To walk along Fort Point Channel this summer is to glimpse Boston’s future.
The Boston Globe
In Fort Point, Public Art Helps Visualize Rising Sea Levels
As the Earth’s temperature rises, parts of Boston will be confronted with higher tides that will flood the city’s streets, while reaching new watery heights in low-lying areas like parts of South Boston. To help people understand what’s happening, artist and University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Carolina Aragón wants to interpret climate change in a more nuanced way, informing the public about the impending realities of a warmer planet.
Fishermen's Voice
Aquamesh® Inventors Celebrate 40 Years in Business
The history of Riverdale Mills is a story of passion and perseverance. As the company opened its doors for the first time, U.S. manufacturing had yet to recover from two recessions and many doubted the future of the sector.
Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association Newsletter
Riverdale Mills Celebrating 40 years of Excellence
Riverdale Mills Corporation will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2020. Earlier this year Beth Casoni sat down with Riverdale CEO Jim Knott, Jr. to discuss the challenges that lie ahead, the lessons he has learned, and the importance of his father’s legacy.
Portland Monthly Magazine
From Wire to Wine
Before Mr. Knott developed the idea of a wire lobster trap in 1957, lobstermen were using wooden traps—ones they often spent time repairing. In a 2014 interview with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Knott says he invented a model “made out of welded wire mesh which is galvanized to protect it from the coating getting scraped off, and it’s plastic coated to prevent the Atlantic Ocean from attacking the steel.” But not everyone believed in this Harvard-educated economist’s vision. “A lot of people laughed. They said, ‘You’re never going to catch a lobster in a wire trap,’ because they’d been using wood for hundreds of years.”
In New England, the trade war with China is hitting twice as hard. Not only have lobster exports been hit with tariffs, so has the steel used to make the traps.
The Boston Globe
A Lobster Trap Captures the Complexities of a Global Trade War
NORTHBRIDGE — Every month, Jim Knott Jr. orders at least a thousand tons of steel rods for his wire factory here in the Blackstone Valley. But the shipment from Canada that arrived in June carried an unwelcome addition: an extra charge of $54,000 to cover a new tariff President Trump imposed on foreign steel as part of his aggressive trade policy.
NEWS CENTER Maine
Steel Tariffs Could Impact Lobster Traps, Industry
PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER Maine) — The lobster industry could be trapped in tariffs. The Maine International Trade Center is surveying lobstermen in the state, who’ve told them they are being pinched by tariffs on lobster exported to China, and by steel and aluminum taxes on lobster traps.
Fish Information & Services
Higher Trap Price Adds Further Trouble to Maine’s Lobstermen Sector
Maine’s lobster industry is now facing a new hurdle: rising lobster trap prices due to the increased cost of steel and labor for makers of this fishing gear.
Bloomberg Television
Iconic New England Lobster Caught in Global Tariff Tit-for-Tat
Veteran lobsterman Billy Mahoney is already feeling the pinch — and not from the claws of his catch.