Saving Seafood

Connecticut: CT’s biggest offshore wind project nearly dead in the water

October 4, 2023 — Connecticut’s largest offshore wind project — Park City Wind — is not quite dead in the water but is now on serious life support.

Its developer, Avangrid, announced Monday night that it and Connecticut’s utilities have terminated an agreement for the utilities to buy the power from the project. In doing so, Park City, at 804 megawatts, becomes the third major New England offshore wind project, and the second for Avangrid, to hit the shoals.

The reason for each is the same. The economy has shifted so much since the power purchase agreements, PPAs, were negotiated, that the projects are no longer viable.

Avangrid said in a statement that the “unprecedented economic headwinds facing the industry including record inflation, supply chain disruptions, and sharp interest rate hikes” have “rendered the Park City Wind project unfinanceable under its existing contracts.”

“After exploring all potential solutions to the financial challenges facing the project, and engaging in good-faith and productive discussions with Connecticut state officials regarding these challenges, it is clear the best path forward for Park City Wind is in the termination of the Power Purchase Agreements and a rebid of the project,” the Avangrid statement continued. Avangrid will pay $16 million to terminate the agreement.

Read the full article at CT Mirror

CT innovator IDs illegal trawlers with AI and ears in the ocean

August 14, 2023 — With millions of dollars from venture capital investors, a Connecticut startup that emerged from the submarine industry is using artificial intelligence to pioneer new underwater technology, from tracking illegal fishing to protecting whales during construction of offshore wind farms.

Miles off the U.S. coast, Groton-based ThayerMahan is readying a nautical network of buoys and roaming sea drones to ID commercial fishing trawlers that may be operating illegally, whether in U.S. territorial waters or those of other nations where catch limits are abused routinely to put pressure on fish stocks.

Closer to home in partnership with Hydrotechnik-Luebeck based in Germany, ThayerMahan is assisting offshore wind developers with a system to “bubble wrap” wind turbine monopiles with curtains of sound-absorbing bubbles, in an effort to minimize disruptions for whales and other marine life. ThayerMahan is tracking whale positions to determine if any are swimming too close to turbine construction sites and is helping wind farm developers comply with federal environmental rules.

Mike Connor retired as a vice admiral overseeing the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet to start ThayerMahan in 2016, seeing the need for a startup that could develop a networked system of underwater sensors to help the Navy identify vessels. Connor named the company for the naval power theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who was a major influence in the global naval buildup preceding World War I.

Read the full article at ctpost

Connecticut bans harvest of horseshoe crabs

August 14, 2023 — Connecticut has banned the harvesting of horseshoe crabs along its coastline amid concerns about the ecological health of the species, which is prized for its life-saving blue blood.

The ban, approved by the state Legislature, outlaws horseshoe crab hand harvesting beginning on Oct. 1. Anyone caught violating the law faces a $25 fine for each crab harvested. There are exemptions for scientific and medical purposes if it is determined that doing so will not harm the overall horseshoe crab population.

Gov. Ned Lamont, who signed the bill on Wednesday, said the number of horseshoe crabs in Long Island Sound and throughout the Atlantic Coast has been “severely depleted” in recent years, raising concerns that the species could go the way of the dinosaurs.

Read the full article at the Center Square

Comment on Revolution Wind’s draft EIS

September 7, 2022 —

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released a 598-page draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for Revolution Wind, an offshore wind farm proposed to be constructed in Rhode Island waters. A 1,178-page appendix document with more information surrounding the project and the draft environmental impact statement was also released.

According to the Revolution Wind website, this project will provide “Connecticut and Rhode Island residents 100 percent renewable energy to help conserve the New England environment.” However, the offshore wind farm will be closest to Martha’s Vineyard, 12 miles southwest of the Island. The project will be 15 miles away from Rhode Island, and 32 miles away from Connecticut. The project is anticipated to have 100 turbines and two export cables. The export cables will make landfall in Rhode Island. Revolution Wind is owned by Orsted and Eversource.

Read the full article at MV Times

Milford laboratory working to make sure CT’s shellfish industry survives

August 23, 2022 — Thousands of people came to Milford this weekend for the Milford Oysterfest. They served up some 30,000 oysters, all grown in the water off Connecticut’s coast. As they enjoy those tasty shellfish, they may not know that, right nearby, scientists are constantly studying those oysters.

Just across the harbor is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service laboratory. The scientists working there try to make the shellfish industry thrive.

“Among our main projects are to improve the hatchery techniques so that it’s more effective and dependable to have shellfish seed to plant,” explained Dr. Gary Wikfors, Aquaculture Sustainability Branch Chief of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Shellfishing is a $30 million industry in Connecticut, and Connecticut’s senior senator wants to see more funding to study it.

Read the full story at WTNH

 

Great Meadows Marsh Project is Restoring Salt Marsh Habitat and Building Resilience in Coastal Connecticut

May 17, 2022 — Funding recovered from three pollution cases is supporting restoration of nearly 40 acres of salt marsh and other coastal habitats at Great Meadows Marsh. The marsh is located in the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Stratford, Connecticut. Through this effort, NOAA and partners are strengthening the climate resilience of this important coastal ecosystem.

Great Meadows Marsh lies immediately west of where the Housatonic River meets with Long Island Sound. Most other salt marshes in Connecticut, as well as many marshes along the Atlantic coast, were historically ditched to eliminate disease-carrying mosquitoes. Great Meadows Marsh, however, is home to the largest remaining expanse of unditched salt marsh in Connecticut. The unditched condition of this marsh provides a healthier and more functional habitat overall.

Salt marshes provide habitat for fish and wildlife, trap pollution, and reduce damage from storms and flooding—important benefits  for local communities. The Great Meadows Marsh restoration effort will provide important habitat for fish, including spawning and nursery habitat for forage fish like Atlantic silverside, mummichog, and Atlantic menhaden. It will also help build the ecological resilience of the marsh to respond to increasing sea level rise.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

One of Connecticut’s last lobstermen sticks with it, despite his near empty hauls

December 14, 2021 — For the better part of a half century, the waters of Long Island Sound allowed Michael Grimshaw a good living. Now, he’s holding fast to a dwindling hope that the ocean’s bottom still has something — anything — to give.

Grimshaw is believed to be the last full-time commercial lobsterman in Connecticut — still plying a fishery that was once thick with boats and rich with opportunity.

His youngest son preparing bait and his elderly, former mother-in-law readying claw bands, Grimshaw, 65, prodded his aging boat into the choppy harbor late one summer morning, well after most fishermen have put to sea.

Suited up in his wet gear, he was soon hauling up traps from the dark waters, one after another. Out of 10 traps, he snared some spider crabs and a few pogies. None contained a lobster.

“It’s embarrassing — terrible, really,” said Grimshaw, who continues to raise hundreds of traps a week, even though he claims to have retired. “I used to be the big dog; now, I’m the puppy.”

During his glory days in the late 1990s, when he competed with hundreds of other commercial lobstermen in the area for a multimillion-dollar annual catch, his traps used to bring up as much as a few thousand pounds a day of the coveted crustaceans. A good day now amounts to maybe 50 pounds.

The main culprit? Climate change.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

NOAA proposes National Estuarine Research Reserve in Connecticut

September 2, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA: 

NOAA and the State of Connecticut are asking for public comment on a proposal to designate a national estuarine research reserve in Long Island Sound. Estuarine reserves protect a section of an estuary and provide a living laboratory to explore and understand important areas where rivers meet the sea, thus promoting understanding and informed management of coastal habitats. If designated, this estuarine reserve in the southeastern part of the Constitution State would become the 30th such reserve in the national estuarine reserve system and the first in Connecticut.

“This proposal for an estuarine reserve in Connecticut demonstrates this Administration’s commitment to conservation and addressing the impacts of climate change,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “Protecting our special places and making them accessible for future generations improves our planet, our people, and our economy.”

Within the boundaries of an estuarine reserve, communities and scientists work together to address natural resource management issues, such as nonpoint source pollution, habitat restoration, and invasive species, on a local scale. Estuarine reserves contribute to the national effort to make the coasts more resilient to natural and human-made changes. Our nation gained its most recent estuarine reserve in January 2017, when the state of Hawaii designated the only reserve in the Pacific Islands.

“Partnerships are what make the estuarine reserve system successful,” said Nicole LeBoeuf, director of NOAA’s National Ocean Service. “Each reserve brings together local stakeholders, scientists, land management professionals, and educators to understand coastal management issues and generate local, integrated solutions, while leveraging nation-wide programs.”

NOAA and the State of Connecticut will jointly hold two public hearings via webinar on October 7 to solicit public input on the draft environmental impact statement and draft management plan for the Connecticut estuarine reserve. Additionally, the comment period remains open through October 18, 2021. Connecticut, in collaboration with NOAA, then plans to prepare the final environmental impact statement and final management plan. Thereafter, NOAA plans to prepare designation findings and a record of decision. If the designation process follows its anticipated timeline, the estuarine reserve could be designated as early as January 2022.

 

‘We went to zero’: Connecticut shellfishermen seeking pandemic rebound

September 1, 2021 — Bobbing up and down in 194 feet of water in Long Island Sound on Tuesday, lobsterman Mike Kalaman made a point to boast about his favorite fishing grounds to the delegation of state lawmakers aboard his boat, The Dark Horse.

Pointing to the waters just beyond one of his blue-and-yellow buoys, Kalaman showed Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff where the border between Connecticut and New York crossed the Sound, adding that the water on the other side of the imaginary line was generally more shallow and less attractive for lobsters.

“Connecticut is blessed to have all this deep water,” Kalaman said, gesturing across the area he has spent four decades fishing.

Duff joined three other state senators Tuesday morning for a tour aboard Kalaman’s 36-foot lobster boat and the oyster fleet operated by Copps Island Oysters in Norwalk to learn about Connecticut’s shellfish industry amid ongoing environmental threats and more recent disruption caused by the pandemic.

Norm Bloom, the owner of Copps Island Oysters, said the health of the industry has been boosted by long-term efforts to curb pollution and improve water quality in Long Island Sound.

Read the full story at CT Insider

Connecticut official says “menhaden are most abundant fish in the sea”

August 4, 2021 — It’s the time of year when fish abound in the region’s rivers, lakes and Long Island Sound, and also a time when some fish are dying.

While it’s an annual event, die-offs of menhaden, or bunkers, is most likely larger this year because of all the rain the state had in July, according to David Molnar, senior marine fisheries biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Another factor is that because of fish management, “menhaden are at an all-time high abundance. They are the most abundant fish in the sea,” he said.

Bunker serve as food for larger fish, ospreys and whales, as well as fertilizers, animal feed and bait for crab and lobster, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

They are saltwater fish but all the rain has reduced the salinity in the rivers, Molnar said. “Typically, the saltwater wedge in the Connecticut River can go all the way to Haddam,” he said. Now, it’s fresh water all the way to the breakwater.

At Shoreline towns such as Lyme, “as far as you can see are schools of menhaden,” Molnar said. “It’s an amazing sight. There are thousands and thousands of them.”

But in Guilford, for example, the problem in the West River, which Molnar called “a beautiful system, good water quality,” is that too many fish crowd in, creating school-induced hypoxia. “As the water temperature increases, they consume all the oxygen” and become stressed. Then, “diseases and parasites that they harbor” are able to flourish, killing even more fish.

Molnar said the bunker have been swimming in the West River since May, but the heavy rains in July brought too much fresh water, pushing the salt water out. “This is the third-wettest July in 100 years. That’s a lot of water,” Molnar said.

Read the full story at the New Haven Register