Daily Archives: May 23, 2018
‘Deadliest Catch’ star pleads guilty to misdemeanor assault
Celebrity crab-boat captain Sig Hansen has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that he spat on an Uber driver last year in Seattle. The Seattle Times reports the 52-year-old “Deadliest Catch” star pleaded guilty Wednesday. Under the plea deal, a property destruction charge was dismissed. Prosecutors also recommended the assault conviction be dropped and the case dismissed if Hansen complies with court conditions for a year. But Judge Edward McKenna wasn’t ready to agree with that recommendation. He postponed sentencing and ordered Hansen to undergo a new alcohol evaluation. >click to read<19:52
P.E.I.: North Lake fishermen offer $10K fishermen offer $10K reward on lost traps
Fishermen in North Lake, P.E.I., are offering a $10,000 reward in the hope that it will elicit tips from the public regarding 240 traps lost earlier this month. According to RCMP, sometime between noon on Saturday, May 12, and the early morning on Monday, May 14, lines on the 240 traps were cut. Police estimate the traps were worth about $31,000. >click to read<18:49
Two big wind farms to rise off coast of Martha’s Vineyard
State officials and utility executives Wednesday picked the first company to build a wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts, a project with as many as 100 turbines 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of New England utility Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, beat out a proposal from Bay State Wind, a joint venture owned by Eversource Energy and Danish energy giant Orsted. Meanwhile, the Deepwater project will be known as Revolution Wind and is about 12 miles south of the Vineyard. It would be 10 times the size of Deepwater’s five-turbine project off Block Island, >click to read< 16:50
Fight over America’s Finest vessel part of bigger processor battle
The mothershippers are fighting with the groundfish shoreplants in a politicized Bering Sea commercial fishing tussle reaching all the way to Washington, D.C. The battle over Pacific cod pits the factory trawlers of the Amendment 80 fleet against Alaska shoreplants and local governments. And in February, it pitted two local governments against each other. A delegation of municipal and business leaders from Anacortes, Wash., traveled to the Aleutian Islands to ask the Unalaska City Council to reverse itself but didn’t change anybody’s mind. The brand spanking new factory trawler America’s Finest remains stranded in an Anacortes, Wash., shipyard, unable to fish in the United States because it hasn’t received a waiver from the Jones Act. >click to read<15:54
NY Dems’ Anti-Energy Policies Forced New Yorkers To Pay 46 Times More For Power
Natural gas prices in the New York City region skyrocketed in January, costing New Yorkers roughly 46 times more than the 2017 average for the area, according to a Tuesday report from the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA). Despite neighboring natural gas-rich Pennsylvania, New York residents pay 44 percent more for energy than the national average. A lack of transportation infrastructure between the two states has effectively cut off New Yorkers from a large supply of fuel. (because we’re gonna have wind farms!) Due largely to a lack of oil and gas infrastructure, much of New England was forced to rely on imported natural gas from Russia to keep neighborhoods heated during over the winter. >click to read<14:20
New England: Members Of Commercial Fishing Industry Oppose Proposed Changes To Herring Fishery
Commercial fishing companies are against proposed changes to the Atlantic herring fishery management plan. The New England Fisheries Management Council wants to establish a new process for setting the sustainable harvest limit, referred to as the “acceptable biological catch.” That control rule, which is set every three years, would be in place for a longer period of time. The Town Dock, a Rhode Island-based seafood dealer and processor, said in a statement changing that rule would be problematic for the fishery. >click to read<13:50
Nearly 200 NC Fishermen Travel To Raleigh For Second Annual Seafood Lobby Day
Today, commercial fishermen will forego a day working on the water and instead work the halls of the Legislative Building for the 2nd Annual Seafood Lobby Day. The event, coordinated by North Carolina Fisheries Association (NCFA), provides an opportunity for legislators to meet the individuals that provide fresh, NC-caught seafood to their communities across the state and to hear directly from commercial fishermen about the challenges they face. Nearly 200 fishermen from up and down the coast traveled to Raleigh for the event. >click to read<12:34
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 37′ Repco Lobster/Tuna, 300HP, 6 Cylinder John Deere, price reduced!
Specifications, information and 5 photos >click here< To see all the boats in this series, >Click here<12:03
Rammed or shooting the gap? Salmon seiners clash in Prince William Sound criminal case
An unusual criminal case in Cordova that centers on a violent fishing boat collision two years ago is expected to wrap up without jail time. The June 2016 crash between seiners in a Prince William Sound cove near Whittier revealed a dark side of Alaska’s multimillion-dollar pink salmon fishery. Kami Cabana, the 25-year-old third-generation fisherman at the helm of the Chugach Pearl, faced first-degree felony assault charges for what prosecutors called an intentional ramming. Her attorney argued it was Jason Long, the Cordova-based skipper of the Temptation, who was actually at fault: He tried to force his way through a lineup of boats with a dangerous maneuver. Video, >click to read< 11:08
Maine: New halibut rules aim to keep fishery open
The Maine Department of Marine Resources has reminded harvesters with an Atlantic halibut endorsement of new state regulations designed to keep the state compliant with federal rules. The new state rules, enacted in April as emergency regulations and scheduled to become permanent in June, are designed to prevent state licensed harvesters from exceeding the allowable catch limit in state waters and contributing to an overage for the combined state and federal fishery. >click to read<10:26
Offshore Wind: Deepwater In Too Deep?
It looked so good at first blush. It checked all the hot boxes — Green. Alternate Energy. Zero carbon footprint. We would end our dependence on fossil fuel, the developers promised. But when folks in East Hampton started taking a closer look at a proposed Deepwater Wind project off the coast of Montauk, the negatives began outweighing the positives for a lot of people who felt they would be adversely affected, especially those in the fishing community. The erosion of support occurred gradually. During the election, the victorious Democratic candidates favored the development of the wind farm though the Republican challengers didn’t. But recreational and commercial fishermen, some armed with data from wind farms in Europe, reported that the wind turbines are detrimental to fish and fatal to migratory birds. >click to read<09:20
