Page 10. MAINE COASTAL NEWS January 2018
Commercial Fishing News From the Director -
Tis the season! With the holidays just
around the corner, everyone is trying to get their meetings in before the New Year and the beginning of the next Legislative Ses- sion.
One of the meetings was concerning
ocean acidifi cation. This meeting was held in Portland on Monday, December 4th with Melissa Gates, Northeast Regional Manager, Representative Mick Devin and Ivy Frignoca, Casco Baykeeper, Friends of Casco Bay. The bill is entitled: Resolve, Establish-
ing the Commission To Study the Eff ects of Coastal and Ocean Acidifi cation and Its Ex- isting and Potential Eff ects on Species That Are Commercially Harvested and Grown along the Maine Coast. The bill involves exactly what the title says. This gives you a preliminary to what is coming up with the Legislature this winter. If it is of interest to you, please feel free to contact us for more information. Another subject that has been brewing
for a while is moving forward with a permit application. Clean Power Northeast De- velopment, a subsidiary of Emera, Inc., has applied to the U. S. Department of Energy for a Presidential Permit, requesting authori- zation to build the Atlantic Link subsea elec- tric transmission project. The application has been deemed complete and the project’s submission notice was published on Decem- ber 4th
in the U. S. Federal Register. Atlantic Link is a proposed 1,000-mega-
watt high voltage direct current transmission interconnection of approximately 375 miles to deliver wind and hydro power from At- lantic Canada directly to Massachusetts. The subsea cable would run from Coleson
D. E. L. A. - F D
Cove, New Brunswick to Plymouth Massa- chusetts, making landfall near the retiring Pilgrim nuclear station. Atlantic Link’s proposed in-service date is late 2022. The Presidential Permit is required to authorize the construction, connection and operation of a transmission line between the United States and Canada. The project site is www.
atlanticlink.com if you would like to know more about it. The contact person is Gerald Weseen, Vice President, U. S. Government Aff airs, Clean Power Northeast Develop- ment (Emera Inc.) gerald.weseen@emera. com and his telephone is 617 530-1309. The Emera representatives were guests at our June DELA meeting and were very informative. They also were asking us for our input along with maps and charts of the area that they are looking at for the cable. Please feel free to contact them. The Zone meetings are all updated now
with the latest information concerning the progress of the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative. They are up for re-evaluation in January of the upcoming New Year. Matt Jacobson, Director of the MLMC will be giving a presentation at the Lobster Advi- sory Council meeting on December 14th
, as
well at the Marine Resources Committee. The Lobster Industry, such as our associa- tions will also be weighing in on this. Our DELA meeting that was held last Thursday, December 7th
was to discuss how we feel
about the Collaborative as well. This is an opportunity to give concerns, compliments, adjustments or suggested changes. Again, please contact DELA if you have anything that you would like to weigh in on. We will take it to the future meetings. I was privileged to be part of the plan- ning of the “new” Collaborative when it
was re-structured. We worked with John Suave or the “Blueberry Guy” with great information and guidance at the time. We changed the structure of their board to include four fi shermen, three dealers, two Commissioners, and two at-large members. The meetings are publicized and open to anyone that would like to sit in and see what they are doing. There is an update every year at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum that is part of their policy. This includes a third party audit and an update of their progress from one year to another. It is also in the hands of our fi shery to help decide of if they continue. This is all part of what we are entitled to with our fees on the lobster license. This is our marketing for our product, so please stay involved and make your voice count. We pay for that “business opportunity” for promoting Maine’s most valuable fi shery.
Maine Scallop Season Gets Underway December 1
November 28, 2017 – Maine’s 2017-2018 scallop season got underway December 1 and the season for harvesters will look much like last year’s. As with the 2016-17 season, harvesters
in Zones 1 and 2, which together stretch from the New Hampshire border to the Lu- bec-Campobello Bridge, will be allowed to land 15 gallons per day of shucked scallops, and harvesters in Zone 3, which includes Cobscook Bay and the St. Croix River, will be allowed to land 10 gallons a day. While harvesters in Zone 1 will again
have a total of 60 days to fi sh and harvesters in Zone 2 will have 70 days, harvesters in Zone 3 will have fi ve additional days (55
The only thing that I would like to off er
is, marketing takes a lot of time and eff ort. It also has to withstand the “test of time” to see results. There is always tweaking to do along the way. I do know that when we are out on the water, harvesting our product, that we don’t really have time to be talking to chefs and teaching them about our product. We cannot really discuss pricing, but it
is only common sense that the more that we catch, considering price and demand, that it can raise Cain with prices going up or down. We also need better communications with our dealers, harvesters, processors and those trying to market our product as well. Let’s join in on the discussion and work together the best that we can. D.E.L.A. will be there! We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you soon, Sheila
Maine DMR News
versus 50) this season. Also like past seasons, areas along
the coast will be closed by the Department using emergency rulemaking when 30 to 40 percent of the volume of legal sized scallops have been harvested. The 30-40 percent trigger has been shown to allow the resource to regenerate suffi ciently to ensure a commercial harvest in the future. Using information collected during the
season from industry and Marine Patrol and from in-season trawl surveys, the Depart- ment can determine how much legal-size resource remains on the bottom and when to close areas. Areas in Zones 1 and 3 have been des-
Continued on Page 21.
MAINE BOATBUILDER’S SHOW 23, 24 and 25 March 2018
512 Warren Avenue, Portland 04103, Portland Sports Complex 1000 to 1800 Friday and Saturday and 1000 to 1600 on Sunday
Come see the fi nest wood and fi berglass boats in the Northeast! Come and meet the builders. Sail, power, canoes, kayaks and skiff s will all be on display.
Come see the boats, sail, power and paddle! Presented by Portland Yacht Services - (207) 774-1067
Come see the Accessories!
www.boatshow.portlandcompany.com
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