Daily Archives: January 5, 2024
Does California need a state crustacean? Jim Wood authors bill to urge Dungeness crabs
A new bill introduced on Friday would designate Dungeness crab as California’s state crustacean. Introduced by Assemblymember Jim Wood with North Coast State Sen. Mike McGuire as the principal co-author, the bill purports to give the humble decapods official respect as a scuttling tentpole of the state’s fishing industry. In Humboldt County, crabbing is a significant economic boon to many fishermen, though recently, they have had little to “shell”-ebrate. Annual delays to crabbing season, smaller hauls and ongoing price negotiations with fish distribution companies present ongoing struggles pinching local fishermen. more, >>click to read<< 18:33
Almost 300 homes on Bere Island without power after sea trawler damages underwater ESB cable
An Island of more than 200 people off west Cork has lost electricity after large fishing trawlers damaged an undersea ESB cable. Bere Island has been without power for its approximately 280 ESB customers since the incident yesterday afternoon. An undersea diver is attempting to locate the damaged cable so restoration work can be carried out. “The outage occurred yesterday afternoon (4 January) as a result of a fishing vessel accidentally coming into contact with a cable running from Castletownbere to Bere Island,” a spokesperson said. more, >>click to read<< 16:00
Flawed snow crab price-setting system needs overhaul soon, FFAW says
The president of the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union says time is ticking on getting a new formula-based seafood pricing system in place ahead of the 2024 season. A November report from the province’s three-person fish price-setting team submitted to the provincial government said the current seafood price-setting process is flawed and changes need to be made to avoid another tie-up that halted the snow crab industry for six weeks last season. The report offered nine recommendations, including that a formula-based pricing system be implemented by the end of January. FFAW president Greg Pretty said that process is underway. more, >>click to read<< 14:16
Lobstermen Sue State Agency for Mandating Installation of 24-Hour Electronic Location Monitoring System on Their Boats
A group of five Maine lobstermen are suing Maine Department of Marine Fisheries (MDMR) Commissioner Patrick Keliher over new rules mandating that all federally permitted lobster boats be equipped with a 24-hour electronic location monitoring system. These mandated devices — provided by the MDMR — identify a vessel’s location every sixty seconds while in motion and once every six hours when stationary. Using one of these devices, a boat’s position is able to be accurately determined within 100 meters, or 328.1 feet. According to the lobstermen, this new requirement violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, as they allege that it jeopardizes their Constitutionally protected rights to privacy and due process. more, >>click to read<< 11:20
F/V Susan Rose Salvage is Underway
Back on November 19, the 77-foot steel commercial trawler, known as the Susan Rose, sunk after it had been grounded on the shoreline just two days earlier. This maritime incident happened during an attempt to tow the vessel to a Staten Island shipyard. As crews pulled her off the coastline, she started to take on water which ended with her sitting in 48 feet of water just 1,000 feet from the shore. Even though the ship had been pumped off all of her fuel, there are a few other pollutants from the ship that needed to be removed. Some of these pollutants would have been ok to leave in the water if a recovery were to take place within weeks but since it could be months things need to be removed. photos, more, >>click to read<< 09:35
“Offshore wind is in trouble,,, US offshore wind slammed by runaway costs
The US offshore wind industry, banking on a big boost from the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, has found itself face-to-face with a major hurdle that’s been right there in the name all along: inflation. In fact, the law might even be making it worse. More than 10 gigawatts of offshore wind projects along the US East Coast, the equivalent of roughly 10 nuclear power reactors, are at serious risk as higher costs force developers to re-crunch the numbers for proposals originally modeled years ago, before a runup in interest rates and material costs. Orsted A/S, the Danish wind giant, said this week it’s prepared to walk away from projects unless it gets even more government aid. Other developers are already paying tens of millions in penalties to exit contracts they say no longer make financial sense. more, >>click to read<< 08:20
The Supreme Court can save working fishermen from Biden regulators
The crew and I had been trawling the Gulf of Maine for several days aboard the F/V Teresa Maria IV, the commercial fishing vessel I captained for 14 years. I had only just settled into my bunk for a few hours of sleep. That’s when the rogue wave hit. Life at sea is never predictable. A promising forecast could give way at any time to a squall with heavy swells. Essential navigation components might break. On that night, circumstances coalesced such that a rogue wave knocked my boat clean over. We were capsized in the black of night. This unsettling experience was front of mind when my organization, the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) filed an amicus brief in an upcoming Supreme Court case about the Biden administration’s power over the fishing industry. photos, more, >>click to read<< 06:46
