Management & Regulation Archives

Turbine spacing unites offshore wind executives

November 21, 2019 — Executives representing the offshore leaseholders off Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket announced their joint support for a one-nautical-mile width between all their proposed wind turbines.

The executives also announced agreement on an east-west orientation of the wind turbine rows. Orsted North America president Thomas Brostrom, Equinor Wind US president Christer af Geijerstam, Eversource Energy-enterprise energy strategy executive vice president Leon Oliver, Mayflower Wind president John Hartnet, and Vineyard Wind CEO Lars Thaaning Pedersen signed a letter to the U.S. Coast Guard advocating for the one-nautical-mile spacing and east-west configuration. The letter was accompanied by a report executed by W.F. Baird & Associates Ltd. that concludes such distancing and orientation of turbines is advantageous.

For Vineyard Wind, the width is a mile short of what it previously supported. As The Times reported in December 2018, Vineyard Wind was in support of two-mile transit corridors, while fishermen pushed for four-mile corridors. However, the executives contend in their letter that the widths are “responsive to fishermen’s requests.” Among other reasons, fishermen in Rhode Island and Massachusetts have pushed for wider navigation spaces between wind turbines for safety reasons, due to the length of mobile gear some fishing vessels trail. The executives state the width they propose addresses mobile gear concerns.

In a statement to The Times, Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Rhode Island’s Seafreeze Ltd. and a board member of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), found the executives’ announcement foreseeable, and as evidence they may not be taking fishing industry input to heart.

Read the full story at the Martha’s Vineyard Times

Many fishermen aren’t on board with wind industry’s new plan

November 20, 2019 — The fierce competitors in the local offshore wind industry probably hoped to make a big splash with this news: They teamed up to propose a grid that creates uniform spacing between each tower and a similar orientation for the various wind farm proposals south of Martha’s Vineyard.

One of the chief goals was to assuage concerns among fishermen who worry that an uncoordinated array of hundreds of towers would make the waters hard to navigate — effectively displacing them from rich fishing grounds.

However, plenty of fishermen aren’t taking the bait. For many of them, the one nautical mile distance proposed between each giant turbine tower simply isn’t enough — especially for boats that are dragging big nets behind them.

Persuading fishermen to toe the line could be crucial to the nascent industry’s survival. Construction was about to begin on what would have been the first major offshore wind farm in the US until Interior Secretary David Bernhardt dragged out the permitting in August. Bernhardt ostensibly wants a study of the cumulative impact from all the wind farms in the pipeline, before allowing the first one to proceed.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

US harvesters cold on wind farm industry’s proposed turbine standards

November 20, 2019 — A group of wind farming companies with hopes of building soon off the North Atlantic coast of the United States released on Tuesday their proposal to the US Coast Guard (USCG) for how to consistently position turbines across the region in a way that they believe will satisfy safety concerns raised by commercial fish and shellfish harvesters.

The proposal includes requiring a minimum of one nautical mile (1.2 miles) between each turbine and an east to west configuration, just as harvesters earlier asked.

However, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), a group of 160 commercial harvesters and processors with vessels spread across nine states and operating in about 30 different fisheries, said on Tuesday morning that it would rather wait on the results of a scientific study from the USCG — expected soon — before accepting the wind industry’s plan.

And the Fisheries Survival fund, a group that represents Atlantic scallop harvesters, has flat out rejected the wind industry’s proposal, saying it doesn’t meet their needs.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

NOAA Wants More Cameras On Fishing Vessels And Fewer Biologists

November 19, 2019 — John Hankins owns the boat “Courageous,” which he sails out of Warrenton on the northern Oregon coast. He had a smile after returning from 25 days fishing for albacore.

“I’m full,” he said. “Both tanks!”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration didn’t assign a fisheries observer to his boat this trip. But he said, it happens fairly regularly.

“They’re usually not a problem for us. They’re measuring fish, they’re getting stats on the fish,” Hankins said.

Fisheries observers are biologists tasked with monitoring commercial fisheries to collect data for conservation and stock management. They also make sure boats are in compliance with certain rules, such as having required safety equipment on board.

“We had one on the boat one time that was a real pain, because they didn’t like us talking negatively about whales,” Hankins said. “And he got all bent out of shape for it. Other than that, we never have a problem with the observers.”

But, he said, most of the time, the observer is just another person on board, with a job to do.

Read the full story at OPB

First Public Meeting For Offshore Wind Task Force Will Take Place In N.H.

November 19, 2019 — New Hampshire will host the kick-off meeting of a federal offshore wind task force for the Gulf of Maine. The meeting is set for Dec. 12 at the University of New Hampshire.

It will be open to the public, with time for public input.

The task force will include state, local and tribal government officials from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine, and from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

Rebound in Groundfish Leads to New Flexibility for Fishermen, Protection for Deep-Sea Corals

November 19, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Sweeping changes in West Coast groundfish fisheries adopted this week will reopen access for fishermen to productive fishing grounds where fish populations have rebounded. These changes will also protect sensitive deep-water habitat and deep-sea corals from bottom fishing.

The changes come in the form of an amendment to the Fishery Management Plan for groundfish off the West Coast. The Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) recommended the amendment to NOAA Fisheries, which finalized it this week. The new provisions take effect January 1, 2020, and are widely supported by fishermen and other stakeholders.

The changes affect what is known as Essential Fish Habitat, or EFH, the habitat necessary to support sustainable fisheries. By law, the Council must minimize effects on EFH, and in 2005 did so for groundfish habitat. It established area closures that limited bottom trawling and other types of gear that contact the sea floor.

A review of the latest science and fishing results led the Council to increase protections for EFH in some places. It also reopened some important fishing areas that had been closed.

Read the full release here

Bottom-trawling fishing severely restricted off West Coast starting in January

November 19, 2019 — The most extensive ban on bottom trawling — dragging weighted nets on the sea floor — became law Tuesday after fishing groups and environmentalists agreed to protect more than 140,000 square miles of seafloor habitat along the West Coast, including beds of lush coral around the Farallon Islands.

The new regulations, which will take effect Jan. 1 after being published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, will restrict fishing over 90% of the seafloor along the coast from Canada to Mexico, the largest contiguous area protected from bottom trawling in the world.

At the same time, about 3,000 square miles of sandy seafloor previously closed to fishing under the 2002 Rockfish Conservation Area rules were reopened after it was determined that rockfish populations had recovered in those areas.

“It’s monumental,” said Geoffrey Shester, the senior scientist for the conservation group Oceana, which has fought for years to limit bottom trawling, long considered the most damaging method of fishing in the ocean. “It puts the West Coast at the top of the barrel for global leadership in protecting our seafloor.”

Read the full story at the San Fransisco Chronicle

New England fishing groups object to latest offshore wind layout proposal

November 19, 2019 — Groups representing New England fisheries are objecting to a recently released proposal regarding the future spacing of offshore wind turbines.

Five companies that hold leases for offshore wind projects in New England – Equinor, Mayflower Wind, Ørsted/Eversource, and Vineyard Wind – released a joint statement calling for a uniform layout of the wind turbines. The companies are calling for a 1 nautical mile spacing, arranged in east-west rows and north-south columns.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US fisheries rebuff offshore wind’s project layout rethink

November 19, 2019 — The five developers advancing offshore wind farms off the northeast US – Equinor, Mayflower Wind, Orsted/Eversource and Vineyard Wind – have put forward a proposal to the country’s US Coast Guard (USCG) to use a uniform turbine layout for the projects, in a bid to defuse ongoing objections from the regional fishery industries.

The New England Offshore Wind Leaseholders (NEOWL), advancing more than 7GW between them, said the layout would have rows of turbines spaced one nautical mile apart, and align to the USCG’s requirement for “robust navigational safety and search and rescue capability by providing hundreds of transit corridors to accommodate the region’s vessel traffic”.

“This uniform layout is consistent with the requests of the region’s fisheries industry and other maritime users,” said the NEOWL in a joint statement. The proposed layout specifies that turbines will be spaced one nautical mile apart, arranged in east-west rows and north-south columns, with the rows and columns continuous across all New England lease areas.

Read the full story at ReCharge News

Flood Prediction Helps People and Fish

November 18, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

In the last 50 years, as the northeast has gotten significantly rainier, flood prediction has become increasingly important. In addition to helping the public, town planners, and emergency responders, understanding flooding is also important for fishway operators and fisheries managers. Floods can affect the timing of fish migrations. For example, as spring rains swell rivers, some sea-run fish swim upstream—sometimes for many miles—to spawn. American eels are known to migrate to the ocean during fall floods. Knowing what’s coming can help biologists and dam operators work together to create the best conditions for migration at dams and fishways.

While some watersheds flood quickly when it rains, others have natural or human-built storage. Reservoirs behind dams, as well as naturally occurring ponds and wetlands, can reduce flooding by delaying runoff into streams and rivers. Knowing which kinds of rain events will lead to flooding in particular river systems is key for communities in the watershed.

A Tale of Two Rivers: The Mystic and the Charles

The Mystic River watershed is a relatively small urbanized basin north of Boston, home to more than 20 communities. The Charles River drains an area approximately four times larger than the Mystic River watershed. It contains 23 Boston-area communities, including some to the west and southwest of the city.

In a recent study, researchers found that almost 90 percent of Mystic River flooding is immediately preceded by one to two days of large rainfall. In contrast, only about half the flooding events for the Charles are preceded by large rainfalls.

The researchers considered whether other factors besides large rainfalls could be associated with Charles River flooding. They found that flooding tends to happen when the watershed is “primed” for maximum streamflow. For example, if rainfall, soil moisture, and snowmelt increase for a month, the Charles watershed is more likely to flood. Since the Charles watershed contains more upstream storage, it is less likely than the Mystic to flood because of large rainfalls alone.

Read the rest of the story on our website or read the paper on which the story is based.