Saving Seafood

RHODE ISLAND: Fishermen’s Protests Muted as R.I. Coastal Board Approves Sunrise Wind Project

August 28, 2023 — After four and a half hours of expert presentations and audience pushback, the Coastal Resources Management Council unanimously approved the Sunrise Wind project that developers hope to build in 2025 on the Outer Continental Shelf.

The 84 turbines of Sunrise Wind would be built about 16 miles from Block Island in federal waters and would pipe electricity to Long Island, N.Y. But because of the wind facility’s location, Rhode Island has some limited approval powers under federal law.

A surprising thing about the Aug. 22 hearing were the scanty and muted objections voiced by Rhode Island fishermen, especially compared to the hours of boisterous arguments they aimed against Revolution Wind, another proposed offshore wind project, before the same board earlier this summer. (That project passed the CRMC and, this week, won a major federal approval.)

Fishermen at the recent Sunrise Wind hearing raised some of the same objections lobbed against Revolution Wind, including: loss of fishing income; dangers to fishermen working in and around the wind facility; problems with radar; the need for more onboard manpower for safety; and claims that CRMC is getting out ahead of yet-unpublished federal studies. They also claimed CRMC was flouting its own oversight regulations.

Read the full article at ecoRI News

OREGON: Oregon tribes protest offshore wind plans

August 26, 2023 — Federal officials’ announcement of two draft wind energy areas off the Oregon coast poses danger to fisheries, jobs and the state’s coastal environment, the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians say.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s proposal “was premature and threatens fisheries, local fishing jobs, and some of Oregon pristine ocean viewsheds, some of which are sacred to the Tribe,” the confederation said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Objections coming out of Oregon are echoing those lodged against offshore wind projects off the East Coast, where local groups continue to mount fierce political and legal campaigns over anticipate impact on fishing and ocean views from coastal communities.

In months leading up to the draft wind areas release, BOEM was urged by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, fishing advocacy groups, tribes and Oregon elected officials to pause and start its planning process over again.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

RHODE ISLAND: RI coastal regulators affirm NY wind farm project

August 26, 2023 — Another mammoth offshore wind farm planned off Rhode Island’s coastline received the stamp of approval from coastal regulators on Tuesday.

The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council’s (CRMC) 6-0 vote affirms that the Sunrise Wind project meets state coastal policies, while imposing a half-dozen conditions aimed at minimizing disruption to native species, the ocean environment, and the fishermen whose livelihoods depend upon it.

The 924-megawatt project is being co-developed by offshore wind power duo Orsted A/S and Eversource Energy, the same companies behind Revolution and South Fork Wind farms, among others. Though Sunrise Wind will power New York, the area where the turbines would be built sits 17 miles southeast of Block Island.

Which is how the CRMC gets a say, since its Ocean Special Area Management Plan offers regulations for any development within 30 miles offshore of the state coastline. While federal regulators still have the final authority over all offshore wind projects, the CRMC can also recommend mitigation measures to help minimize losses to the fishing industry from the construction and operation of the projects.

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current

Biden administration approves Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island

August 23, 2023 — Revolution Wind, a 704-megawatt turbine array planned for 15 miles off Rhode Island, gained final approval from the Department of Interior Tuesday. The joint venture by developers Ørsted and Eversource is the fourth offshore wind project to be greenlighted by the Biden administration, which now expects to have 16 project plans reviewed by 2025.

Under intense scrutiny for the project’s anticipated environmental and economic effects, the final review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and other federal agencies focused on BOEM’s “Alternative G” as the “preferred alternative,” which could rearrange wind turbine locations on the lease tract “to reduce impacts to visual resources and benthic habitat.”

The alternative includes up to 79 possible positions for the installation of 65 turbines and two offshore substations to fulfill the project’s designed total nameplate rating of 704 MW within a 1-nautical mile grid spacing.

“This flexibility in design could allow for further refinement for visual resources impact reduction on Martha’s Vineyard and Rhode Island, or for habitat impact reduction in the NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) Priority 1 area,” according to BOEM’s environmental assessment report issued in July.

That analysis foresaw “long term moderate to major adverse impacts depending on the fishery and fishing operation. If BOEM’s recommendations related to project siting, design, navigation, access, safety measures, and financial compensation are implemented across all offshore wind energy projects, adverse impacts on commercial fisheries due to the presence of structures could be reduced.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

As Offshore Wind Ramps Up, Scientists Flag Potential Impacts

August 21, 2023 — Last year, the Biden administration announced an ambitious goal: enough offshore wind to power 10 million homes by 2030. The move would reduce carbon emissions, create jobs, and strengthen energy security. It would also help the United States — which was responsible for just 0.1 percent of the world’s offshore wind capacity last year — catch up with renewable energy leaders like China and Europe.

The plan is already well underway: Massive turbines are rising off the coast of Massachusetts, and more projects are planned up and down the U.S. coastlines. Advocates say these turbines, and other offshore projects around the world, are a crucial tool in minimizing the effects of climate change: The technology is touted as clean, renewable, and plentiful. And, since offshore wind farms aren’t located in anyone’s backyard, they are, at least in theory, less prone to the political pushback onshore wind power has faced.

The fishing industry fears wind farms will affect their ability to yield a profitable catch — especially since the windy, shallow waters that support a rich diversity of sea life also tend to be ideal locations for turbines. Some scientists say these fears have been overblown — a 2022 study, for example, concluded that the Block Island Wind Farm located off the coast of Rhode Island does not appear to negatively impact bottom-dwelling fish. (Coastal regulators in the state of Rhode Island mandated the study be conducted and paid for by wind farm developers.) Others, like [Rutgers University’s Dr. Daphne] Munroe, say specific fisheries such as Atlantic surfclams will be significantly affected.

Surfclam fishing in wind farm areas, said Munroe, is logistically difficult, if not impossible, since vessels use dredges that drag though the sand to collect the clams. The presence of power cables on the ocean floor, she said, would make it too dangerous to use this kind of equipment around wind farms.

Installed boulders surrounding turbine foundations will also create obstacles, according to Munroe. “Each of the foundations is going to have what’s called scour protection,” she said. “So basically, big boulder fields that are going to be placed around the base of the turbine foundation in order to prevent the sand from scouring away.”

Read the full story at Undark

MASSACHUSETTS: Aquinnah reaches wind mitigation agreement

August 17, 2023 — Officials with the town of Aquinnah say they have reached an agreement over mitigation funding with the developer of the closest, and likely largest, offshore wind farm planned for nearby waters.

Orsted, the developer of Revolution Wind, is expected to provide the town with over a million dollars to fund the renovation of the Gay Head Lighthouse and other historic structures in the area.

The agreement, while not signed by either side yet, comes after several months of negotiations.

While the town is pleased to have gotten something from the developers, town officials say they didn’t get all they wanted.

“With any agreement, there is some give and take on both sides,” Aquinnah town administrator Jeffrey Madison said Wednesday. “It is what it is. We’re happy that there is some consideration being given to our community.”

Still, funding from Revolution, combined with funding from other offshore wind companies, will help make the Aquinnah Cliffs more accessible. But the majority of funding will also go toward needed repairs to the glass and steel framing of the lighthouse. Madison said that the project would be too big for the town to take on itself.

Read the full article at MV Times

BOEM outlines two Oregon wind energy areas

August 17, 2023 — Two proposed wind energy areas located 18 to 32 miles off the southern Oregon coast would total less than 220,000 acres – much less than potential development areas first outlined by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in April 2022.

The Aug. 15 announcement from BOEM starts a 60-day public comment on the proposal. This new draft document comes after calls from Oregon state officials and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council for BOEM to rethink its analysis of wind energy development and potential conflicts with fishing, maritime shipping and environmental issues.

As now proposed the areas would total 219,568 acres of federal waters – a reduction of 81 percent from BOEM’s original “call areas” drawn in 2022 to gauge wind developers’ interest and stakeholders’ reactions.

The agency will “continue to prioritize a robust and transparent process, including ongoing engagement with Tribal governments, agency partners, the fishing community, and other ocean users,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein in announcing the proposal.

“At the request of Oregon’s governor and other state officials, there will be a 60-day public comment period on the draft WEAs and BOEM will hold an intergovernmental task force meeting in addition to public meetings during the comment period,” said Klein. “We look forward to working with the state to help us finalize offshore areas that have strong resource potential and the fewest environmental and user conflicts.”

BOEM worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) to use an ocean planning model “that seeks to identify and minimize conflicts,” according to BOEM.

Read the full article National Fisherman 

U.S. Offshore Wind: Throwing the fish and the fishermen under the bus

August 15, 2023 — Fish and fishermen are used to making their way in or on the water. But, in its rush to develop offshore wind, the U.S. Government is throwing both fish and fishermen under the bus.

The U.S. should learn from Europe, which is decades ahead in developing offshore wind. The first offshore wind farm in Europe was built 32 years ago. Since then, more than 116 offshore wind farms have been built. Europe was extremely slow in addressing the effects of offshore wind on the marine environment, but in the last decade or so they have been catching up.

In recent years, European scientists have developed and adapted various methods for qualifying changes to the marine ecosystem due to offshore wind development, beginning with establishing a baseline prior to construction. Surveys have been designed to examine stressors (physical presence and dynamic effects of turbines, acoustic, electromagnetic, etc.) and receptors (pelagic/benthic habitat, fish and fisheries, mammals, food chain, etc.), in many cases, establishing a grid covering the site of a future offshore wind farm and systematically surveying that grid, often extending the survey for some distance beyond its borders. In so doing, the scientists establish a critically important baseline of data that is needed to compare with data obtained when re-surveyed after an offshore wind farm is operational. In this way, it is possible to quantify the short, medium and long term effects of offshore wind on the marine ecosystem. It’s just common sense to do this.

Contrast this with the current U.S. approach. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Federal agency that is the steward for all U.S. offshore properties, has repeatedly stated that they have no plans for requiring any offshore wind site to be surveyed prior to construction for the purpose of establishing a baseline of marine life. In so doing, the U.S. is simply failing to prepare for the potential effects of offshore wind on fish and fishermen, preferring to accept a highly uncertain outcome and ignoring important biological, ecological and socioeconomic effects of offshore wind development.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS: Revolution Wind Promises Fewer Turbines Off Aquinnah Ethan Genter

August 16, 2023 — An offshore wind energy developer says it will cut down on the number of turbines it is proposing to put in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard in order to reduce the number that can be seen from Aquinnah.

Revolution Wind, at the suggestion of the federal agency currently reviewing the project, will seek no more than 65 wind turbines about 14 miles off the western tip of the Island. The project is still facing backlash from Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), who is calling for officials to slow down the permitting process.

Revolution Wind initially proposed erecting up to 100 wind turbines in an area southwest of Aquinnah to supply 700 megawatts of renewable wind power to Rhode Island and Connecticut. In a July environmental report on the project from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the bureau found the project would impact Aquinnah’s scenic horizon and suggested potential changes.

In its preferred plan, BOEM recommended Revolution Wind install only 65 wind turbines, as well as potentially relocating some that would be close to the Island. As originally pitched by Revolution Wind, the closest turbine to Aquinnah was planned to be about 13 miles, but under BOEM’s preference turbines would be moved back to a minimum of 14.25 miles from the western side of the Island.

Read the full article at the Vineyard Gazette

OREGON: Defying Governor, BOEM Moves Ahead With Offshore Wind Areas off Oregon

August 16, 2023 — The Department of the Interior has identified its first two Wind Energy Areas off the coast of Oregon, the latest frontier in an expanding offshore wind permitting campaign.

The Biden administration hopes to foster installation of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, a goal that appears increasingly remote given supply chain cost hikes and a growing number of abandoned or canceled power purchase agreements on the U.S. East Coast. Any future projects will be even costlier to develop on the West Coast, where platform-based floating wind farms and new power transmission infrastructure will be required.

According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Oregon has big opportunities for offshore wind deployment. The draft WEAs announced Tuesday would allow development of up to 2.6 GW of wind power.

The areas cover about 220,000 acres off Brookings and Coos Bay, and they are far smaller than the “call areas” previously outlined for expressions of industry interest.

Read the full article at the Maritime Executive