Maine Port Safety Forum April 10th: LNG, whales, ice,, more.

Port Safety Forum Thursday

The quarterly Port Safety Forum meeting comes up this Thursday April 10 at 10am at the Portland Ocean Terminal. Below is the agenda and some bits from the previous meetings' minutes.

* Right Whale Sighting Update – Kristen Koyama, NMFS

* Development , feedback of NWS Marine forecast- John Cannon, NWS

*Historical Tide Levels-Steve Dickson, Maine Geological Survey

* Demolition of Waldo/Hancock Bridge-Maine DOT

* TWIC Update- (commercial sailor ID's) Al Moore USCG

* LNG Update-Al Moore, USCG

* Ice Season (Reporting, breaking requests, etc.) CWO Chase, USCG

At their last meeting, the Forum discussed a "Penobscot Bay maritime issues forum"
This was proposed by John Henshaw head of the Maine Port Authority under the Navigation committee. ..."Dredging and other topics would be discussed among various groups with a variety of interests: Pilots, MMA, environmental groups etc. would be perhaps involved."

There should be a followup on the Penobscot Bay maritime issues forum at this meeting.

More info:
Kevin Rousseau, MDOT Office of Freight Transportation
(207) 624-3565 kevin.rousseau@maine.gov

Maine/NH Port Safety Forum January 30th: LNG; icebreaking, port security, Penobscot Bay & much more

Penobscot Bay maritime issues, LNG, icebreaking and more will be among the many topics discussed January 31st at the 80th meeting of the Maine/New Hampshire Port Safety Forum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The event will take place 10:00 AM at the NH Dept. of Environmental Services, in Portsmouth, NH. Members of the public are welcome to attend as observers.

The meeting agenda includes updates & presentations on:
Right whale sightings, by Kristen Koyama, NMFS; Maritime Incident Resources & Training for Piscataqua & Merrimack River Region (Val Pamboukes, Portsmouth FD, Ret.); LNG Update-Al Moore, USCG; results of the Frontier Sentinel port security exercise, a mock attack against a navy supply ship. (Lt Cdr Mike Sams, USCG); the raising of the 40 foot Seahawke, a 40 ft boat that sank in Great Bay, NH, (Rick Berry, NHDES); the new Transportation Worker ID Card (Al Moore, USCG); and the Homeport Program (LTJG Beacher, USCG).

Participants will also discuss a Small Passenger Vessel Seminar (call for topics) (LT Green, USCG) and get a report on the Ice Breaking season to date, CWO Chase, USCG)

Under New Business, John Henshaw of the Maine Port Authority will lead a discussion of Penobscot Bay maritime issues. (what are these issues? I'll have to ask him); other new biz includes a proposed Waterway Round-Table Discussion of "port access thresholds" LTJG Miller; the America's Waterway Watch & Sea Partner Program (LT Green) and interpretation of the CBP Passenger Vessel Services Act (John Henshaw, Maine Port Authority).

The event will take place 10:00 AM at the NH Dept. of Environmental Services, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Members of the public are welcome to attend as

observers.

Right Whales visiting Penobscot Bay!

A pod of nearly two dozen northern right whales is visiting the mouth of Penobscot Bay.

As a precaution, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has imposed lobster gear restrictions on nearly 2,000 square miles of ocean south of Rockland through December 19th.

Photo shows 600 feet of lobsterline unwrapped from a humpback whale.

The Dynamic Area Management (DAM) zone is likely to have varying impacts Maine fishermen. December is a big month in the offshore lobster fishery. Monhegan opens in January.

Some of the largest boats that fish offshore can land as much as 20,000 pounds of lobster, earning thousands of dollars for their crew on a single December trip. While the rewards can be high, so can the risk.

Its a hard pill to swallow, but until lobstering technology moves into the 21st century, we humans must make way for our majestic predecessors, who have lived in these waters since before the bronze age, for the trap lines WILL snarl a rightie if he or she blunders into it the wrong way.

Right whale whackers must be stopped

Sounds like a bad idea. The U.S. Navy wants to put a training range for lethal mid-frequency
sonar off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina smack in a key migratory route for menhaden, bluefish, striped bass, right whales, humpbacks, swordfish, eels, ...you name it, and if it travels the north/south route along the US Atlantic coast that is used by so much marine nature, it could be in deep trouble if the proposed sonar range gets set up in those waters.

The Navy's new Atlantic Undersea Warfare Training Range would create a 500-square-mile hub of sonar activity. While they could likely be forced to refrain from sonar testing during whale thru-migration times, many other species travel on their own schedules, and the survival of such species is every bit as important as that of the marine mammals.


We'll keep an eye on this...Stay tuned.