Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Jersey Shore residents demand more time to review offshore wind project

July 28, 2022 — Jersey Shore residents, environmentalists and business industry advocates remain divided over whether to speed ahead or spend more time reviewing the environmental impacts of a plan to build a 1,100-megawatt offshore wind farm south of Atlantic City.

Ocean Wind 1 ― a project by Denmark-based energy company Ørsted and Newark-based power company Public Service Enterprise Group, or PSEG — could power up to half a million homes in New Jersey once complete, according to Ørsted.

But some environmentalists and coastal residents worry the potential impacts of the wind turbine array could disrupt the migration of critically endangered whales, irreparably harm the local fishing industry and ruin tourists’ views from shore.

During a Tuesday hearing held virtually with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees approval of the Ocean Wind 1 project, Seaside Park Mayor John A. Peterson Jr. urged the federal agency to grant an extension to the public response and review period for the project’s environmental impact. Peterson also requested all offshore wind project approvals along New Jersey be delayed until a pilot project was erected and carefully studied.

Ocean Wind 1’s environmental impact statement “is a 1,400-page document and it is far too complex, far too vast an issue to take lightly,” the mayor said during the hearing’s public comment session. “This is an insufficient time period, I believe, for the public and for any and all other interested parties, including but not limited to municipalities, to comment on something of vast ramifications for the future.”

OEM’s consideration of Ocean Wind 1’s impacts failed to account for the cumulative impact of neighboring offshore wind projects along the Jersey Shore, Peterson said. Other projects ― a 2,200-megawatt project by Ørsted called Ocean Wind 2 to the south and two projects by Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC stretching as far north as Barnegat Light ― are in development or under consideration by federal and state agencies. Atlantic Shores has secured another ocean lease area from BOEM and New York east of Atlantic City.

Read the full article at The Asbury Park Press

BOEM says New York Bight offshore wind environment review will focus on regional impact

July 14, 2022 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced Wednesday it will move forward with a regional environmental review of six lease areas in the New York Bight.

A February 2022 lease auction by BOEM brought in over $4.3 billion – a record amount for any U.S. offshore renewable or conventional energy lease sale. BOEM officials say this will be the first time the agency has conducted a regional analysis of multiple lease areas for offshore renewable energy.

OEM will publish a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) in the Federal Register on July 15, 2022, which will initiate a 30-day public comment scoping period. Comments gathered during this time will help BOEM identify what it should consider as part of the PEIS.

Read the full story at the National Fisherman

Meet the officials shaping Biden’s offshore energy strategy

July 14, 2022 — A climate activist, mineral economist and former Army Corps regional director are among the officials crafting President Joe Biden’s closely watched strategy for offshore energy, which could shape the direction of renewables and oil drilling for years.

Working in and around the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, they are helping steer the Biden administration’s approach to offshore oil and gas leasing and its ambitious plans to transition the nation’s oceans toward clean energy at a pivotal moment for both.

Previously focused on managing the oil industry’s access to federal stores of crude and natural gas off the nation’s coasts, BOEM is in the throes of an internal transition to meet this political moment. Its current crew of leaders reflects a unique period in the 11-year-old agency’s history and the varied nature of its growing responsibilities.

Interior and the bureau recently released a draft five-year oil program that could lead to 11 offshore oil auctions in the coming years, potentially jettisoning Biden’s lofty campaign promise to end new leasing. But the Biden administration’s proposal also suggested the possibility of going in a different direction, holding zero new lease sales between 2023 and 2028 in what would be an epic shift for the offshore oil sector.

The new bureau took over the leasing responsibility of offshore energy, while other agencies were crafted to handle the money coming from oil royalties and fees and the day-to-day safety and environmental oversight of offshore drilling.

Last month, BOEM announced that James Bennett, its long-standing chief of the office of renewable programs, has moved to a new, ambiguous role within the renewables arena at BOEM that has led to some speculation in the offshore wind industry that the Interior bureaucrat who built BOEM’s renewables approach may soon leave the agency.

Other relative newcomers to the bureau with critical roles include Marissa Knodel, an adviser in a political liaison position that’s long existed at BOEM and operates out of the public eye. She is one of the BOEM cohorts working directly with the White House to align bureau actions with Biden’s political realities.

Another less visible figure critical in BOEM’s direction is Tommy Beaudreau, the Interior deputy secretary who is second in command at the department under Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

It was during Beaudreau’s tenure that BOEM first got serious about offshore wind and held its first offshore wind auctions in 2013. But it may be his oil and gas bona fides that matter most as the administration navigates its five-year offshore oil plan. He led BOEM in the years leading up to the last five-year plan and was involved in the consideration of shifting from regionwide oil and gas auctions in the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf-wide sales — a flip often associated with the Trump administration.

Read the full story at E&E News

NOAA Committee: Public Engagement on Wind Development ‘Not Sufficient’; Reforms Needed

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — July 30, 2020 — NOAA’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee (MAFAC) has offered new recommendations to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on how to improve community engagement and address other long-terms potential impacts of offshore wind development. The recommendations come as the MAFAC, which regularly provides advice to the Secretary of Commerce on marine issues, has raised concerns about the “rapid pace” of development and questions about its long-term consequences.

In its report, the MAFAC calls for, among other changes, the offshore wind development process to be reformed to allow for early, meaningful engagement from fishermen and affected communities; greater analysis of the long-term impact of wind energy projects on fish species and marine environments; and additional funding for scientific research on wind projects and surrounding habitats.

“The Committee’s work demonstrates clearly the urgent need to address the issues that have resulted from the rapid expansion of offshore wind energy development on the East Coast, and the reality that the federal government’s BOEM has initiated planning for a similar scale of development on the West Coast, Hawaii, and the Gulf of Mexico,” said MAFAC Committee Co-Chair Peter Moore, a former commercial fisherman and marine fisheries consultant. “We’re hopeful that Commerce Department leadership will closely follow the recommendations and will continue to be responsive to the needs of fishermen and coastal communities.”

The MAFAC has been developing these recommendations since last year, when a working group was formed in spring 2019 following concerns from affected groups that offshore development was moving too quickly, and that the views of coastal communities were being left out of the process. The Committee had earlier expressed its concerns in a November 2019 letter to Secretary Ross. The new report expands on these concerns and offers ways to address them in future wind development projects.

The report notes that offshore wind is poised for a massive expansion: 10 percent of the offshore shelf from Massachusetts to North Carolina is currently under some stage of consideration for development. Citing this potential expansion, MAFAC writes that they are concerned that development is “racing forward” without addressing critical scientific, economic, and engagement issues.

Among these issues is how the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and other agencies deal with public engagement. The MAFAC report states current engagement efforts “have not been sufficient” in engaging fishermen and other ocean users, and as a result there is “distrust and anger based on a perceived lack of transparency and input into the planning process.”

“After months of work and research we came to the conclusion that most of the fishing industry impacted felt left out of the process, and their concerns were not being addressed. This has the potential to greatly diminish fishery revenues, and the impacts to ecosystems and habitat remains a big question,” said Mike Okoniewski, the West Coast co-chair on the MAFAC Offshore Wind Ad Hoc Working Group. “We do not wish to lose our sustainable fisheries to another sustainable resource. Nor do we want to see these projects take place without a transparent and comprehensive environmental scoping.”

Lack of information on the long-term effects of wind energy construction is another key issue highlighted in the report. Officials need a better understanding of how wind projects affect habitats, what changes will need to be made to scientific surveys to account for wind energy construction, and the cumulative impact that the construction will have on the marine environment.

“Like a pebble in a pond, these impacts are likely to ripple throughout the ecosystem and affect the lives and livelihoods of all ocean users,” the report states.

The report also raises concerns about how expanding wind energy will impact NOAA’s ability to conduct scientific surveys. Construction will potentially impact how current surveys are conducted, which may increase uncertainty in the assessment results and impact how quotas are set.

This will also create the need for new surveys to make sure that wind projects are developed appropriately and their potential impacts are measured, increasing the amount of resources that NOAA scientists and personnel need to dedicate to wind-related issues. The report labels this a “multi order-of-magnitude increase of demand on the agency’s resource base,” and warns that an increase in funding and available resources will be needed.

The full report, including all of the MAFAC’s recommendations, is available here.

 

Interior Secretary Hears Fishermen’s Concerns About Offshore Wind

July 22, 2020 — The U.S. Secretary of the Interior met with members of New England’s fishing industry in Boston Tuesday, and signaled he hears their concerns about offshore wind farms.

The Vineyard Wind project, proposed for 15 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, has been on hold since the Interior Department announced nearly a year ago that it would expand its environmental review to include an analysis of every offshore wind development that’s likely to be proposed off the East Coast over the next 10 years.

As Interior Secretary David Bernhardt met with fishermen, seafood distributors and others working in the region’s fishing industry at the Legal Harborside restaurant, he told them the Trump administration is focused on doing what’s best for America, “not Copenhagen.” (Copenhagen hosted the 2009 United Nations conference in which the U.S. agreed to targets for emissions reductions).

John Williams of the Maine-based Atlantic Red Crab Company, which operates in part out of New Bedford, echoed that, saying the proposed one mile gap between turbines isn’t wide enough for fishing vessels.

“Even though there’s a lane going through the farms, when a boat breaks down, it doesn’t have brakes and it just starts drifting through these farms,” he said. “And that’s a huge safety issue.”

After the meeting, fishermen who’d been in attendance raised a range of other concerns about the Vineyard Wind project, including a reduction of fishing access to the sea floor, underwater hazards for boats, interference with radar systems, and possible changes to the temperature stratification in the water column that could impact the ecosystem.

Read the full story at WGBH

STUDY: Northeast clean energy plans inadequate to meet climate goals

October 8, 2019 — New England’s six states are falling short of the low-carbon energy deployment needed to reach their shared 2050 climate goals, according to a new analysis from the Brattle Group.

By midcentury, every state in New England aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% over 1990 levels.

At the behest of the Coalition for Community Solar Access, a solar trade association, Brattle looked late last month at how much clean energy would be needed to meet those goals, if the region engaged in a mass switch from fossil fuel sources to electricity.

Demand for electricity would roughly double by 2050, despite efficiency measures — about the same amount as for the nation at large, if it were to follow a similar path, the consultancy said.

To supply that power, about four to eight times more renewables would need to come online annually, across the 2020s, than what is currently planned for the region.

Currently, planned low-carbon generation would reach about 830 megawatts of power annually through 2030. That compares with the 4 to 7 gigawatts per year on average needed through 2050 to meet the climate targets.

Read the full story at Energy News Network

Renewable Energy Bill Heading to Massachusetts House

June 18, 2018 — A bill that aims to sharply increase the state’s use of renewable energy is on its way to the Massachusetts House.

The Senate approved the bill Thursday, saying it will help ensure a healthier, cleaner environment for future generations of Massachusetts residents.

The sweeping legislation is intended to help protect public health, increase renewable energy use, reduce greenhouse emissions, put a price on carbon, and create renewable energy jobs.

The bill would also raise renewable portfolio standards, lift the cap on solar net metering, authorize additional hydropower and offshore wind procurement, establish market-based greenhouse-gas emission limits, and implement statewide energy storage goals.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CapeCod.com