Tag Archives: Joseph Gilbert
Don’t let wind industry disrupt fishing industry
As owner of Empire Fisheries, one of Connecticut’s largest commercial fishing companies, I testified recently at a hearing before the General Assembly’s Energy and Technology Committee on two bills (SB 875 and HB 7156) in support of the state’s plan to procure clean energy from offshore wind turbines in federal waters. While in support of the bills, I cautioned, as many other fishermen have, that any authorization from the state for procuring wind energy must first guarantee protections that keep fishermen, fish and the ecosystems they rely on, safe. >click to read<15:34
Winds of worry: US fishermen fear forests of power turbines
East Coast fishermen are turning a wary eye toward an emerging upstart: the offshore wind industry. In New Bedford, Massachusetts, the onetime whaling capital made famous in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” fishermen dread the possibility of navigating a forest of turbines as they make their way to the fishing grounds that have made it the nation’s most lucrative fishing port for 17 years running. The state envisions hundreds of wind turbines spinning off the city’s shores in about a decade, enough to power more than 1 million homes.,, “Fishermen are losing ground one a nibble at a time,” said Joseph Gilbert, a Stonington, Connecticut fisherman who owns boats that range from Virginia to Maine. click here to read the story 12:30
Fishermen, Conservationists Go Head To Head Over East Coast Underwater National Monument
New England fishermen are hoping President Donald Trump will reverse an undersea monument designation they say has cut them off from nearly 5,000 square miles of valuable fishing grounds off the coast of Cape Cod. Trump last month directed the Department of the Interior to conduct a sweeping review of national monument designations over the last two decades, including the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, which President Barack Obama declared the first undersea national monument in the Atlantic Ocean in September. But Joseph Gilbert, owner of Stonington-based Empire Fisheries, said since the designation, “we’ve been pushed to other areas” creating unnecessary competition and pressure as more boats are fishing in a smaller area. Fishermen, who have been using the area for 200 years, Gilbert said, were given just two months to get out. Though the area represents only 1.5 percent of U.S. waters off the East Coast, Gilbert said it’s another example of fishermen “losing, one nibble or bite at a time, access to historic, productive fishing areas.” click here to read the article 08:01
