Saving Seafood

Turbine Construction Approved for First Large US Offshore Wind Farm

April 6, 2023 — The U.S. Department of the Interior has completed the necessary reviews clearing the way for the start of turbine construction offshore between Rhode Island and New York for South Fork Wind. This will be the first commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project to start turbine construction in federal waters in the United States.

The development is being called a major milestone towards meeting the U.S.’s goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. It is also the first since the DOI in January moved to streamline processes by shifting responsibilities, including workplace safety and environmental compliance, from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Revolution Wind Turbines’ Effects on Life in the Sea and on the Seafloor Remain Unclear

February 7, 2023 — Distant cousins of the machines that dotted the Dutch countryside to pump the ocean back into its bed, sentimentalized in art for 500 years, that have been slimmed down and redesigned in the 21st century to fight global warming, will be hammered into the seafloor in glacial rock laid down 2.8 million years ago during the Pleistocene epoch.

Standing at a weird intersection of natural forces, human intervention, and climate disaster, windmills are now hip, and controversial.

But can wind turbines — what used to be windmills — off the coast of Rhode Island live up to their renewable energy promise? And what effects will they have on life in the sea?

Hundreds of experts from the U.S. Department of the Interior down to local fishermen and town planners are puzzling over these questions, especially now, during the permitting and approval process of the Revolution Wind project, in which developers Ørsted and Eversource hope to install up to 100 wind turbines on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) about 18 miles southeast of Point Judith. Cables to transmit power to the grid would make landfall in North Kingstown, and the project is expected to be online by 2025. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project was published last fall.

Among the experts looking at the question of known and unknown impacts of an offshore wind facility on the OCS are marine biologists intimately familiar with the seafloor where the turbines would be. Sending cameras and other sophisticated monitoring machines 80 to 160 feet below the surface, these scientists examine the vast sand flats, some covered with sand dollars and northern star coral; the complex regions of cobbles and boulders; the lives of tiny, burrowing invertebrates; and the spawning habits of important commercial species such as cod and long-finned squid. They puzzle over the effects a wind project would have on the migration patterns of whales and other marine mammals.

Read the full article at ecoRI News

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

2 areas off Oregon Coast targeted for offshore wind development

April 29, 2022 — The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Wednesday that it’s considering two areas off the Oregon Coast for offshore wind energy production.

The agency has identified locations about 12 nautical miles offshore at Coos Bay and Brookings that could potentially host wind farms. The two areas comprise about 1.1 million acres in total.

The Biden administration is hoping to create 30 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity through offshore wind by 2030. It’s already approved large projects off the coasts of Massachusetts and New York.

Read the full story at OPB

 

Biden-Harris Administration Announces $38 Million from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Protect Aquatic Species and Habitats

April 15, 2022 — The following was released by the U.S. Department of the Interior:

Today, the Department of the Interior announced that 40 fish passage projects in 23 states and Puerto Rico will receive a total of nearly $38 million in fiscal year 2022 funding from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. With a total of $200 million in investments in the National Fish Passage Program over the next five years, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will bolster efforts to address outdated, unsafe or obsolete dams, culverts, levees and other barriers fragmenting our nation’s rivers and streams, which will help restore fish passages and aquatic connectivity.

The National Fish Passage Program, facilitated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, supports aquatic ecosystem restoration projects and restores free-flowing waters, allowing for enhanced fish migration and protecting communities from flooding.

“Across the country, millions of barriers block fish migration and put communities at higher risk of flooding,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in our nation’s rivers, streams and communities and help restore habitat connectivity for aquatic species around the country.”

Several of the projects receiving funding will directly address issues related to climate change and serve disadvantaged communities, while also spanning the nation geographically and addressing a wide array of diverse aquatic resource issues.

Read the full release from the U.S. Department of the Interior

Additional Offshore Wind Lawsuit Reflects LBI Opposition Concerns

February 11, 2022 — The U.S. Department of the Interior is facing another legal challenge to its handling of offshore wind, this time for its approval of an offshore wind project to be constructed on a 65,000-acre tract in federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard. The suit comes three weeks after a grassroots organization from Long Beach Island made good on its intention to sue the federal agency.

Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a broad membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies, filed suit Jan. 31 in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.

“In its haste to implement a massive new program to generate electrical energy by constructing thousands of turbine towers offshore the eastern seaboard on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf and laying hundreds of miles of high-tension electrical cables undersea, the United States has shortcut the statutory and regulatory requirements that were enacted to protect our nation’s environmental and natural resources, its industries and its people,” said Annie Hawkins, executive director of the alliance. “The fishing industry supports strong action on climate change, but not at the expense of the ocean, its inhabitants and sustainable domestic seafood.”

Read the full story at TheSandPaper.net

 

Construction to begin soon on new US offshore wind farm

January 20, 2022 — Construction will soon begin on the second commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project to gain approval in the United States, the developers said.

The U.S. Department of the Interior approved it in November, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued its approval letter for the constructions and operations plan Tuesday, a major step in the federal process before construction can start.

Orsted, a Danish energy company, is developing the South Fork Wind project with utility Eversource off the coasts of New York and Rhode Island. They now expect the work onshore to begin by early February and offshore next year for as many as 12 turbines.

President Joe Biden has set a goal to install 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, generating enough electricity to power more than 10 million homes. In November, work began on the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, the Vineyard Wind 1 project off the coast of Massachusetts.

Read the full story from the AP at ABC News

Maine narrows location for proposed offshore wind turbines

July 13, 2021 — After reviewing potential impact to fisheries, marine wildlife and navigation within 770 square miles of ocean off southern Maine, the Governor’s Energy Office is now focusing on a 16-square-mile area to site up to 12 floating wind-power turbines.

The preferred site for the research array is an L-shaped swath of the Gulf of Maine, about 25 miles south of Muscongus Bay, according to a report issued Monday.

The office is inviting comments on the site through July 30 to inform its final siting decision, which will be included in a federal lease application to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior that’s responsible for managing development in some offshore waters.

The application will be the first step in a subsequent multiyear permitting process by the bureau, which includes further impact studies and opportunities for public input, according to a news release.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

US West Coast fishermen bristle against newly announced wind farm projects

May 26, 2021 — Mike Conroy, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association, hoped he’d have a little more time to get ready before the federal government planned to move forward with offshore wind energy projects on the U.S. West Coast. But that was before the U.S. Department of the Interior announcement on Tuesday, 25 May, indicating two areas off the California coast would be targeted for wind energy projects.

“I believe that a clean energy future is within our grasp in the United States, but it will take all of us and the best-available science to make it happen. Today’s announcement reflects months of active engagement and dedication between partners who are committed to advancing a clean energy future,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a press release. “The offshore wind industry has the potential to create tens of thousands of good-paying union jobs across the nation, while combating the negative effects of climate change. Interior is proud to be part of an all-of-government approach toward the Biden-Harris administration’s ambitious renewable energy goals.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Feds Complete Final Environmental Review Of Vineyard Wind, Set To Be First Major Offshore Wind Project In U.S.

March 9, 2021 — Federal officials have completed the environmental review of the Vineyard Wind I offshore wind project that is expected to deliver clean renewable energy to Massachusetts by the end of 2023.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Monday morning that its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) completed the analysis it resumed about a month ago and will officially publish notice of the project’s final environmental impact statement in the Federal Register later this week.

The 800-megawatt wind farm planned for 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard was the first offshore wind project selected by Massachusetts utility companies with input from the Baker administration to fulfill part of a 2016 clean energy law.

Read the full story at WBUR