Daily Archives: July 30, 2016
LifeWear Donates Manufacturing “Seconds” to Local Rhode Island Fishing Industry
LifeWear Technologies of North Kingstown, the leading supplier of both branded and private label sports medicine products, has found a unique way to support the local fishing industry and reduce waste. LifeWear is now taking high quality CryoMAX ice packs, that for a variety of reasons don’t meet LifeWear’s standards for its consumer products, and donating them to local commercial fishermen. The donation program, first proposed by Congressman Jim Langevin, diverts these ice packs from the local landfill and helps reduce costs for local seafood vendors. The CryoMAX cold packs are manufactured at LifeWear’s factory at Quonset Point and are sold throughout the country in Walmart, CVS and other national chains. Approximately 2 percent of ice packs produced do not pass LifeWear’s stringent quality control standards. These “seconds” may have insufficient pressure, air bubbles, are improperly cut or have other deficiencies that make them unsuitable for consumers products. While perfectly good ice packs, these seconds were usually discarded. Read the story here 15:38
Enviro’s Complain Top Federal Fisheries Official Shouldn’t Be Meddling In Marine Monument Debate
An environmental group has filed a complaint with federal officials over Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council Executive Director Kitty Simonds’ role in orchestrating opposition to the proposed expansion of the marine monument around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Marjorie Ziegler, executive director of the Conservation Council for Hawaii, says Simonds is providing “the advocacy and the lobbying campaign” against the proposal to expand Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. “It’s totally inappropriate for Kitty Simonds in her official capacity as executive director of Wespac – a taxpayer, federally funded entity – to play such a prominent role in an aggressive lobbying effort to generate public and political opposition to the proposed expansion,” Ziegler said Friday in an interview. The Conservation Council of Hawaii’s complaint was sent Friday to David Smith, deputy inspector general in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Inspector General, and Lois Schiffer, general counsel for the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. Read the story here 14:40
NOAA’s Next Big Thing? Ocean Noise – Cracking down on noise-making activities in the ocean. $$$$!
The ocean has gotten noisier for decades, with man-made racket from oil drilling, shipping and construction linked to signs of stress in marine life that include beached whales and baby crabs with scrambled navigational signals. The United States aims to change that as a federal agency prepares a plan that could force reductions in noise-making activities, including oil exploration, dredging and shipping off the nation’s coast. “We’ve been worried about ocean noise for decades, since the 1970s,” said Richard Merrick, chief science adviser to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fisheries agency and a key author of the agency’s more detailed 10-year plan to be released publicly later this year. “The question is, what should we do now?” The draft plan calls for developing noise limits and setting up a standardised listening system. It would also call for the creation of an online archive of noise data that could hold thousands of hours of recordings, which scientists could then cross-reference against data on where marine life congregates. Read the rest here 13:54
Harpswell Lobstermen Sound Off on Industry, Legacy
Lobstering brings nearly a half a billion dollars to the shores of Maine, according to the Department of Marine Resources. Harpswell is especially recognized for lobstering, and one local lobsterman estimates that there could be as many as 500 lobstermen and women residing in the town. “I learn something every day and to tell you that I know what the next move with the lobsters would be, I’d be lying,” said Jim Merryman, who has been a lobsterman since he was eight years old. “I’m constantly learning and trying to figure things out, if anybody ever tells you that I’ve got this figured out he’d be lying too.” Read the story here 12:16
No sign of abandoned trawler Alaska Juris in Bering Sea recovery effort
A tug is searching an area of the Bering Sea for an abandoned fishing vessel, which was still afloat Tuesday after its crew of 46 abandoned ship, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Coast Guard Petty Officer John-Paul Rios said the 229-foot Alaska Juris hasn’t been seen by crew members of the tug Resolve Pioneer, which was contracted to retrieve the trawler. The tugboat reached the area, about 150 miles northwest of Adak, on Thursday evening but found only poor weather conditions. “Obviously, due to the weather and the heavy fog, there wasn’t that much they could do,” Rios said. The Alaska Juris has been unoccupied since Tuesday morning, when crew members reported flooding in the vessel’s engine room, donned survival suits and departed the ship in a trio of life-rafts. Four merchant ships helped rescue the crew. Read the rest here 10:32
Author Alan Stein Says US Commerce FOIA Lawsuit Yielded Results
A federal lawsuit moved the U.S. Department of Commerce to hand over thousands of pages of withheld documents needed to write a book, the lawyer of an environmental activist and author said Thursday. Writer, fisherman and environmental activist Alan Stein sued the Commerce Department under the Freedom of Information and Administrative Procedures Acts in July 2015. He claimed the department and two of its agencies — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Office of the Inspector General — had stonewalled his requests for documents he needed for a book he was writing. Last year, Stein told Courthouse News (click here) the planned book required materials from an investigation of Arne Fuglvog, a former fishing vessel operator and fisheries official who spent time in prison for making false statements in fishing quota reports. Read the rest here 08:12 Read The NOAA Oversight Project – Fisherman’s FOIA’s Squeeze NOAA, to see the that James Balsiger, the acting head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, was going to be replaced by fisherman/ Senate staffer Arne Fuglvog who favored catch shares or scientist Brian Rothschild who did not. Click here
