Working Waterfront

On the record with… Tom Meyers of the Waterfront Alliance

Tom Meyers has spent his professional life as an active member of working waterfronts. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard for 28 years and as the head of the Portland base, Meyers then spent 13 years as a transportation and waterfront coordinator for the city of South Portland. While… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Ships, the Suez Canal, and our three ports

Assuming I have your attention, I am now going to ask you to look up and around the room in which you are sitting. What percentage of the things in the room were once aboard a ship? Thirty-five percent? Fifty percent? Seventy percent? Experts put the answer at over 90… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Halibut—a huge, thrilling, and tasty fish

“Once you’ve caught a halibut, you’ll never be the same, if you like fishing,” said Erik Waterman, a commercial fisherman who lives in South Thomaston and fishes out of Spruce Head. Waterman was talking about wild-caught Atlantic halibut, one of the largest fish in the Gulf of Maine and the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Is ropeless fishing ready for prime time?

[caption id="attachment_24983" align="alignleft" width="300"] PHOTO: COURTESY BLUE PLANET STRATEGIES[/caption] As the North Atlantic right whale population declines rapidly, regulators have proposed or enacted a series of closures of significant areas of lobster fishing grounds off the coast of New England and Atlantic Canada to protect the endangered whales from entanglement… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our waterfronts deliver the perfect superfood

Over the past year there has been renewed focus on the value of infrastructure. Transportation, health, information, electrical, and even the food system’s infrastructures have all been stressed, tested, and failed as we collectively experienced the fallout from years of undervaluing and underfunding the foundational elements that keep our society… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Poetry embedded in a fisherman’s diary

Review by Dana Wilde Didn’t Do Much but a Little of Everything: The Eagle Island Diary of Dalton Raynes Ian Ludders, ed.; Lulu.com It’s about 1961, a sunny day somewhere in Scarborough. Spread over what seems, to my 8-year-old eyes, like acres and acres of dry field, are sardine… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

‘Sweet and salty’ scallop fishery in good shape

Maine’s scallop fishery has changed considerably over the years. David Tarr, a Brooklin resident, has gone both dragging and diving for scallops since he was a kid in the early 1980s. “Things were way different back then,” he said. “It was kind of a wild, wild fishery. It was boom… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

In tough year, Maine seafood landings top $500 million

Despite unprecedented market losses, Maine fishermen earned over a half billion dollars for their catch in 2020. Valued at $516,796,614, the ex-vessel value of Maine’s commercially harvested marine resources was the ninth highest on record. “Maine fishermen and seafood dealers weathered one of the most difficult years in memory, but… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

State signals support of offshore wind

Earlier this year, Gov. Janet Mills announced her terms for the back-in-motion effort to site wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine. She is asking the legislature to back a ten-year moratorium on wind projects in the waters managed by the state—those within three miles of shore—and she affirmed her… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A science-based reality check

The past year has been tumultuous to say the least. Typically, as I begin to write this month’s column, I am at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in a large conference room sitting shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others who care about Maine’s fisheries and their future. That can’t happen… SEE MORE