
Updated 3:58 pm
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has pulled a proposed vessel speed restriction rule designed to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.
In a withdrawal document filed on Wednesday morning, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service stated it pulled the proposed rule “in light of numerous and ongoing requests from the public for further opportunity to review and engage with the agency on the proposal.” A final version is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Thursday.
The rule had met resistance from top Massachusetts officials, including Gov. Maura Healey, and the Steamship Authority, which worried about a significant impact to its schedule if the rules went forward. Steamship officials have stated that the proposed rule would force around 14 percent of ferry trips across Vineyard Sound to be cut.
“We’re grateful to NOAA for listening to our concerns about their proposed changes to the North Atlantic right whale vessel speed rule,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. “This decision is good news for residents and businesses on Cape Cod and the Islands, and we look forward to continuing to work together to protect right whales and the local economy.”
Local representatives are also praising the decision to pull the rule.
“Thank you to our local officials, Gov. Healey, and our federal legislative delegation for going to bat on behalf of the Islands,” newly sworn-in state Rep. to the Island Thomas Moakley said.
But while local officials celebrated the news, multiple conservation organizations are frustrated by the decision and are worried about the future of the critically endangered whale.
“NOAA Fisheries has kept the right whale waiting for improved vessel strike protections for years,” Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement. “In attempting to make everyone happy, the agency turned years of delay into an outright denial of the needs of a critically endangered species. The agency has a mandate to protect the right whale, but ran out the clock, leaving the whale with an out-of-date rule that we know is not enough.”
NOAA had introduced the amended rule in 2022 as a way to reduce the number of vessel strikes inflicted on right whales, which, along with entanglement in fishing gear, the agency lists as a leading cause of death for the species.
The proposed rule change would have required vessels 35 feet or longer to travel at most 10 knots (around 11 mph) during certain times of the year in waters designated as “seasonal management areas”; the existing zone for speed restrictions would also be increased across the U.S. East Coast from near Cape Cod Bay to Currituck Sound in North Carolina.
Seasonal management areas — which include Vineyard Sound and Nantucket Sound — would have forced vessels to slow down between Nov. 1 and May 30. NOAA’s rule expansion would have also implemented temporary mandatory speed restrictions if whales were detected in locations outside the seasonal management areas.
In the withdrawal, NOAA Fisheries blamed a lack of time to review the roughly 90,000 public comments it received about the proposed rule for its decision.
“Despite its best efforts, NMFS does not have sufficient time to finalize this regulation in this administration due to the scope and volume of public comments,” the withdrawal document reads.
The decision does not preclude the federal agency from taking future action to limit the impact of vessel strikes. While state officials acknowledge the danger right whales are facing, there was a question of how effective this rule change would actually be.
State Senator Julian Cyr, representative to the Islands, said that Massachusetts has led the way on right whale conservation and protections. But he said there has been a lack of evidence that right whales frequent Vineyard and Nantucket sounds, and given the impacts to Steamship ferries and Nantucket’s economy and residents’ safety, he questioned the need for the rule.
“I’m not surprised in this announcement and I expected this outcome following the results of the presidential election,” Cyr said.
Among the 90,000 comments received, topics ranged from calls to protect right whales, a species with only around 370 individuals remaining, to others stating that slowing down boats would be damaging economically. This included the top official at the Steamship Authority, who protested the rule by saying the level of service it could provide to the Islands would be sharply cut.
“While we wholeheartedly agree on the necessity of protecting the right whale, we are grateful that the proposed rule has been withdrawn,” Robert Davis, Steamship Authority general manager, said. “The current right whale sighting data and decades of our own captains’ experience showed that the proposed application of this rule to the waters of Vineyard Sound and Nantucket Sound was inappropriate and would have been devastating to the economies of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.”
Congressman Bill Keating, who represents Martha’s Vineyard, said that ferries slowing down would impact Islanders in various ways, from commercial activity to students traveling to compete in sports. He underscored that a reduction in ferries also jeopardized the Steamship Authority’s designation as a commuter service, a classification that brings in millions of dollars in federal funding.
Keating said NOAA’s withdrawal was the “right conclusion.”
“There was no harm done either to the right whales or the day-to-day life of the people on the Islands,” he said.
Bettina Washington, the tribal historic preservation officer of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), pushed back on the statements that no whales were in Vineyard Sound, noting that the juvenile right whale that washed ashore dead onto Edgartown was found on Martha’s Vineyard’s northern shore. She said the ocean is the whales’ home and they will go where they please, not just where people expect them to.
Washington said while she understands the economic concerns people had, the endangered right whales need help.
“If that’s what NOAA suggests, I’m going to say they’ve done their scientific research to warrant such an action,” Washington said regarding the proposed rule. “I believe the tribe supports that type of [caution].”
The New England Aquarium, which released a study last year stating that a 10-knot speed restriction in a wider area than what currently exists was needed to protect right whales, called the decision a “serious setback.”
“Failing to implement stronger vessel strike protection measures puts these animals at further risk of extinction. To survive, right whales require immediate, decisive, and effective solutions to protect individuals from preventable deaths,” Jessica Redfern, associate vice president of ocean conservation science in the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, said in a statement.
Christy Hudak, associate scientist with Center for Coastal Studies’ right whale ecology program, told the Times it was “a little disheartening” the proposed rules did not move forward, although she thinks it will be beneficial for NOAA to gather more information.
Hudak said as long as people went out onto the water, sailing vessels and fishing lines were continued risks for right whales. She said it will be important for ocean stakeholders to encourage people to slow down their vessels voluntarily even without a more expansive rule.
Still, the federal agency’s current rule limiting the speeds of vessels 65 feet or longer during certain seasons in parts of the East Coast is still in effect. They do not include Vineyard Sound.
Washington underscored the small number of whales that remain, who are considered relatives of the tribe in Wampanoag tradition, and that their near-extinction was being driven by “human error.”
“It’s a balance that has to be struck somehow,” Washington said.
Updated with additional comments.