Tag Archives: Mayor Jon Mitchell
$42M New Bedford waterfront port project could attract commercial fishing, offshore wind
There’s a maritime version of the old Mark Twain adage to buy land because they’re not making any more of it. New Bedford Port Authority Executive Director Gordon Carr said it goes something like this: “Waterfront industrial property needs to be preserved at all costs because they’re not making any more of it.” He added with a smile, “And while I tend to agree with that, today, welcome to New Bedford — because we did make more of it.” The remark drew applause from the crowd gathered under a tent at 242 Herman Melville Blvd. on the New Bedford waterfront Tuesday to celebrate the completion of the North Terminal Extension Project. Among the celebrants were Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Edward Markey, and U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-9th District. Keating said, “You know those people who say the private sector can do things better than the government can do? I can say in this instance, with 100% certainty, that’s just not true. The private sector, if tasked with this achievement we’re celebrating today, would fail because it wouldn’t even try. No one in the private sector would have taken on the risk of putting together such a complicated project.” Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 19:14
Massachusetts: Lawmakers call for answers in wake of Blue Harvest Fisheries bankruptcy sale
Questions continue to surround the bankruptcy and sale of Blue Harvest Fisheries, the largest groundfish operation in New England, including its impact on the New Bedford fishing industry. The New Bedford company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in September 2023. For U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Edward Markey (D-Mass) and Rep. William Keating (D-Mass) it’s part of a pattern, and they are seeking answers from Bregal Partners, a Dutch-owned private equity firm, and Blue Harvest’s majority equity holder that owned 89.5 percent of the company. more, >>click to read<< 08:05
Mitchell takes oath of office for sixth term as New Bedford mayor
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell was sworn-in for his sixth term Monday night. Gov. Maura Healey administered the oath of office to Mitchell for a four-year term. Mitchell, who won re-election in November with about 64% of the vote, delivered an inaugural address. Moments after he was sworn in, Mitchell reaffirmed his commitment to making the city safer, stronger and at the forefront of new technology. He has spoken in the past about South Coast Rail, the offshore wind industry, and economic development as priorities. video, photos, more, >>click to read<< 09:11
Will bankruptcy auction break up New Bedford’s fishing fleet?
Blue Harvest Fisheries’ last assets could be sold at a bankruptcy auction as early as Wednesday, court filings show. Mayor Jon Mitchell and the New Bedford Port Authority have urged the bankruptcy trustee to ensure both the boats and permits remain in New Bedford, the nation’s top-earning commercial fishing port. Some fisherman and advocacy groups say regulators should seize the moment to break up the permits and enact stricter antitrust rules to limit future consolidation of the fishing business. The assets up for auction include eight commercial fishing vessels and 48 state and federal fishing permits, representing about 13% of all quota in the New England groundfish industry. Blue Harvest is the region’s single-largest groundfish permit holder. >>click to read<< 20:42
Mayor Mitchell goes to bat for New Bedford’s fishermen, submits congressional testimony
In his written submission, the Mayor explained why the federal government’s approach to fisheries management within the recently designated marine monuments matters to New Bedford’s commercial fishing fleet–the top-grossing fleet in the nation: “The management of marine fisheries in federal waters within the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is a matter of vital importance to the Port of New Bedford, Massachusetts – America’s top-valued commercial fishing port.” The Mayor encouraged Subcommittee members to take into account the unique role that New Bedford plays nationally in commercial fishing, saying “Our harbor serves not only the needs of the vessels that call New Bedford their home port, but also the needs of numerous East Coast vessels from North Carolina to Maine which land their catch in our port at different times during each fishing season. \The proper management of our nation’s marine fisheries is therefore crucial to the vitality of our port and our local and regional economy, but also to the nation, as we service the needs of an industry whose vessels operate up and down nearly the entirety of the East Coast.” >>click to read<< 14:54
New Bedford said to be best place for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Is there a better place to site the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast operations than New Bedford? Mayor Jon Mitchell doesn’t think so. And he’s joined in that opinion by a “very broad coalition of business and civic leadership. “Mitchell sent a letter co-signed by more than 50 business and civic leaders to NOAA Administrator Richard Spinrad this month making a pitch to consolidate its Northeast facilities in New Bedford. A similar letter was sent to NOAA in 2016, but recent developments warranted another entreaty. New Bedford’s port accounts for about 70% of the state’s commercial fish landings, according to the letter. While Gloucester hosts most of the NOAA’s facilities regionally, its landings are about one-seventh the size of New Bedford’s. >click to read< 09:54
New England Fishing Culture
In New Bedford, fishing is more than a business—it is a way of life, passed down through generations of families like a tradition instead of an occupation. Born into a family of fishermen, Tyler Miranda grew up on the water, going out on trips in his father’s lobster boat—a wooden vessel about 14 feet long and half-covered in ocean-worn lobster traps—since he was six. Kellen O’Maley, a fisherman from Gloucester, Mass., chose not to pursue opportunities using a business degree. (Gloucester, a town two hours north of New Bedford, is the second largest fishing port in the state.) Instead, he dove into the fishing industry. >click to read< 10:19
The Emerging American Offshore Wind Industry is Impacting the Community of New Bedford
The Port of New Bedford is home to the wealthiest commercial fishing industry in the country. As the dominant port on the east coast, New Bedford has one of the best industrial working waterfronts with services that completely support marine industrial businesses. Fisherman are concerned that these wind developments will harmfully impact the fishing economy. With commercial fishing at the core of New Bedford’s economy, there are concerns regarding management and maintenance of both industries cohabitating. “I was adamantly opposed to having them offshore, to be honest with you. I don’t feel it’s a good environment for them,” said Captain Jim Kendall, a retired scalloper. “I think it’s going to be real problematic for them, plus it’s parking these towers right where these boats fish.” >click to read< 08:06
Ship carrying parts for offshore wind turbines arrives in New Bedford
New Bedford was once the city that lit the world, exporting vast quantities of whale oil for lamps in the early 1800s. Workers packed the docks, unloading casks of oil that had been extracted at sea from whale carcasses and brought in by a fleet of hundreds of whaling ships. Nearly two centuries later New Bedford aspires to light the world again, in a different relationship with the sea, as the offshore wind industry arrives here. On Wednesday, the vessel UHL Felicity bringing wind turbine tower sections from Portugal reached the Port of New Bedford. Once assembled out on the water this summer by developer Vineyard Wind, the turbines will stand more than 850 feet high. “There’s this sort of poetic coming-about for New Bedford as a center of energy,” Mayor Jon Mitchell said. Video, >click to read< 09:42
‘This is the war’: New Bedford at center of conflict between fishing, wind industries
New Bedford is the top commercial fishing port in the country, but it’s also emerging as an epicenter of conflict between the fishing industry and the growing wind industry. “This is the war, and we’re going to lose,” said Cassie Canastra, director of operations at Base Seafood, an electronic seafood auctioning company that her father and uncle founded in 1994. Canastra called it “defeating” to watch various wind farm projects expand into vital fishing grounds. New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said he wants the city to be both the top fishing port and the No. 1 hub for wind energy nationwide, though he recognizes tensions between the two industries need to be addressed. Video, >click to read< 07:45
New Bedford mayor calls for closed scallop grounds to reopen to fishermen
“Recent research by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and others demonstrates that the Northern Edge can sustain scallop fishing. Given this research, I do not see a pressing need to conduct additional research before opening the Northern Edge,” Mitchell stated in written testimony submitted to the NEFMC. While New Bedford fishing vessels harvest multiple species, he said, “scallops are the prime drivers” of the Port of New Bedford’s economy, the most valuable commercial fishing port in the United States. >click to read< 06:31
DOJ Digs Into “Competition Concerns” in New England Fishing Industry
The U.S. Department of Justice has begun looking at possible antitrust issues in the New England fishing industry, amid growing concern about consolidation and market dominance by private equity investors. One such firm is Blue Harvest Fisheries, which operates out of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and is the largest holder of permits to catch groundfish such as pollock, haddock and ocean perch. The investigation traced the company’s ownership to a billionaire Dutch family via a private equity firm. Over the past seven years, records show, the company has purchased the rights to catch 12% of groundfish in the region, approaching the antitrust cap of 15.5%. It further boosts its market share by leasing fishing rights from other permit owners. >click to read< 07:50
Port of New Bedford Applauds Appointment of Eric Hansen to New England Fishery Management Council
The Port of New Bedford applauds today’s appointment of Eric Hansen, a New Bedford scalloper and president of the Fisheries Survival Fund, to a seat on the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC). Hansen’s appointment will help ensure the concerns of New Bedford’s vital fishing community are represented at the Council level. New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, chairman of the New Bedford Port Authority, recommended Hansen for the seat in a February letter to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. >click to read< 07:25
Mitchell warns of ‘potentially consequential’ impacts if leasing is approved
Mayor Jon Mitchell is “deeply concerned”,,, “There is no denying that there will be costs and impacts associated with the leasing program,” Mitchell wrote. “The playing field will be tilted on day one, perhaps irrevocably so, and the transformation of the scallop fishery from a ‘community fishery’ to a ‘corporate fishery’ may become all but inevitable.” The Scallopers Campaign, the lobbying effort behind the leasing proposal, commissioned a study in 2021 by Alaska-based consulting firm Northern Economics, which concluded leasing could collectively reduce annual costs for vessel owners by about $12 million. Listen to the video. >Click to read< 08:55
‘I don’t want to be a Wal-Mart fisherman’: Scallopers sound off about permit leasing/consolidation
The New England Fisheries Management Council held a scoping meeting Wednesday at the New Bedford Whaling Museum on its proposed Scallop Fishery Management Plan adjustment. Should it go through, the plan would allow scallopers to lease out portions of their days at sea license to other boats, causing concern among small fisherfolk and portside business-owners alike. “I was born a fisherman’s daughter and became a fisherman’s wife,” said Evelyn Sklar at the meeting. “And now I’m a fisherman’s mother and a fisherman’s grandmother. “I hope I can die in peace, because this doesn’t belong in the fishing family industry.” “When consolidation happened [in the groundfish fleet], the community dried up around it,” “As consolidation happened with draggers, they were forced out of business,” said Justin Mello, captain of the Temptress. “I can see the same thing happening. >click to read< 08:12
New Bedford Scallopers tell fishery managers they don’t want leasing
More than 110 attendees, a mix of fishermen, shoreside business owners, marine scientists, attorneys and vessel owners, filled a meeting room at the Whaling Museum on Wednesday for the first of two public meetings in New Bedford on the leasing proposal. Those who spoke in opposition drew loud applause, while those who spoke in support drew little or none. “There was a time in this industry when a father owned a boat and he taught his son, and his son was able to rise up … buy and operate his own boat, and you know, those days are gone,” said Tyler Miranda, a New Bedford captain of two scallopers. “I think that if [leasing] does move forward and is developed, it will take even further away from the family and community dynamic that fishing is and always was — and will make it more corporate.” >click to read< 13:50
Mayor wants New Bedford voice on NEFMC
The last New Bedford voice on the council was John Quinn who left in 2021 and was replaced by Michael Pierdinock of Plymouth. Eric Hansen is looking to be the New Bedford voice on the council. “We’re the largest valued fishing port in the nation and to not have a voice on the council is just wrong,” Hansen said. Hansen has been a scallop fisherman, like his father and grandfather before him, for 44 years. He doesn’t go to sea anymore but his scallop vessel F/V Endeavor does and these days his son is at the wheel, serving as captain. >click to read< 09:12
New Bedford fishing fleet ties up ahead of Nor’easter
As a nor’easter moved closer to Southern New England Friday, some commercial fisherman in New Bedford said they’re tying up their boats and preparing to spend the weekend on land. “They’re all going to dock their boats. They’re going to get fuel. They’re going to get water, get prepared for the next trip, sell all their scallops Sunday at 12 o’clock when it’s ready. Monday, they’re all probably expected to head right back out,” said David Fish, a deck hand. >click to read< 20:55
New Bedford mayor unhappy with Baker pick for council pick
Plymouth resident Michael Pierdinock was named to a seat representing Massachusetts on the New England Fishery Management Council, a panel that sets rules for the fishing industry such as catch limits. It is one of eight such regional councils nationwide. Pierdinock will replace former state Rep. John Quinn, a Dartmouth resident and longtime member who had years of expertise regarding commercial fishing issues in Greater New Bedford. “When it comes to commercial fishing in Massachusetts, New Bedford should be top of mind, not an afterthought,” Mitchell added. >click to read< 09:46
New Bedford is America’s number 1 fishing port for 20th straight year
The National Marine Fisheries Service released its annual report on the health of the nation’s fishing industry on Thursday,,, New Bedford ranked No. 1 for the value of seafood landed at its port for the 20th consecutive year in 2019, with $451 million worth of fish hauled in by its boats. That was up by $20 million compared with the year before, and far outpaced the second-ranked Port of Naknek, Alaska, which had $289 million worth of landings. NOAA officials said New Bedford’s dominance remains driven by sea scallops, which account for 84% of the value of all landings there. >click to read< 14:21
Vineyard Wind hopes to have offshore wind farm up and running by 2023
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released its final environmental review of the Vineyard Wind project Monday, which included a favorable assessment of the proposal. Vineyard Wind’s proposed 84-turbine offshore wind farm would generate 800 megawatts of clean energy and power 400,000 homes. The final step in the lengthy federal assessment of the project, according to the company, is an official decision from the BOEM, which could come as early as this spring. >video, click to read< 20:05
America’s largest scallop company sues New Bedford over waterfront expansion
Roy Enoksen and his business partner own the largest scallop fleet in the world. Their 27 fishing vessels bring more than 80,000 pounds of seafood into New Bedford each day, employing more than 400 captains, fishermen and support staff. But a construction project planned by the city’s port authority would cut off water access at one of Enoksen’s boat maintenance facilities. A lawsuit filed by Enoksen last month has blown the lid off a simmering conflict between New Bedford and one of the largest employers along its waterfront. >click to read< 08:40
Waterfront companies suing New Bedford, port authority over North Terminal expansion project
Marine Hydraulics, a steel fabrication and machinery repair and maintenance company, is located on Herman Melville Boulevard and sits in the North Terminal. Nordic Fisheries co-owns Eastern Fisheries, a scallop fishing company located on Hervey Tichon Avenue just south of the terminal.,, The plaintiffs state in their complaint that much of their business depends on immediate access to the water to haul, service and store vessels, and that without direct access, their companies would be irreparably harmed. >click to read< 09:50
New Bedford businesses growing despite coronavirus pandemic
There will be a world after COVID-19 has passed. With the future in mind, the Mitchell Administration has been working to grow private capital investment and encourage the creation of wealth and jobs in the Whaling City. There are now three serious proposals in front of the New Bedford City Council for approval. Eastern Fisheries, Inc. is going to invest $12 million in a new facility and create 50 new well-paying jobs while retaining 275 jobs in the city if the proposal is approved. >click to read< 08:07
Markey touts $15 million he steered to New Bedford’s North Terminal
Senator Ed Markey brought his senatorial campaign to New Bedford Friday afternoon, touting his efforts to secure waterfront infrastructure and fisheries disaster assistance funding for the city. Markey made the stop in the Whaling City as part of the launch of his statewide bus tour, the “Leads and Delivers Tour,” designed to spotlight the accomplishments the senator says he has made for the state on Capitol Hill. The focus of the stop at City Pier 3 was highlighting the $15.4 million in Department of Transportation funding to improve the New Bedford port’s infrastructure and the $28 million in fisheries disaster assistance from the CARES Act that Markey says he advocated for. >click to read< 17:47
Mobile Coronavirus testing site now available for New Bedford’s commercial fishing industry
The Port of New Bedford has partnered with Southcoast Health to provide COVID-19 testing for the city’s commercial fishing industry. Beginning Friday, the Southcoast Mobile Health Van was on-site testing fishermen slated to leave port after their results would be made available. The mobile testing site, located along the port’s waterfront, is a trial run to see if there is an increased need for fishermen to be tested. The pilot will also help New Bedford and Southcoast Health prepare for expanded testing capabilities, including for targeted essential workers. >click to read< 08:09
Quinn Fisheries buys six of Carlos Rafael’s scallop boats
Mayor Jon Mitchell announced the purchase at a hastily announced 3:30 press conference Wednesday afternoon. The mayor had sought to keep the bulk of Rafael’s boats in New Bedford,,, “With the Quinn family’s acquisition of Carlos Rafael’s scallopers and related permits, New Bedford can be assured that a major piece of Rafael’s fishing business will remain here,,, BASE’s seafood auction owners Richie and Raymond Canastra attempted to block the agreement as part of an apparent attempt to acquire the same vessels,,, >click to read< 08:16
New Bedford – Old ‘Revere Copper and Brass’ will get new life as shipyard
After sitting vacant for over a decade, an historic mill on the waterfront is getting a new life as a commercial shipyard.,,,“We saw the site come up a few years back and we saw the potential with it,” said Michael Quinn who runs Shoreline Resources with his father Charlie. Currently the father and son own Quinn Fisheries, which has six commercial fishing vessels; Standard Marine Outfitters, a vessel supply company; and East Coast Fabrication, a ship repair company.,,, Mayor Jon Mitchell, “Establishing a shipyard at this site gives the port an increased capacity to service the fishing industry, the offshore wind industry, and others.” >click to read< 20:37
Mayor: No Answers on Vineyard Wind Approval is ‘Disconcerting’
“It’s a big deal because it’s a $2.2 Billion project. That is, to date, the largest private sector project in the state’s history. Bigger than the casinos in the state, bigger than Gillette Stadium, or you can name any of the skyscrapers in Boston, that is a big, big project and it’s being deployed from here,” New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said Thursday during his weekly appearance on the Barry Richard Show. “It’s not even clear to me that Vineyard Wind understands what the hang-up is. We’ve said, ‘look, if the hang-up has something to do with commercial fishing, we in New Bedford would be happy to play a mediated role.’ >click to read< 12:28
Fishermen face uphill battle in lawsuit over New York wind site
Fishermen and the city of New Bedford are facing an uphill battle in their fight against a New York offshore wind location after losing a lawsuit in September. Attorney David Frulla, who represents the Fisheries Survival Fund and other plaintiffs in the case, said he was disappointed at the court decision but has not given up. “I just don’t think the judge understood that these leases aren’t theoretical, that they actually confer rights,” he said. >click to read< 09:46
