Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘America’s leader in offshore wind’: What Vineyard Wind final approval means for New Bedford

May 12, 2021 — Vineyard Wind received final federal approval on Tuesday to construct its 800-megawatt offshore wind project off the coast of Southern Massachusetts. It will be the first large-scale offshore wind project in the country.

The U.S. Department of the Interior called it a “major milestone” that would “propel” the country toward a clean energy future. Project approval had stalled during the Trump administration, but picked up in the first months of the Biden administration, which set a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

“Today’s offshore wind project announcement demonstrates that we can fight the climate crisis, while creating high-paying jobs and strengthening our competitiveness at home and abroad,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in a statement. “This project is an example of the investments we need to achieve the Biden-Harris administration’s ambitious climate goals, and I’m proud to be part of the team leading the charge on offshore wind.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

RODA Condemns Administration for Putting Goals Ahead of Fishermen Safety

May 12, 2021 — Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), a broad membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies, condemns in the strongest possible terms the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) issuance of a Record of Decision for the previously terminated Vineyard Wind 1 Offshore Wind Energy Project. BOEM continues to abdicate its responsibility to the public and leave all decision making to large, multinational corporations, including this Decision which includes effectively no mitigation measures to offset impacts to critical ocean ecosystems and commercial fisheries.

It has only included one such measure: a voluntary and non-enforceable suggestion for developers to cooperate with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to mitigate what the Final Environmental Impact Statement characterizes as “major” impacts to scientific research. Oddly, BOEM directs Vineyard Wind to “participate in good faith” in the undescribed and unfunded Federal Survey Mitigation Program, which “may lessen long-term impacts” (but “may not” reduce the significant short term impacts). Mitigation that is poorly defined, unrequired, and unmonitored satisfies neither the public interest nor the law.

To the best of our knowledge BOEM did not even consider any mitigation measures recommended by RODA or any fisheries professionals, scientists, or natural resource managers, despite having clearly defined requests available to them.

In one pen stroke, BOEM has confirmed its scattershot, partisan, and opaque approach that undermines every lesson we’ve learned throughout environmental history: the precautionary principle, the importance of safety and environmental regulation, the scientific method and use of the best available data, and adaptive management policies. It is shocking that NMFS could sign off on a decision so inexplicably adverse to its core mission and the research, resources, businesses, and citizens under its jurisdiction.

Read the full story at OCNJ Daily

RESPONSIBLE OFFSHORE DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE: Offshore shutout

May 11, 2021 — The following is excerpted from an April 13 letter to BOEM’s New York Bight offshore wind task force in advance of meetings: 

Major fishing community leaders are sitting out on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Task Force meeting this week (April 13, 2021). As BOEM prepares to auction nearly 1,300 square miles of the most valuable fishery grounds on the East Coast, Task Force members must act as responsible administrators of the public trust. Fishermen have shown up for years to “engage” in processes where spatial constraints and, often, the actors themselves are opposed to their livelihood. They have urgently advocated for the survival of their family and communities, in a context where all the rules are set (and changed) by newcomers interested only in a large-scale ocean acquisition who often don’t even treat them with common courtesy or basic respect.

This time and effort has resulted in effectively no accommodations to mitigate impacts from individual developers or the supposedly unbiased federal and state governments. Individuals from the fishing community care deeply, but the deck is so stacked that they are exhausted and even traumatized by this relentless assault on their worth and expertise.

This meeting boycott is not because fishermen do not wish to be involved in decisions and research efforts about offshore wind — they’ve repeatedly come to the table in good faith. These responsible leaders actively engage in fisheries management processes, partner with environmental nonprofit organizations and government agencies, participate in seafood certification and environmental programs, conduct cooperative research to improve fisheries management, provide platforms for scientific research about ecosystem health and climate change, hold positions of authority within their own communities, donate seafood and services to civic charities, work through a pandemic to ensure U.S. food security, employ large numbers of environmental justice populations, and more… For every time they try to actively participate, there is a new roadblock thrown up in processes that is entirely controlled by those opposed to their interests, in which the overall structure has left no room for them to receive any compromise.

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman

Biden administration approves major offshore wind project

May 11, 2021 — The Biden administration on Tuesday announced that it has approved construction of what it described as the first large-scale offshore wind project in the country.

The Vineyard Wind project, which will consist of up to 84 wind turbines, is expected to be able to produce enough energy to power more than 400,000 homes, the administration said.

The project will be located 12 nautical miles from both Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and Nantucket, Mass., and is expected to be completed in 2023.

“A clean energy future is within our grasp in the United States. The approval of this project is an important step toward advancing the Administration’s  goals to create good paying union jobs while combating climate change and powering our nation,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

The Vineyard Wind project had faced setbacks during the Trump administration. In December, it said it wanted to halt its goal of getting a federal permit and was later told by the Trump administration that it would need to start all over again.

Read the full story at The Hill

NEW JERSEY: Divided by Wind

May 11, 2021 — Cape May County Chamber of Commerce President Vicki Clark April 20 provided the organization’s position on offshore wind.

With three minutes to comment, Clark demonstrated a balancing act, supporting renewable energy and welcoming the potential economic opportunities that would accompany billions of dollars in new coastal infrastructure, while also raising concerns about the potential impact to the existing local economies.

It’s a discussion that has heated up this year.

Ocean Wind, the furthest along of several wind power projects proposed off New Jersey beaches, envisions 99 turbines, starting 15 miles from the beach. The company, Orsted, based in Denmark, plans to begin construction by 2023 and generate power by the end of 2024.

Local citizen opposition groups formed, while some governments expressed skepticism, including the Cape May County Board of County Commissioners and Ocean City Council, citing the potential impact on the local economy.

Fishing industry representatives said the current plan would effectively exclude commercial boats from some of their most important fishing grounds.

“The current process in use by the BOEM identifies wind energy area sites without consideration of their adverse environmental impacts in the original lease selection, on the locations historically rich and economically vital commercial fisheries, or on the communities that support and benefit from those fisheries,” reads a statement from Scot Mackey to BOEM, on behalf of the Garden State Seafood Association (https://bit.ly/3o27mUf). “The only factors even considered in the initial location determination was visibility from shore and an attempt to minimize bird interactions, not the needs of other ocean users, particularly fishermen.”

Read the full story at the Cape May County Herald

Interior Department approves first large-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S.

May 11, 2021 — The Biden administration on Tuesday approved the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, a project that envisions building 62 turbines off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and creating enough electricity to power 400,000 homes.

Vineyard Wind is the first of several massive offshore wind-farm proposals that could put more than 3,000 wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to North Carolina. The Biden administration has committed to processing the other 13 projects under federal review by 2025 in an attempt to meet the administration’s ambitious goal of producing 30,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind by 2030, powering some 10 million homes.

The goal is part of the Biden administration’s effort to fight climate change by shifting away from fossil fuels.

“I believe that a clean-energy future is within our grasp in the United States,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a conference call Tuesday, describing the approval of Vineyard Wind as “a significant milestone in our efforts to build a clean and more equitable energy future while addressing the climate emergency.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Biden Administration Approves First Major Offshore Wind Energy Project

May 11, 2021 — The U.S. Interior Department Tuesday approved the country’s first large-scale offshore wind project, a final hurdle that reverses course from the Trump administration and sets the stage for a major shift in the energy landscape.

This “is a significant milestone in our efforts to build a clean and more equitable energy future while addressing the climate emergency,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said during a press briefing. She said an expansion of wind energy is critical to President Biden’s ambitious climate goals to make the electricity sector carbon-neutral.

The $2.8 billion project, known as Vineyard Wind 1, will consist of 62 turbines spaced about a mile apart, each standing about 837 feet above the water’s surface. Cables buried beneath the ocean floor will connect the power from these turbines with the New England grid onshore.

The project is expected to produce enough renewable electricity to power 400,000 Massachusetts homes every year, while also saving ratepayers billions of dollars and reducing annual CO2 emissions in the state by about 1.68 million metric tons.

Lars Pedersen, Vineyard Wind’s CEO, recently told public radio station WBUR that he expects offshore construction to begin next year, with renewable energy flowing to the grid by the end of 2023.

Read the full story at NPR

For Vineyard Wind 1, one last hurdle

May 10, 2021 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is close to issuing a record of decision for Vineyard Wind 1. This is the last major step before work on the 62-turbine offshore wind farm project commences. In a statement to The Times, BOEM wrote that a review through the lens of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) is the only thing left before the record of decision can be issued.

“Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA) requires federal agencies to consider the effects on historic properties of projects they carry out, assist, fund, permit, license, or approve throughout the country,” the agency stated. “If a federal or federally assisted project has the potential to affect historic properties, a Section 106 review will take place. In this case, the federal undertaking is to approve, approve with conditions, or disapprove the Construction and Operations Plan submitted by Vineyard Wind, LLC, for a wind energy development project southwest of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.”

Among the things beneath the ocean that must be considered in the Section 106 review are shipwrecks and Native American archeological sites.

Read the full story at MV Times

BOEM presses wind studies, but U.S. projects may lag

May 7, 2021 — As promised, the Biden administration is speeding environmental reviews of East Coast offshore wind projects.

That’s raising alarms among competing interests of the fishing and coastal tourism industries. But even with the worldwide movement toward offshore wind power, its emerging limitations may allow more time for compromises.

Globally, $810 billion could be spent developing offshore wind power by 2030, analysts at Norway-based Rystad Energy predict.

Despite broad federal government support – the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is looking to have environmental studies underway for as many as 10 projects this year – the U.S. market may see only $70 billion of that investment during the 2020s, Rystad reported.

With offshore wind turbines’ physical size and developers’ ambitions getting bigger, the global demand for large wind turbine installation vessels will make it very expensive to hire foreign-flag WTIVs to cross the Atlantic.

The first U.S.-flag WTIV is under construction for Virginia-based Dominion Energy, whose planners see it not just as a requirement for building their own 2.6-gigawatt offshore project but a long-term merchant vessel enterprise to serve other developers.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

Power surge: With Vineyard Wind on approval track, 10 more reviews in the wings

May 3, 2021 — A building wave for offshore wind energy surged out of the Biden administration, with March 29 announcements that set a goal of building 30,000 megawatts of capacity and opening up to 800,000 more acres for leasing in the New York Bight.

Two weeks later, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management moderated the plan, withdrawing potential leasing areas off New York — acknowledging conflicts with commercial fishing, maritime traffic and tourism that will be rife in the East Coast’s most crowded waters.

But on a broad scale, it appears to be full speed ahead for BOEM. Even during the Trump administration’s fitful approach to offshore wind, the agency itself worked consistently to make leasing possible for wind power developers.

Today there are 17 active leases, comprising 1.7 million acres, says BOEM Director Amanda Lefton. Ten more environmental reviews could be started this year, and construction and operation plans for 16 projects could be in place by 2025, Lefton said during an April 14 online meeting of BOEM’s New York Bight task force.

Read the full story at National Fisherman