Tag Archives: Julie Lofstad
Fishermen Finding Windows Of Opportunity, Necessity Opened By Coronavirus
“Guys are getting creative,” said Edward Warner Jr., a commercial bayman from Hampton Bays. “You have some guys going on the internet and selling and going to the green markets in the city more. Different people are trying different things to make few bucks here and there.” Before the epidemic, the majority of fish landed by local boats was simply packed in waxed cardboard boxes, topped with crushed ice and trucked into New York City’s central seafood market in Hunts Point, Brooklyn.,,, In mid-March, when restaurants and thousands of other businesses were ordered to close, and people scrambled to pack into their homes and venture out as little as possible, prices for fish cratered. >click to read< 12:25
Coronavirus: Fishermen See Market Dry Out
Unable to sell a 1,000-pound catch of fluke last week, Capt. Chuck Morici of the dragger Act 1 spent three days filleting the fish at Montauk commercial dock and offering it for free straight from his boat. On Saturday morning, he gave it away from the back of his pickup truck in downtown Montauk, a big handwritten sign announcing, “Free Fish.”,, In addition to the closure of most domestic restaurants, foreign markets such as Spain and Italy, which before the pandemic were historically large buyers of squid landed on the East End, for example, have stopped all imports. As a result, many fish buyers have implored fishermen to stay ashore. >click to read< 15:10
Suffolk County Officially Transfers Ownership of Shinnecock Commercial Dock To Southampton Town
Tuesday, Suffolk County officially signed over full ownership of the commercial fishing dock to the Town of Southampton, according to a press release. Additionally, the transfer included an 11-acre stretch of beachfront along Shinnecock Bay just west of the dock. Prior to the transfer, the costs of repairing or upgrading the dock were evenly split between the town and the county. Under an inter-municipal agreement, signed by both parties in 2002, any repairs or upgrades required approvals from both town and county officials. Southampton Town Councilwoman Julie Lofstad, who co-owns a commercial fishing boat with her husband, Raymond Lofstad, explained that the added layers of government approval only complicated things. >click to read<11:45
Fishing is a family business – Three couples know everybody needs to pitch in to make a living
Long Island’s fishing families know how to adapt. They have to if they want to keep making their living from the water. Many have succumbed to the sea of quotas and regulations. Fewer and fewer are hanging on. In the past eight years, the number of commercial food fish licenses has dropped by double digits —11 percent — from 1,030 in 2018 to 916 so far this year, state data show.,, Most of the families still in commercial fishing run mom-and-operations, Brady said. “Some can go back 15 generations, some have been here since the ’70s,” she said, “and some are just starting out” The Phillipses, the Osinskis, and the Lofstads. >click to read<08:51
Plans For Offshore Wind Energy Draw Criticism At Hearing In Southampton On Monday
“We know the moment [the federal government] gets a taste of wind farms in the Atlantic, we are going to be playing whack-a-mole with energy and oil companies creeping up on our fishing grounds,” Bonnie Brady said at a presentation by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, or NYSERDA, on Monday night at the Southampton Inn. Ms. Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in Montauk, said that, like other commercial fishermen in the audience, she worries that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, which has jurisdiction over the Atlantic, will lease more ocean for wind energy development and wind up hurting the industry.>click to read<16:01
