September 14, 2021 — The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is working with coastal states to come up with plans for potentially compensating fishermen for lost fishing grounds and other negative effects of developing offshore wind turbine arrays.
Fishing industry advocates are pushing anew to get fishermen deeply involved now to minimize impacts from sweeping plans to rapidly develop a U.S. offshore wind industry — and hoping to limit damage to the U.S. food supply.
The government’s drive toward creating more offshore wind energy areas in the New York Bight is looking like a repeat of its mistakes in planning southern New England projects and needs to be braked, fishermen said at an Aug. 6 meeting in New Bedford, Mass.
“It’s going to be responsible for the destruction of a centuries-old industry that’s only been feeding people,” Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, told officials of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Read the full story at National Fisherman