Added tax benefits for working waterfront landowners
A new Maine law that went into effect in August strengthens the working waterfront section of the current land use tax program, which provides tax relief for owners of land designated as working waterfront. Sponsored by Rep. Dan Ankeles of Brunswick, the law strengthens the tax program and adjusts certain recapture penalties, providing Mainers who use their own residence for their commercial fishing business a larger incentive to enroll. “While more still needs to be done, this increase in available tax relief and relaxation of the penalties in the working waterfront current use program is an important and necessary change,” said Ankeles in a press statement.
Boothbay Harbor is getting a new fishing pier (below).
Vineyard Wind picks up the pieces, starts work again
On August 13 Vineyard Wind was allowed to restart some construction work installing turbine towers and nacelles. In July a blade snapped on a wind turbine, sending foam and debris into the ocean, some of which is still washing up around Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) suspended all operations and construction activities shortly after the accident. It issued an “updated suspension order” on August 13 to allow some work to resume. However, the revised order still prohibits blade installation or power production at the 24 turbines installed so far on the planned 62-turbine, 806-megawatt rated array.
More federal money to protect right whales
In mid-August the Biden Administration committed nearly more than $9 million in funding for partnerships aimed at conserving North Atlantic right whales. Nearly $7 million of the money will go to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which will use it to test ropeless fishing gear in partnership with the fishermen. Slightly less than $3 million will be split between Duke University’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Marine Ecology and Telemetry Research, and the Flammang Lab at the New Jersey Institute of Technology to build a nearly real-time modeling system to predict the East Coast distribution of right whales.
Environmental groups sue over seafood imports
The Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Animal Welfare Institute filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade against the federal government, alleging that regulators are not doing enough to protect marine mammals in foreign fisheries. The suit claims that the U.S. federal government has failed to enforce the import provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which require foreign fisheries to implement the same protections as U.S. fisheries before exporting products to the U.S. The conservation groups are asking the court to ban seafood imports from fisheries that allow too many marine mammals to be killed, as required under U.S. law.
A new commercial pier coming in Boothbay Harbor
Boothbay Harbor is getting a new commercial fishing pier. The Boothbay Region Maritime Foundation signed a contract with Fuller Marine to build the dock and seawall at Carter’s Wharf, the former site of the Sea Pier. Only licensed commercial fishermen and buyers will be considered for the wharf’s use. The $2.1 million project was funded with a state grant, the Mildred McEvoy Foundation, and other anonymous grants and donations. Additional donations are being sought for the final phase of the project, which will include the construction of a 28-foot by 64-foot buying station, fuel station, and marina.
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