Saving Seafood

Offshore Wind Agenda Still Has Some Bight

April 27, 2021 — The Biden administration isn’t bowing to all local opposition to offshore wind development (“Railing Against the Wind,” Review & Outlook, April 21). Although the wealthy residents of the Hamptons succeeded in preventing offshore wind farms from spoiling their ocean views, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to sink all opposition to development in the New York-New Jersey Bight, a roughly triangular area bordered by New Jersey and Long Island.

In December 2020, the Interior Department’s Office of the Solicitor issued a detailed ruling that commercial fisheries’ interests must be considered when siting offshore wind. But in March the Biden administration rescinded that ruling. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to ignore fisheries’ interests, even though the Bight is home to some of the most productive fisheries in the world and is a migratory route for endangered right whales.

In the end, the fisheries industry and thousands of jobs at risk are no match for Big Wind’s lobbyists, whose European customers stand to reap billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars from the Biden administration’s new offshore wind-investment tax credit and the sky-high prices for the intermittent and unreliable power that regulators will force utility customers to buy.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK: No Wind Farms in ‘Fairways’

April 23, 2021 — Two areas off the South Shore of Long Island that had been identified as potential federal lease areas for development of offshore wind will not be considered for leases, an official of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said last week.

The announcement came on April 14, during a BOEM-hosted virtual meeting of the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Forces, comprising representatives from 14 coastal states, local governments, tribes, and federal agencies. A second meeting was held on Friday.

The areas in the New York Bight known as Fairways North and Fairways South, respectively 88,246 and 23,841 acres, “will not be considered for leases,” said Luke Feinberg, a BOEM project coordinator. The Bight is in the waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

The Fairways North area is approximately 15 miles south of Long Island, stretching from Moriches Bay to Montauk Point. Fairways South is farther west and mostly farther offshore. The New York Bight also contains federal wind energy areas known as Hudson North and the Central Bight, off Great South Bay, and Hudson South, south of New York City.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

MAINE: Midcoast fishermen can resume activity in offshore wind project’s proposed cable route

April 21, 2021 — Lobstermen who were forced to move traps along a 23-mile long route off the coast of Monhegan can resume fishing activity in the area. Last week, vessels conducting a survey for an offshore wind project completed their work along the route.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources sent a notice to fishermen on Friday stating that gear, like lobster traps, that were relocated to accommodate the New England Aqua Ventus survey can be moved back to their original locations.

Fishermen were asked to voluntarily move their traps so a survey of the seabed floor along the wind project’s proposed cable route could be conducted. But given the contentious issue of wind development of the Gulf of Maine, some fishermen felt they shouldn’t have to move their traps for a project that they feel threatens their livelihood.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

NEW JERSEY: Long Beach Island Residents Critical of Ocean Wind Project During Scoping Meeting

April 21, 2021 — Long Beach Island residents aired criticisms and concerns about a proposed wind farm off the Atlantic City coast at a scoping meeting held online April 15, as required by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

When the BOEM published its notice of intent to engage in an environmental impact study for Ørsted’s Ocean Wind offshore wind farm, it triggered these so-called scoping meetings in which the public is invited to voice concerns or alternatives to the planned wind farm.

Ørsted, a Danish energy company, is in the process of developing a wind farm to be located 15 miles off Atlantic City on the outer continental shelf that will include 98 turbines on monopoles and generate 1,100 megawatts of wind-generated power, enough to power 500,000 homes.

Ørsted held three online scoping meetings this month and on April 15, Beach Haven Mayor Colleen Lambert and Bob Stern, a representative of the Long Beach Island Coalition for Wind Without Impact, both asked that the Ocean Wind turbines be moved farther out to sea. Lambert asked why the Hudson South call area had been abandoned in favor of a lease much closer to shore when there would be more wind farther out. She expressed concern about the visibility of turbines if they are located nearer to the coast. “The alternative is to impact tourism with a decrease of 40% of revenue if turbines are visible.” She noted that New York has required turbines to be located 17 miles from shore.

Read the full story at The Sand Piper

After Years Of Uncertainty, Expected Decision On Vineyard Wind Could Launch New Industry

April 20, 2021 — New Bedford’s Marine Commerce Terminal is a huge spread of open concrete jutting into the harbor. On a recent day, a few refrigerated trucks were unloading seafood at a processing plant next door, but the terminal itself just looked like a giant empty parking lot. As the wind swept across the vast space, the biggest action was the crowds of seagulls hunkered down, squawking at each other.

This is where Bruce Carlisle wants you to use your imagination.

“In my mind’s eye, I see the tower sections stacked and lined up. I see the blades all ready to go. I see forklifts and cranes and crawlers and just all sorts of activity,” says Carlisle, managing director of offshore wind at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, or MassCEC.

The goals are ambitious. But not everyone is thrilled.

“They may play it down like there’s no effect on the ecosystem. I can’t see how it can’t, when you start putting hundreds and hundreds of these poles in the water,” says Peter Anthony, who has worked in the New Bedford fishing industry for 40 years and now serves as treasurer for the seafood supply company Eastern Fisheries. “We’ve been here forever. The fishing communities have been fishing these areas because they’re fertile fishing areas.”

Anthony says many fishermen have felt blind-sided by the federal government’s support for offshore wind. And while companies like Vineyard Wind have made some accommodations to the fishing industry — like increasing the space between turbines in the water — he still feels like it’s all moving too quickly.

Any day now the Interior Department will approve, deny, or suggest changes to Vineyard Wind’s construction plan. The company will need a few small permits and federal sign-offs afterwards, but this represents the last big hurdle for the project. If the ruling is favorable, which seems likely, Vineyard Wind could start offshore construction next year and deliver power by the end of 2023.

“I’m sure they’ll be drinking champagne and pumping their fists and they will be all happy about it, but I think in the fishing community they’re going to look at it as a loss,” Anthony says.

Anthony says fishermen feel like the country has decided to trade one renewable resource — seafood — for another: wind energy. And he thinks it’s a shame.

Read the full story at WBUR

Ocean Wind project worries New Jersey beach resorts, fishing industry

April 20, 2021 — As the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management prepares for an environmental review of the Ocean Wind project off New Jersey, the prospect of seeing wind turbines arise on the horizon is raising alarms in prosperous resort towns.

Politically the state government has been all-in on offshore wind, with $250 million planned for investment in manufacturing at the port of Paulsboro on the Delaware River, and plans for a new port downriver – beyond the air draft limitations of river bridges – to accommodate wind turbine installation vessels.

The Biden administration’s policy imperatives for renewable energy include a dramatic expansion of new wind leasing in the New York Bight. Ocean Wind, a 75/25 percent joint venture of Ørsted and the PSEG utility group, could be sending power ashore in 2024.

The 1,100-megawatt array would be built between 15 and 27 miles offshore on Ørsted’s federal lease east of Atlantic City, with up to 98 turbines feeding power to three offshore substations.

From there, export cables would carry the energy to a couple of once-thriving power plants on New Jersey bay shores: The disused BL England coal plant, considered by state regulators for conversion to natural gas a few years ago, and the obsolete Oyster Creek nuclear generating station, an industry showpiece when it entered operation in the 1960s. Both sites have grid connections to handle the wind-generated power.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NEW YORK: Biden Administration Nixes Hamptons Offshore Wind Sites Near Beaches, Fishing Grounds

April 20, 2021 — The Biden administration announced that it will not lease two offshore wind areas off the Hamptons. The leasing areas were controversial to eastern Long Island residents and the commercial fishing industry.

The Fairways North and Fairways South sites were planned just 15 miles off the coast.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman says the 800-foot-tall turbines would be a visual eyesore for public and private Hamptons beachgoers — which the state of New York relies on for billions in tourism dollars.

“I believe in [offshore wind],” Schneiderman said, “just site it further out. There’s no reason why they can’t go deeper, into deeper waters, you know, manage the visual impact.”

And 1,700 members of the fishing industry sent a letter to the Biden administration to say the construction and the operation of the turbines would starve them of prime fishing grounds. Bonnie Brady with Long Island Commercial Fishing Association has sent these letters before.

“Let’s face it,” she said. “I’ve been fighting on this issue for fishermen to get a true seat at the table, not be served for lunch, for 20 years.”

Read the full story at WSHU

NEW JERSEY: Residents, officials reiterate concerns about wind farm off Atlantic City

April 19, 2021 — Rick Robinson likens the idea of building up to 98 wind turbines on the ocean horizon to placing them on the rim of the Grand Canyon. The Seven Mile Island homeowner was among numerous people who spoke this week at a federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management virtual hearing on a proposed wind farm 15 miles off Atlantic City.

In addition to ruining a magnificent view, the 850-foot turbines will endanger wildlife, scar coastal land, scare away fish, interfere with shipping operations and raise electric bills, according to about 20 speakers in opposition.

Others at the hearing spoke in favor of the Ocean Wind farm. They touted wind energy as a way to bring abundant and clean energy to New Jersey, while helping fight climate change and creating jobs.

“Rather than continue down the path toward catastrophic sea level rise and flooding,” said Hayley Berliner of Environment New Jersey, “we can instead start to mitigate that by replacing our fossil-fuel power with clean, renewable offshore wind power.”

Read the full story at The Press of Atlantic City

N.J. fishing groups worry offshore wind will adversely affect their industry: ‘This is our farmland’

April 19, 2021 — Capt. Hank Lackner docked a 100-foot trawler in Cape May on a recent day after unloading a catch of squid that might end up as calamari on someone’s plate just about anywhere in the United States.

Lackner fears that offshore wind farms coming to the waters off the New Jersey coast in the next few years could threaten his business. Other commercial and recreational anglers, along with the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA), a political action organization, share his concerns.

They worry that wind farms with their soaring turbines could disrupt fish habitat, reroute fishing lanes, and force sport anglers farther out to sea.

Lackner, of Montauk, N.Y., believes that the farms will narrow the currently wide-open pathways to the vessel he docks at Cape May so often that he calls it his second home.

“We have no power,” said Jeff Reichle, chairman of Lund’s Fisheries, a processor of scallops and squid in Cape May that employees 300. “We’re being bulldozed here. It’s just being rammed down our throats.”

He also has attended meetings, and concludes the wind industry and its government backers have all the clout.

Reichle said he is not opposed to offshore wind and was part of a group called Fisherman’s Energy that tried to install five turbines a few miles off the coast of Atlantic City. He said that project, had it succeeded, might have generated data that could have shown potential impact on marine life.

Read the full story at The Philadelphia Inquirer

US Interior Department reverses legal opinion on offshore wind

April 16, 2021 — The U.S. Interior Department formally reversed a Trump-era legal opinion on offshore wind energy, in another step toward the Biden administration’s goal of dramatically expanding the industry in U.S. waters.

A memo from Robert Anderson, the department’s principle deputy solicitor, released on 9 April critiques and reverses findings written in December by Daniel Jorjani, who was the department’s top lawyer when then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt moved to shut down the approval process for the Vineyard Wind offshore project.

Read the full story at Seafood Source