Tag Archives: Freedom of Information Act request
Why retired officer says Marine Police guarding the Chesapeake Bay are being ‘wasteful’
Andrew Cortez cares deeply about the Chesapeake Bay. “The Chesapeake Bay is our natural heritage,” Cortez said. “A healthy bay helps everyone.” The retired law enforcement officer was an investigator for 36 years, working to keep the Chesapeake in check with different agencies as a special agent with U.S. Fish and Wildlife. He now has concerns about the group meant to do just that: the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, which oversees Virginia Marine Police. “One of the things that really struck me is the amount of money they’re spending on what I would consider to be toys, unnecessary squandering of public money,” Cortez said. Photos, video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:38
Wind Projects Off New England Put Endangered Right Whales at Risk, Warns NOAA Scientist
Planned wind projects off the New England coast threaten to harm the region’s dwindling population of endangered right whales, according to a US government marine scientist. The warning from a top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official, obtained by Bloomberg under a Freedom of Information Act request, underscores the potential legal and environmental perils of offshore wind development along the coast. President Joe Biden has a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind within the decade. Both initial construction of wind projects and decades of expected operation threaten to imperil right whales in southern New England waters, Sean Hayes, chief of the protected species branch at NOAA’s National Northeast Fisheries Science Center, said in a May 13 letter to Interior Department officials. >click to read< 11:26
Trump officials drafted plans to eliminate marine monument off New England
Senior U.S. Department of Interior officials prepared last fall to eliminate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the Atlantic coast—even as they had yet to agree on the public justifications for doing so, according to newly disclosed internal documents. Interior last week accidentally released thousands of pages of unredacted internal emails in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.,, In a 22 August 2017 email, Interior official Randy Bowman, who led the monument review process, drafted two proposals: one in which Trump would revoke the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument and the other in which he would amend the proclamation to remove restrictions on commercial fishing. On 14 September, Bowman suggested in an email that impacts to the fishing industry were not a major consideration in revoking the monument’s status. >click to read<18:26
Trouble in Paradise? WPFMC Destroys Tape of Secret Meeting – Council Staff Limits Public’s Access to Documents
On Feb. 24, just a few days after learning of the existence of the recording, we filed a formal Freedom of Information Act request to obtain a copy of it. The response came on April 4. “The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council staff has advised that an audio recording of the subcommittee meeting was erased on February 22, 2014,” stated the letter signed by Samuel D. Rauch III, administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service. “We are in the process of reviewing the circumstances of this action.” Read more here 16:05
