"The U.S. government is going ahead with sharply higher catch limits next year for West Coast groundfish, citing a rebound in bottom-dwelling stocks once so depleted by over-fishing that commercial harvests were virtually halted 20 years ago."
"Two of acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler's appointees to a prominent advisory committee are pushing back against his recent decision to disband an auxiliary panel involved in a closely watched review of airborne particulate standards."
"The Trump administration says it doesn't know how many streams it is proposing to exclude from Clean Water Act jurisdiction today. But a 2017 slideshow prepared by EPA and Army Corps of Engineers staff shows that at least 18 percent of streams and 51 percent of wetlands nationwide would not be protected under the new definition of "waters of the United States," or WOTUS, announced today."
"An industrious but finicky pest could be the key to restoring Washington State’s wetlands and salmon populations."
"Fortifying an Illinois waterway to prevent invasive carp from using it as a path to Lake Michigan could cost nearly three times as much as federal planners previously thought, according to an updated report."
"Atlantic and polar cod face a double whammy as the planet warms: rising ocean temperatures and acidification could cut reproduction by nearly two-thirds, study says."
"Watermen overharvested oysters last winter in a little more than half of Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, according to the state’s first-ever stock assessment of the commercially and ecologically valuable shellfish. If those harvest rates continue, the assessment warned, the bivalve population in those areas could eventually be wiped out."
"Rick Meatyard's father planted Chesapeake Bay oysters for him in 1966 as a high school graduation gift. Three years later, 'I was off to the University of Florida, and that paid all my tuition,' he said."
"Regulators voted Friday to close the Gulf of Maine winter shrimp season for another three years, raising fears that the fishery decimated by rising water temperatures may never bounce back."
"For the fourth-generation crab fisherman John Beardon, the warming of Pacific waters off the coast of California has meant toxic crabs, shortened fishing seasons and a near decimation of his livelihood as a crab boat captain. Now he would like to see the industry he says is responsible pay for the damage."
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