Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: Youngkin administration warns feds new wind areas could hurt commercial fisheries

July 1, 2022 — Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration told federal officials that large areas of ocean off Virginia being considered as potential offshore wind sites could cause “millions of dollars of negative impact to Virginia’s commercial fishing industries.”

“While supportive of the growth of the offshore wind industry and the opportunities for the commonwealth to provide critical support to the offshore wind industry supply chain and become a key hub for future development, we must ensure any future leasing areas do not detrimentally impact or restrict maritime commerce or commercial navigation,” wrote officials in a June 27 letter to the Bureau of Energy Ocean Management.

The letter was signed by Acting Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources, Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick, Secretary of Transportation W. Sheppard Miller, Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs Craig Crenshaw and Secretary of Labor Bryan Slater.

The administration’s comments came in response to a BOEM proposal for a 4 million acre Central Atlantic call area where the federal government could auction off lease areas to offshore wind developers. The public comment period on the draft call area closed Tuesday.

The Central Atlantic proposal is far larger than the expansion initially envisioned by former Gov. Ralph Northam. In a November 2020 letter to then-Acting Director Walter Cruickshank, Northam formally requested that the federal agency auction off “two additional 100,000-acre wind lease areas off the coast of Virginia.” The state also sent the federal government two potential scenarios for additional lease areas near the existing ones held by Dominion Energy and the state’s energy agency. One of the proposals was identified as having “the least conflict possible with shipping, fishing or marine mammals,” and the other had “minimal conflicts with military operations and shipping” but some conflicts with fisheries.

Read the full story at the Virginia Mercury

 

New York wind developers, environmental groups sign agreement on right whales

June 28, 2022 — Offshore wind developers Ørsted and Eversource say they have struck an agreement with environmental groups to improve protection of endangered north Atlantic right whales during construction and operation of the South Fork Wind project.

The companies say they will adopt monitoring measures to make sure right whales are not nearby during construction activity, and use mitigation steps to reduce underwater noise during pile driving.

They will also evaluate other new monitoring technologies, including thermal cameras, acoustic sensors, and data integration software. Developers say the findings from South Fork will be used in future projects.

A 10-knot vessel speed limit will be in place for all boats working on the project, “unless an effective adaptive speed management plan is in place,” according to the developers.

Such 10-knot limits are commonly sought by the National Marine Fisheries Service when its monitoring detects right whale movements off the East Coast, triggering announcements of special management areas to reduce the danger of ship strikes. Accidental encounters in the shipping lanes are a major cause of death for right whales, now estimated to number only around 340 animals.

NMFS whale monitoring has shown substantial overlap between right whale movements and offshore wind development areas off southern New England.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

BOEM Seeks Public Comment on Draft Fisheries Mitigation Strategy

June 23, 2022 — As part of its efforts to ensure that offshore renewable energy development occurs in a thoughtful manner that minimizes conflicts with other ocean users, today the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced the availability of draft guidance on mitigating potential impacts of offshore wind development on commercial and recreational fishing and is inviting public review and comment on the draft.

This draft mitigation document is the next step in the development of guidance for offshore wind companies that was begun in the winter of 2021 through a Request for Information from the fishing industry, government agencies, non-government organizations, and the general public, in consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Today’s announcement initiates a 60-day public review and comment period on the draft guidance, which will end at 11:59 p.m. (Eastern) on August 22, 2022.

“Fishing communities and fisheries stakeholders are critical to our offshore energy development process, and we’re looking forward to discussions on this draft guidance,” said BOEM Director Amanda Lefton. “We’re seeking open and honest conversations focused on finding solutions to potential challenges as we work to provide clean, safe domestic energy for American taxpayers while at the same time providing good-paying jobs and building a U.S. supply chain to support this effort.”

The draft guidance provides detailed processes and methodologies to the offshore wind industry and lessees to mitigate impacts to fisheries in the areas of project siting, design, navigation, access, safety, and financial compensation. This guidance will help ensure consistent use of data and methodologies across projects and states and assist lessees and BOEM in the preparation and review of construction and operations plans.

To facilitate comments, BOEM will hold a series of public meetings to discuss the contents of the draft guidance and hear from commercial and recreational fishers and other interested parties firsthand.

Meetings will be held on the following dates and times:

  • July 11, 9 to 11 a.m. EDT: East Coast Meeting
  • July 15, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. PDT: West Coast Meeting
  • July 18, 9 to 11 a.m. CDT: Gulf Coast Meeting
  • July 21, 9 to 11 a.m. EDT: Developers Meeting

Registration for the meetings and additional information will be shared on BOEM’s website in the coming days.

While these meetings are focused on obtaining input from the fishing industry and recreational fishers, they are open to the public and anyone can provide comments via regulations.gov.

BOEM will review and consider comments on the draft guidance as it develops final guidance over the summer of 2022.

“We want feedback on the entirety of mitigation framework, from facility design considerations to recommendations on compensatory mitigation, particularly from the people and organizations that this guidance is meant to aid,” said BOEM Marine Biologist Brian Hooker.

For more information about the draft guidance, how to register for the fisheries mitigation workshops, and how to submit comments, visit BOEM’s website.

Read the release from BOEM

 

Offshore wind farms expected to reduce clam fishery revenue, study finds

June 23, 2022 — An important East Coast shellfish industry is projected to suffer revenue losses as offshore wind energy develops along the U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coasts, according to two Rutgers studies.

The studies, which appear in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, examined how offshore wind farms planned for the eastern United States could disrupt fishing of the Atlantic surfclam, a major economic driver from Virginia to Massachusetts that generates more than $30 million in direct annual revenue. Total fleet revenue declines measured by the studies ranged from 3 percent to 15 percent, depending on the scale of offshore wind development and response of the fishing fleet.

In New Jersey, losses could be as high as 25 percent for  based in Atlantic City.

“Understanding the impacts of fishery exclusion and fishing effort displacement from development of  is critical to the sustainability of the Atlantic surfclam fishing industry,” said co-author Daphne Munroe, an associate professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

“Tools that can predict and manage these complex and interconnected challenges are essential for developing and evaluating strategies that allow for multiple users of the offshore environment.”

Read the full story at Phys.org

 

Proposed N.J. wind farm could have major impact on area fisheries, draft report says

June 20, 2022 — A proposed wind farm off the Jersey Shore could significantly affect local fisheries and boat traffic but generally have little impact on tourism and marine life while helping to move away from oil and gas, according to the draft environmental impact statement released Friday by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The impact statement is the next step toward winning federal approval for Ocean Wind, a wind farm to be built by the Danish energy company Ørsted and PSEG.

The draft statement addressed concerns by officials in some New Jersey beach towns that the turbines would spoil the ocean views and discourage tourists from returning.

It said the impact of the wind farm would be moderate on tourism due to noise from construction and the new structures, but that the wind turbines could attract tourists eager to see them.

The impact on cultural artifacts could be significant as “the introduction of intrusive visual elements” could “alter character-defining ocean views of historic properties onshore” and work on the ocean floor could disturb shipwrecks or submerged archaeological sites, the statement said.

And the significant impacts on fisheries could be attributed to ongoing regulations, climate change and the disruptions to operations by the construction and installation of the turbines, the report said. Some fishing vessels would decide to avoid the area altogether.

Read the full story at NJ.com

MAINE: Request for offshore wind power contract raises ratepayer concerns

June 8, 2022 — The developers of a planned offshore wind energy research array have asked state regulators to approve a 20-year electricity supply contract with terms they say are essential to their investing $1.2 billion in a project that could help launch a new renewable energy industry in Maine.

But Public Advocate William Harwood said this week that while he supports the state’s renewable energy ambitions, he’s concerned that the power contract could add to the bills of struggling Maine electricity customers if the proposed price is significantly above wholesale market rates.

“We’ve got an affordability issue,” Harwood said. “There are a lot of people excited about offshore wind, but my job is to make sure people aren’t paying too much for electricity.”

As a practical matter, any impact on electric rates would be far off. The research array wouldn’t be built until late in the decade, at the earliest. But a 2021 law requires a contract to be negotiated within nine months of filing at the Maine Public Utilities Commission. That timeline will make the upcoming process a near-term test of the state’s ability to balance its climate and renewable electrification goals with the imperative to protect ratepayers.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

America’s next wind powerhouse: The Gulf of Mexico?

May 31, 2022 — A home base of the oil and gas industry wants in on offshore wind.

The Gulf of Mexico has spent eight decades as one of the nation’s prime petroleum hubs, home to thousands of rigs, platforms and other structures that drill, store and ship fossil fuels. Now the Biden administration is reviewing 30 million acres of Gulf waters near Texas and Louisiana for potential wind turbines — a development that could dovetail with proposals to generate other clean energy sources, such as hydrogen.

Climate change isn’t the only reason to bring wind power to the Gulf, said former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who unsuccessfully tried to launch the world’s largest offshore wind farm in the area nearly two decades ago — even prematurely proclaiming in 2006 that “the wind rush is on.”

“We still need alternative and renewable energy because [oil and gas] are a finite commodity,” Patterson said in an April interview. “We ain’t making anymore. Not fast enough anyway.”

Patterson, who calls himself a “drill, baby, drill” guy, added: “How long will the oil and gas last? I don’t know. Is it 50 years or 500 years? I don’t know. But at some point, it goes away.”

Patterson’s effort awarded two multimillion-dollar wind power leases off the Texas coast, but the projects never materialized after falling natural gas prices undermined their economics. Instead, the wind industry remained onshore to the vast open stretches of west Texas and the state’s Panhandle.

Challenges to potential Gulf wind projects persist, including the region’s frequent hurricanes and billions of migratory birds. The area’s typical wind speeds are also lower than those of the Atlantic Coast, the biggest haven for U.S. offshore wind projects.

Read the full story at Politico

New England task force convenes to plan the next phase of offshore wind development

May 25, 2022 — Last year, President Joe Biden announced plans to start leasing areas of the Gulf of Maine to offshore wind energy developers by 2024.

On Thursday, May 18, the federal Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management convened a task force of officials from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and tribal governments to consider the next phase in the push to stand up a new “green” industry off the shores of Northern New England.

Leases for wind projects have been stacking up the past few years off Atlantic states from Massachusetts south. Attention now turns to the Gulf of Maine, where deeper waters will likely require deployment of new “floating platform” technologies that Maine researchers and international developers are pioneering.

“So the Gulf of Maine, off the coast of Maine, floating is the only option. We don’t have any other options,” said Habib Dagher, the University of Maine engineering expert who has led development of a prototype floating-platform wind turbine in state waters off Mohegan Island.

Dagher is also part of the team that has proposed a larger array of as many as a dozen turbines in federal waters off the midcoast, aimed at researching the technology’s viability and its effects on ecosystems and fisheries.

Officials at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on May 18 outlined their plans for handling Gov. Janet Mills’ proposed 16-square-mile lease site for the research array.

Backers such as Dagher say it can set a course early for responsible development of commercial-scale projects off the East Coast.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio

 

At Dominion wind hearings, continued disputes over ratepayer protections

May 20, 2022 — After two and a half days of testimony in Richmond, consumer protection advocates continue to disagree with Dominion Energy over whether regulators should require further safeguards for ratepayers as the utility seeks approval for its plans to build a massive wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach.

“There is no blank check for this project,” said Joseph Reid, an attorney from McGuireWoods who represented Dominion in the case before the State Corporation Commission, on Tuesday.

But Senior Assistant Attorney General Meade Browder told the SCC that the office’s Division of Consumer Counsel remains concerned that customers face significant risks from the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

“Our position is that approval should come with meaningful protections that mitigate the risk to ratepayers, who are currently set up to bear the financial risk if the CVOW project proves to be more costly to construct and operate than is projected or if the performance of the project does not meet the level projected by the company,” he said.

If built, CVOW will be the largest wind farm in the United States, producing 2.6 gigawatts of power — more than what is generated by the state’s nuclear units and its largest gas plant combined — from 176 turbines sunk into the Atlantic Ocean 27 miles off Virginia Beach.

The project is both a key component of Dominion’s plans to decarbonize its fleet by midcentury in line with the Virginia Clean Economy Act and, with an estimated price tag of $9.65 billion, the most expensive endeavor the utility has undertaken to date. If approved by regulators, the average residential customer, defined as someone who uses 1,000 kilowatts of power every month, would see their monthly bill initially rise by $1.45. SCC staff have estimated that figure could rise to $14.21 by the time the project enters operation in 2027.

Read the full story at the Virginia Mercury 

 

Maine leaders to meet with feds about future offshore wind projects

May 19, 2022 — Maine has a chance to take a big step forward in its plans for offshore wind turbine production, but some fishermen and lawmakers have been weary of proposals for years.

More than a dozen supporters held a rally on Portland’s Eastern Promenade Wednesday, pushing state leaders to secure research and, eventually, leases to place massive wind turbines in federal waters in the Gulf of Maine.

Speakers included Jason Shedlock, president of the Maine State Building & Construction Trades Council; Dana Connors, president of the state’s chamber of commerce; Jack Shapiro of the Natural Resources Council of Maine; and Sarah Haggerty, a biologist with Maine Audubon.

They gathered a day before the Gulf of Maine Intergovernmental Task Force of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) planned to meet with representatives from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. It will be the first such meeting since 2019.

Governor Janet Mills, D-Maine, has already pushed to restrict projects in Maine waters, signing a 2021 law forbidding new projects in state waters for 10 years. Maine assumes stewardship over the first three miles away from its coast and islands.

In the water beyond that, BOEM plans to lease wind projects, and Mills is on board.

Read the full story at News Center Maine