Daily Archives: February 27, 2013
Long Island, NY – LaValle Bill to Help Commercial Fishermen Unanimously Passes Senate (fuel saver!)
Sen. Ken LaValle said his bill (S.1762) allows fishermen, for example, to catch three times the daily catch limit on Monday and two times the limit on Wednesday and then stay off the water until the following Monday when a consecutive period of seven days is complete. The bill also allows individuals with different fishing licenses to go out and catch each of their daily limits from the same boat (currently prohibited). Read more here
John Furlong – cbc The Fisheries Broadcast discussing the EU’s seal ban based on “moral” grounds
Canada begins the long and challenging process of trying to get the European Union’s ban on seal products overturned. Listen
Also the story of the Tragedy of the Florizel, 95 years ago. The radio broadcast, with feedback from listeners. I now have the link to the show in my favorites.
Coast Guard: Budget cuts to limit flights, patrols
Adm. Robert J. Papp said Wednesday that emergencies will be a priority. He didn’t say how many patrol hours would be cut under what’s known as sequestration – Read more
Maintaining Maine’s scallop fishery By Robin Alden, Special to the BDN
Of course, it hasn’t been perfect. But after this year, some fishermen and some managers realize that this is, inevitably, the start of a process of fishermen and the state agency sharing information and managing this resource together for the long haul and to great benefit. Read more here
My Turn: Weigh in on Board of Fish Proposal 243 By MICHAEL BAINES
At its Statewide Finfish meeting in March, the Board of Fish (BoF) will consider the Board generated Proposal 243, which would add Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) to the State’s Forage Fish Management Plan (FFMP). Read more here
Proposed net pen legislation dies in committee
PORT TOWNSEND — Proposed legislation that would allow coastal counties to forbid marine aquaculture net-pen facilities died in committee last week, dashing hopes of Jefferson County commissioners who had wanted to ban the industry.
Coast Guard rescues three near Grays Harbor, Washington
Coast Guard Sector Columbia River recieved a distress call from the crew of the 58-foot crabbing vessel Persistence at 8:50 p.m. The crew reported they were taking on water approximately 5 miles northwest of the Grays Harbor bar and
were low on fuel for their dewatering pump. Read more here
Governor Scott pushes for Apalachicola Bay funding to aid oyster industry
Gov. Rick Scott traveled to Franklin County on Monday to tout $3 million in proposed funding to help restore the Apalachicola River system and the oyster industry that relies on it. Read more here
Regulatory, environmental changes on Maine fishermen’s forum agenda
ROCKPORT, Maine — The bizarre 2012 lobster fishing season may be over, but discussion of what happened and what might be done to prevent a repeat will figure prominently in the lineup of topics featured this week at the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum. The forum, which organizers say typically attracts between 2,000 and 3,000 attendees each year, is scheduled from Thursday, Feb. 28, through Saturday, March 2, at the Samoset Resort in Rockport. Read more
Questioning the Captain’s decision
What were they doing out there is those weather conditions?New England offshore wind planning offers lessons for Great Lakes
When Scandia, a Norwegian wind company, announced its plans to install 200 turbines in Lake Michigan four miles from the tourist town of Ludington, Michigan, in 2009, they likely didn’t anticipate the controversy that would erupt. A similar brouhaha unfolded over the past decade in Nantucket Sound, off the southern coast of Cape Cod, over a proposed 468 MW wind farm known as Cape Wind. Residents of the area spent nine years fighting the project before the Interior Department approved it in 2010. Conservationists have their own set of what-ifs, as do commercial fishers. A systematic mapping approach could help them meet their goals as well, said Sally McGee, who directs the Northeast Marine Program for the Nature Conservancy and serves on the New England Fishery Management Council, the major regional planning body for the fishing industry. Read more here
NOAA’s retreat to ‘Camelot’ – FOIA Docs spotlight $288,500 ‘workshop’ agenda
Last May, a month after a special judicial master’s second report on misdeeds by NOAA enforcement lawyers had been delivered to the secretary of commerce, NOAA General Counsel Lois Schiffer led her national staff of 145 lawyers on a three day training program in Philadelphia at a cost of $288,500, according to documents released to the Times under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. At the time of the conference, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was in damage control mode after news reports beginning in the publications Government Executive and Politico reported that another arm of NOAA, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, had advertised for a magician as a motivational speaker for a June conference at NOAA’s general offices in Silver Spring, Md. That ad was posted on the day the Philadelphia conference began — and was withdrawn on its final day. – Read more here
Commercial fishing industry alive and well in Steveston BC
Steveston Harbour Authority is the largest commercial fishing harbour in the country and is by far the most significant of the 571 harbour authorities in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ harbour authority program. We are home to more than 350 commercial fishing vessels and have state of the art unloading, storage and moorage facilities and provide direct and indirect employment to many people in the area. Read more here
UFA seeks legal action against KRSA — Commercial fishing group alleges sportfishing association eavesdropped on teleconference
United Fishermen of Alaska leadership says the organization is prepared to see the process through as it awaits response in pursuit of recourse to its allegations that someone at the Kenai River Sportfishing Association eavesdropped on a teleconference of a UFA board of directors meeting. “We intend to follow it through to some sort of logical and final conclusion,” said Bruce Wallace, interim president of UFA, a commercial fishing trade association representing 34 member organizations in Alaska. Read more
Young Rye NH fisherman reels in National Geographic viewers
THE National Geographic show “Wicked Tuna” are already making plans to visit Rye Harbor this summer to spend a day at sea with one of the show’s local stars. Tyler McLaughlin, 25, has been fishing out of Rye Harbor during the summers since he was a child. Two years ago, after graduating from Nichols College, he purchased his own boat, the Pin Wheel, and began a career as a tuna fisherman. – Read more
Lawmaker attacks oil companies’ ‘free’ drilling in gulf
Once upon a time, the price of oil was so low — dropping under $11 a barrel in late 1998 — that Congress agreed that big oil companies needed incentives to drill for oil in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. So in 1995 it ordered the Interior Department to waive royalties on virtually all of the oil and natural gas that would come out of wells drilled between 1996 and 2000. Read more
Nova Scotia Fishing industry concerned about plans for undersea coal mine
The mine could create as many as 300 direct mining jobs, and the undersea facility is believed to have enough coal to remain operational for at least 50 years. However, local fishermen are concerned that the method used to transport the coal may kill their local industry. Last year, Xstrata revealed it planned to transport the coal via barges, which would traverse local fishing grounds, to waiting ships. 
Read more
NOAA shielding key legal document – “That information is attorney-client privileged!” Ciaran Clayton, NOAA’s director of communications
The legal document underpinning the decision of NOAA’s regional administrator against easing the 77 percent cod limit cuts seen as a death knell for the industry starting May 1 will not be shared with the public, the agency has advised the Times. According to NOAA officials, the office of NOAA General Counsel Lois Schiffer submitted a legal brief to Gloucester-based Northeast Regional Administrator John Bullard last month that gave the legal reasoning behind his decision against allowing the Northeast groundfishery, declared a disaster in September by the acting commerce secretary, to be allowed a second year of interim emergency relief from extreme cutbacks in Gulf of Maine cod. Read more
