Look who’s prowling off the coast

With Memorial Day two weeks away, a great white shark was spotted off the coast of Long Island.

A file photo of a great white shark.
A file photo of a great white shark. Photo Credit: Wikipedia/Terry Goss

By Joe Lombardi, Daily Voice

Drone footage shows it off the shore of Montauk, the eastern-most point in the Hamptons, on Monday, May 12.

It was captured by photographer Joanna L Steidle, who told Storyful, “I have been flying these waters for eight years and this is the earliest shark spotting I have had in a season and it is also the closest to shore I have spotted a great white.”

Click here to view the drone footage on Storyful.

Lifeguards don’t go on duty until later this month.

Great white sharks, the largest predatory fish, can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh over 4,000 pounds. 


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EPA extends final reporting deadline for PFAS manufacturers

From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an interim final rule to extend the dates of the reporting period for data submitted on the manufacture of perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). This extension will allow EPA to further develop and test the software being used to collect the data from manufacturers, thereby providing critical feedback to EPA, including what additional guidance would be useful for the reporting community.

Under section 8(a)(7) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA finalized a rule in October 2023 requiring anyone who has manufactured (including imported) a PFAS in any year from 2011 through 2022 to submit information to EPA regarding manufacturing, use, disposal, byproducts, worker exposures, and environmental and health effects of those PFAS. This interim final rule delays the start of the submission period by nine months, from July 11, 2025, to April 13, 2026. Submissions will now be due by October 13, 2026, for most manufacturers, and by April 13, 2027, for small manufacturers reporting exclusively as article importers.

While the delay to the start of the submission period is effectively immediately, EPA will accept public comments on the reporting period change for 30 days. Additionally, the agency is considering a separate action to reopen other aspects of this rule for public comment. EPA plans to address any comments submitted on this interim final rule and on the future proposed rule concurrently. Comments can be submitted on the interim final rule on www.regulations.gov in docket EPA-HQ-OPPT-2020-0549.

The interim final rule is now available.


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As fish move with climate change, will appetites follow?

 

By Coco Liu, Bloomberg Greener Living

For years, Kate Masury, a Rhode Island-based environmentalist and seafood lover, heard from the fishing industry that the species they’ve been catching were changing. Staples such as Atlantic cod were dwindling and American lobsters — another local top-seller — were moving farther north.

Other species not common to the area, like Spanish mackerel and blue crab, were appearing and becoming more abundant as ocean temperatures rose.Fishermen were saying “I wish we could catch more of it,” she said. But they weren’t sure they’d be able to sell seafood that locals never heard of or knew. 

As the executive director of Eating With the Ecosystem, a New England nonprofit that helps the seafood industry adapt to climate change, Masury has been trying to convince the whole supply chain, from fishermen to restaurant goers, to incorporate these species that thrive in warmer water, which she calls “climate winners.”  

Bloomberg Green spoke with Masury about her experience of introducing “climate winners” to consumers, the surprises she’s discovered along the way, and the barriers to inserting those less-familiar species in our seafood supplies. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Read the full story here


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What could happen with states suing Trump over wind-energy order

By Jennette Barnes, WCAI

Massachusetts is one of 17 states, including New Jersey and the District of Columbia, that filed a lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration, challenging President Trump’s executive order on wind energy.

Trump halted all permitting and approval of wind farms — both onshore and offshore — on his first day in office Jan. 20.

Now, a Cape Cod energy consultant says additional states may quietly support the lawsuit.

Republican-led states that benefit substantially from wind power, often from land-based turbines, could be silently hoping Democrats get the injunction they’re seeking, said Chris Powicki, who has taught renewable energy courses at Cape Cod Community College.

“The impacts of the executive order have been huge, on not just the offshore wind industry, but the wind industry writ large,” he said.

Powicki also serves as Cape and Islands chair for the Sierra Club, which supports wind energy.

“I suspect, based on support for the wind industry in some of the Plains states, the so-called red states might be rooting for the blue states to win this one,” he said, at least in areas where the wind resource is substantial.

But if the lawsuit succeeds in winning a court order, he said, the administration could find other ways to halt wind development.

Read the full story here


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Fishermen battling changing oceans encouraged by Trump deregulation. Preservationists fear harm to dwindling stocks

Commercial dealers weigh creates of lobsters on a dock in Stonington, Maine, on Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

By PATRICK WHITTLE and ROBERT F. BUKATY, Associated Press

STONINGTON, Maine (AP) — Virginia Olsen has pulled lobsters from Maine’s chilly Atlantic waters for decades while watching threats to the state’s lifeblood industry mount.

Trade imbalances with Canada, tight regulations on fisheries and offshore wind farms towering like skyscrapers on open water pose three of those threats, said Olsen, part of the fifth generation in her family to make a living in the lobster trade.

That’s why she was encouraged last month when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that promises to restore American fisheries to their former glory. The order promises to shred fishing regulations, and Olsen said that will allow fishermen to do what they do best — fish.

That will make a huge difference in communities like her home of Stonington, the busiest lobster fishing port in the country, Olsen said. It’s a tiny island town of winding streets, swooping gulls and mansard roof houses with an economy almost entirely dependent on commercial fishing, some three hours up the coast from Portland, Maine’s biggest city.

Olsen knows firsthand how much has changed over the years. Hundreds of fish and shellfish populations globally have dwindled to dangerously low levels, alarming scientists and prompting the restrictions and catch limits that Trump’s order could wash away with the stroke of a pen. But she’s heartened that the livelihoods of people who work the traps and cast the nets have become a priority in faraway places where they often felt their voices weren’t heard.

Related: Colder waters sending lobsters further north

Read the full story here


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UPDATE 8:22 PM: Newark mayor arrested after angry clash at ICE center

By Frank Brill, EnviroPolitics editor

In an incident that sets a tense, new mark in President Donald Trump’s escalating campaign to export aliens, Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, NJ, was taken into custody today after he and supporters, including Democratic members of Congress, unsuccessfully tried to gain access to Delaney Hall, a facility purchased by private prison operator, the GEO Group, working under contract with ICE.

Baraka says the center is operating illegally without necessary city permits. Former Trump attorney Alina Habba, recently appointed as the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, says that is not true.

The controversial 1,000-bed facility is owned by the private prison company GEO Group, which entered into a 15-year, $1 billion contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February.

“We are trying to get in, and we are going to get in today,” said Baraka, who is also running for New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination. “It doesn’t matter who is inside, I think they may have detainees, they shouldn’t be in there. We allowed the courts to negotiate this when there were no detainees and just workers, GEO and us. ICE doesn’t have a long-term lease with these folks, so GEO is completely responsible and hiding behind ICE right now.”

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy rebukes the arrest

“Mayor Baraka is an exemplary public servant who has always stood up for our most vulnerable neighbors. I am calling for his immediate release by federal law enforcement,” Murphy said in a statement Friday afternoon.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin criticizes mayor’s arrest


U.S Attorney General Alina Habba supports the arrest

In a statement on X, interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba said Baraka committed trespass and ignored warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center.

“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law. That will not stand in this state,” Habba added.

When appointed by Trump, Habba took a pugnacious stance toward New Jersey’s Democratic leadership.

Anybody who gets “in the way” of President Trump’s efforts to deport migrants will be charged “for obstruction, for concealment,” Habba, the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey, warned.

“I will come after them hard,” she said.

Who is Ras Baraka? Why was he arrested today (USA Today)

Baraka, 55, is a former high school teacher, principal and community activist. Before becoming the city’s mayor, he held a seat on the city council.

Known as a progressive Democrat, Baraka this year is one of six Democratic candidates in the June 10 gubernatorial primary in New Jersey to replace term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy.

Baraka’s candidacy was recently endorsed by several high-profile labor unions and progressive groups, including 32BJ Service Employees International Union, New Jersey Citizen Action and Make the Road Action New Jersey.

Asked how he would respond to President Donald Trump’s executive policies for the recently published NJ Spotlight News Voters Guide, Baraka promised to “defend our people, expand protections, and fight against by example for the rest of the country.”

“New Jersey must resist every effort to roll back civil rights, immigrant protections, reproductive freedom, and climate action,” Baraka said.

He was also highly critical of ICE practices being carried out under Trump’s administration in a recent NJ Spotlight News op-ed. In the same piece, Baraka said elected officials and judges who “all swear to uphold the Constitution, are duty-bound to be muscular, not meek, with their power to stop it now.”

Newark’s Mayor Arrested at Protest Outside ICE Detention Center (NY Times)
Newark mayor arrested during congressional visit to NJ ICE facility NBC4
New Jersey mayor arrested at ICE detention center where he was protesting (Scripps)
Melber: Alina Habba’s probe into New Jersey Dems is retribution (Ari Melber)

This is developing story. Check in with EnviroPolitics for updates

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