May 2, 2024 — Congressman Jared Golden wants to delay a proposed minimum catch size increase for Maine lobstermen.
MAINE: Maine’s wharf owners scramble to repair what they can before lobstering season starts
May 1, 2024 — Chris Hole was busy at work on a sunny Friday morning, taking apart his commercial fishing wharf like a game of Jenga.
After pulling up the surface wooden slats, Hole used a fork lift to lower large wooden beams down to the deck. Josh Saxton, Hole’s right-hand man, would then slip between the large gaps in the deck to put the support beams in place.
Hole owns Henry Allen’s Seafood, a wholesaler and retailer with a commercial wharf that was battered by the series of storms in January that swept away many working waterfronts along Maine’s coast. The storms flooded Henry Allen’s historic buildings and wiped out the dock’s seawall. At a quick glance from above, Henry Allen’s wharf doesn’t look all that bad. But most of the repair work is invisible, the pummeled structure hidden beneath the surface of the deck.
Hole is of course familiar with storms.
MAINE: Federal government seeking feedback ahead of Gulf of Maine offshore wind auction
May 1, 2024 — As Maine is still figuring out where to build a port for its budding offshore wind industry, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced its proposal to auction offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Maine Tuesday.
As part of the Biden administration’s efforts to drive more offshore wind development, the Gulf of Maine is slated to have eight lease areas offshore Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which have the potential to generate 15 gigawatts of clean energy to power more than five million homes, according to a news release from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
“We’re taking decisive action to catalyze America’s offshore wind industry and leverage American innovation to provide reliable, affordable power to homes and businesses, all while addressing the climate crisis,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.
Court shuts down offshore wind challenges over endangered whale
May 1, 2024 — Two attempts to sink the first major offshore wind project in the country over its impact to an endangered whale were shot down this week by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Solar developer Thomas Melone of Connecticut and a coalition of coastal residents in Massachusetts had separately sought to block the 62-turbine Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. They argued that federal agencies did not address how offshore wind farm construction could threaten the endangered North American right whale population when issuing key permits.
Their appeals are part of a flurry of lawsuits that have sought, and so far failed, to bring down major offshore renewable projects that are keystones in President Joe Biden’s climate policy.
Read the full article at E&E News
Court shuts down offshore wind challenges over endangered whale
April 30, 2024 — Two attempts to sink the first major offshore wind project in the country over its impact to an endangered whale were shot down this week by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Solar developer Thomas Melone of Connecticut and a coalition of coastal residents in Massachusetts had separately sought to block the 62-turbine Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. They argued that federal agencies did not address how offshore wind farm construction could threaten the endangered North American right whale population when issuing key permits.
Their appeals are part of a flurry of lawsuits that have sought, and so far failed, to bring down major offshore renewable projects that are keystones in President Joe Biden’s climate policy.
MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford fishing pier collapses, forces vessel relocation and equipment retrieval
April 30, 2024 — Part of a New Bedford fishing pier collapsed Friday afternoon, according to police.
Scott Carola, Asst. Deputy Chief and public information officer for the New Bedford police, said officers responded to the Eastern Fisheries Pier off Hervey Tichon Avenue at around 3:30 p.m. after the outer section collapsed.
MASSACHUSETTS: Offshore wind expansion will rely on ports, including New Bedford
April 30, 2024 — The federal government’s announcement last week of up to 12 more lease sales on both coasts by 2028 means more demand (and potential work opportunities) for vessels and ports, including the Port of New Bedford.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland made the announcement at a wind industry conference in New Orleans, where she and other federal officials also shared the news of millions in funding for offshore wind research, and the streamlining of rules governing how the government holds auctions and reviews projects.
“This is so exciting because it means that developers and communities can expect predictability and transparency as they plan for future projects,” Haaland said. “It also means that all stakeholders from tribes to states to fisheries to academia have more time to weigh in on the process.”
The closest lease sales to Massachusetts will be the Gulf of Maine this year, and the New York Bight, in 2027 (the last one was in 2022 with six areas going to bid). There were no announced lease sales for the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Sea off New England had one of its hottest years in 2023, part of a worldwide trend
April 29, 2024 — The sea off New England, already warming faster than most of the world’s oceans, had one of its hottest years on record in 2023.
The Gulf of Maine, which abuts New England and Canada, had an annual sea surface temperature nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit above normal last year, scientists with the Portland, Maine-based Gulf of Maine Research Institute said Monday. The institute said it was the fifth-warmest year on record for the Gulf of Maine, a body of water critical to commercial fishing and other maritime industries.
The Gulf of Maine has emerged as a case study for the warming of the world’s oceans in the last 10 years, and the research institute said in a statement that last year’s warming was “consistent with the long-term trend of increasingly warm conditions driven primarily by” climate change.
The early portion of the year was especially warm, said Dave Reidmiller, director of the Climate Center at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
Court Denies Nantucket Group’s Appeal of Vineyard Wind
April 29, 2024 — A federal court has rejected a Nantucket group’s claim that regulators didn’t follow the Endangered Species Act and other environmental law when reviewing the Vineyard Wind offshore wind energy farm.
In a 36-page opinion Wednesday, a panel of judges with the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the ACK for Whales group claim, which sought to halt the project currently being constructed about 14 miles to the Vineyard’s south. It is just the latest in a slew of lawsuits that have not gained traction against the wind farm, one of the first commercial-scale projects to be built in the country.
The Nantucket group, formerly known as Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, asserted that the project was endangering the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and the National Marine Fisheries Service was relying on defective data to make decisions.
The U.S. District Court in Boston rejected the claims in May 2023, prompting the group to turn to the federal appeals court.
But the higher court wasn’t swayed.
Activists seek lockdown on New England wind project
April 28, 2024 — A Rhode Island-based environmental group asked a federal court to freeze work on the Revolution Wind project, saying the plans require a new biological opinion on potential effects on endangered sei and fin whales.
Green Oceans filed its original lawsuit in January challenging the southern New England offshore wind project. On April 18 the group’s lawyers were back at U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth’s court in Washington, D.C., with a motion to stay all permits and approvals for the project.
The activists say they made their move because the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Protected Resources reinitiated a required consultation under the Endangered Species Act.
Originally issued by NOAA in July 2023, the ESA process was restarted because of
“insufficient protections for the endangered sei and fin whales and for two species of endangered turtles,” Green Oceans said in a statement. “The Biological Opinion, a required element for the approval and construction of any offshore wind project, is a comprehensive assessment of the anticipated impacts on marine animals during the life of the project, from construction to decommissioning.”
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