farm at 1:30 AM took on the water which overtook the engine room. >click to read< 11:12 >click to read< our coverage of the F/V Mistress
How sustainability efforts are helping the state’s fishing industry
Pete Dolan is the captain of the Ms. Manya, a commercial scallop boat. He’s ready to set sail on a week-long trip — and ideally, when he and his crew return, they will have caught a hefty 18,000 pounds of scallops. Business is booming in the state’s fishing industry, and Dolan claims federal regulations are to thank. Before those regulations were put in place in the mid-1990s, Dolan and his crew would have to spend more time on trips because anyone could go out and catch scallops, which meant supplies were low. But, sustainability efforts from NOAA, Video, >click to read< 18:01
Not Fake News! Low salinity suspected for poor crab harvest in Upper Chesapeake
At the beginning of July, media across Maryland delivered good news for those planning a traditional feast of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs on Independence Day.,,, “The survey is in,” echoed WMAR, another Baltimore station, “and it comes with great news for Maryland crab lovers!” Someone apparently forgot to tell the crabs, at least in the Upper Bay. While supplies were generally ample in the Lower Bay through spring into summer, crabbers in other places had a hard time finding enough of the crustaceans to satisfy their crab-craving customers. “In 43 years of crab potting, this has been the worst I’ve seen,” Charles County waterman Billy Rice,,, >click to read< 14:36
East Hampton Trustee Calls On State To Control Gillnets Better After Whale Entanglement
After a summer in which fishing nets anchored just off South Fork beaches ensnared swimmers and a seal and a humpback whale, East Hampton Town Trustee Rick Drew is calling for an overhaul of the regulations on gill net fishing off Long Island. The Trustee and avid fisherman said that he believes there need to be new restraints that dictate where gill nets can be set, and how long they can be left unattended, as well as better enforcement of the rules by the State Department of Environmental Conservation. >click to read< 11:06
Collision Course: Offshore Wind Turbines Present New (Unnecessary) Mortal Danger for Trawlermen
The fishermen who work off America’s Atlantic coast, are furious over plans to spear thousands of industrial wind turbines into their fishing grounds, destroying not only the seabed (the source of their income and prosperity), but wrecking their fishing grounds, forever. Trawlermen off the New Jersey coast have already told developers what they can do with their projects: Deepwater in Deep Trouble: Fishermen Tell Off-Shore Wind Farm Developers to F@*#K Off,,, >click to read< 08:21
Catch Shares? NOAA Seeks Comments on a Control Date for the American Lobster Fishery
NOAA is seeking comments on a control date (a date that may be used to establish eligibility) of April 29, 2019 for the American lobster fishery, as we consider ways to reduce threats of entanglement by fixed-gear fisheries to North Atlantic right whales.,,, Following the TRT meeting the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Lobster Management Board established a control date of April 29, 2019, and recommended that NOAA Fisheries do the same for federal waters. We are notifying the public that we may develop a future rulemaking to complement any actions taken by the Commission, and that future participation in the fishery may be based on participation as of April 29, 2019. >click to read< 10:39
Troubling questions, concerns raised about off-shore wind farms
Oceanographer Jon Hare listed the effects of offshore wind development on the marine environment. There’s disturbance to the sea floor during installation of turbine platforms.,,,“Putting a pile into the sediment in essence is habitat alteration,” said Hare, a science and research director with Northeast Fisheries Science Center.,,The questions about offshore wind, of course, aren’t limited to the $2.8-billion Vineyard Wind project,,,,but there are more than a dozen proposals in the works all along the Atlantic Coast and plans for the Great Lakes and the West Coast. >click to read< 21:06
Wind turbines and radar mix poorly
Vineyard Wind’s 84-turbine wind farm, slated for an Atlantic lease area about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, effectively had the rug pulled out from underneath it August 9, when the Department of the Interior announced the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) would hold off signing a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and re-examine potential impacts posed by the project. Radar was not specifically cited as something the feds would take a second look at. However, weather and aeronautical radar are all well-documented as being adversely affected by wind turbines, and a handful of studies show marine radar is also hampered by wind turbines. >click to read< 18:17
Long Island Fishermen sound off on plan for commercial fishing permit system
Fishermen from across Long Island sounded off about the states draft plan to overhaul the commercial fisheries licensing system, with some outraged at the prospect of losing long held permits. Two dozen fishermen showed up at the Bishop Molloy Recreational center in Point Lookout Tuesday to weigh in on the plan drafted by Maine fisheries consultant George LaPoint,,, >Click to read<17:41
Marine Mammal Protection Act: Incidental Harassment Authorization Regulatory “Takes” – Take a Close Look
An IHA is a legal and enforceable document presenting the terms and conditions with which a company must adhere in order to protect wildlife. In this case, the draft IHA was for Vineyard Wind, the wind energy company ready to start construction on an 800 MW offshore wind farm in the Atlantic, covering about 675 square kilometers, starting 14 miles from the coastline of Martha’s Vineyard.,,, An IHA is required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) because, obviously, a huge project like this has impacts and it’s likely that “take” of marine mammals will occur during construction. >click to read< 08:26
NOAA Seeks Nominations for Scientific Review Groups under the Marine Mammal Protection Act
NOAA Fisheries will publish a Federal Register Notice on Monday, August 19, 2019, soliciting nominations to three independent marine mammal scientific review groups (SRG). We would like your assistance to identify qualified candidates. The three independent regional SRGs, covering Alaska, the Atlantic (including the Gulf of Mexico), and the Pacific (including Hawaii), were established under section 117(d) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act to provide advice on a range of marine mammal science and management issues. >click to read< 16:27
Striped bass are underfed, not overfished
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, or ASMFC, has determined (again!) that the number of spawning Atlantic striped bass is below the required threshold to maintain proper “recruitment” (newborns), and therefore, sustainable population abundance.,, Certainly, there is a lot of blame to go around, but the ASMFC seems to have only one conclusion: overfishing.,,, What about food?,,, This may be a shocking finding, but foreign-owned Cooke Inc., the owner of Omega Protein, “purse seins” hundreds of millions of pounds of menhaden a year,,, by Bev Landstreet >click to read< 09:36
Fishing License Changes?
A review and potential changes to the New York State marine fisheries licensing system will be the subject of a meeting at East Hampton Town Hall on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Last month, the State Department of Environmental Conservation issued a draft report on a review of fisheries licensing, following meetings held last year,,, The draft report stresses the decline of fish stocks beginning in the 1980s and the federal and state regulations that followed, including quotas, allocations, seasonal restrictions, and trip limits. It says that “there are too many fishermen and too much >click to read< 18:12
Vineyard Wind, welcome to our world…
Headline – Trump admin throws wrench into offshore wind plans – The Trump administration is ordering a sweeping environmental review of the burgeoning offshore wind industry, a move that threatens to derail the nation’s first major project and raises a host of questions for future developments. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a division of the Interior Department, is ordering a study of the cumulative impact of a string of projects along the East Coast. The review comes in response to concerns from fishermen about the impact of offshore wind development on East Coast fisheries. Must watch video! >click to read< 17:15
Boris Johnson’s Looming Wind Disaster. Its coming here, and is being sold by huckster politicians
Boris Johnson’s government is shuffling towards a gigantic cliff edge which has nothing to do with Brexit. The looming disaster can be summed up in one word: renewables. The clue came in the form of the widespread power cuts that Britain experienced at the end of last week. Britain’s National Grid — and by extension the nation’s electricity supply — has been horribly compromised by the dash for renewable energy. >click to read< Meanwhile on Cape Cod, John Kerry, Gina McCarthy, and Dylan Fernandes hold forum as Kerry announces World War Zero. Tackling the issue of climate change – Lots of photo’s, and no John Kerry, Jane Lubchenco was no friend of the fishermen. It was another lie. Read the comments @MTV! >click to read< 15:18
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 52′ Steel Dragger, Cat 3406, with State and Federal Permits
Specifications, information and 13 photos >click here< To see all the boats in this series, >click here<11:24
Ships are getting speeding tickets in the Chesapeake Bay to protect right whales
Eight years ago the COSCO Nagoya, a giant ship capable of carrying more than 4,000 cargo containers, was motoring around the Chesapeake Bay when it ran into a speed trap. Three months later, the Nagoya got dinged again for speeding, this time near the Port of Charleston. Over the next several months, the Nagoya was caught 13 more times up and down the east coast, from South Carolina to New York. Each speeding violation came with a price tag of $5,750 for a total of $86,250 in fines. >click to read< 13:43
Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting in Philadelphia, Pa, August 13 – 15, 2019
The public is invited to attend the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s meeting to be held a The Notary Hotel, Autograph Collection*, 21 N. Juniper St., Philadelphia, PA. Briefing Materials & Agenda Overview Agenda >click here< Attend Meeting with Adobe Connect >click here< 17:02
Coast Guard Cutter Forward assists disabled vessel 149 miles off Cape Henry, Virginia
The Coast Guard assisted two people aboard a 67-foot commercial fishing vessel 149 miles east of Cape Henry, Thursday. Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Hampton Roads received the initial call Wednesday afternoon from the vessel, F.V Hope and Sydney, who stated its engine was excessively burning oil and would not be able to make it back to shore. >click to read<
NY spending $2M to study offshore wind impact on waterways, fishing
New York State said Thursday it will spend more than $2 million for five studies to examine ways to reduce offshore wind farms’ impact on marine environments and commercial fishing.,,, Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, offered tepid applause for the state’s decision to award the study grants. “It’s great that we’ve gotten some funding but there’s a ticking time bomb once these turbines hit the water,” Brady said. “The monitoring and research should have started long ago, so we are playing catch-up to try to get data we need to make sure we do no harm.”Said Brady, “Being an environmentalist means you do no harm, but everyone is throwing that out the window”, >click to read< 08:57
European utility sees big opportunity in U.S. offshore wind – One of Europe’s largest utilities intends to become a player in the U.S. offshore wind industry, as it sees the Northeast as the biggest opportunity in the worldwide market. >click to read<
Cost-Effective ‘Renewable’ Energy Is Like Unobtanium: A Fictional Construct
We must continue diversifying our energy supply, that means increasing our output of solar, wind, geothermal, hydro- and ocean-based energy,,, Blah, blah, blah. Anyone who works in real energies will probably know a different story.,,, energy expert, Mark P. Mills, describing the vast quantity of non-renewable, not-even-recyclable waste that nifty green energy baubles such as wind-farm turbines generate,,, “Renewable energy” is a misnomer. Wind and solar machines and batteries are built from nonrenewable materials. And they wear out. Old equipment must be decommissioned, generating millions of tons of waste.,,, Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic. >click to read< 14:57
