Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Money and Sand: Will There Be Enough for New Jersey’s Beaches?

September 29, 2016 — Beach replenishment is costly and exacts a heavy toll on the environment, depleting underwater ridges that are home to a broad variety of sea life

Even before hurricane Hermine threatened to strip New Jersey’s beaches yet again late last summer, skeptics questioned how the state and Army Corps of Engineers can commit to spending nearly $2 billion in beach replenishment through the mid 21st century.

“This project is another important component of the Christie administration’s plan to bring engineered beaches and dunes to the entire coast,” state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said September 2, as he announced work would start soon on a new project, pumping another 3.8 million cubic yards of sand from the sea floor onto eight miles of beach from Atlantic City to Longport.

Mercifully, Hermine headed farther east over the Atlantic Ocean, sparing New Jersey’s beach replenishment program another price increase.

But the question of whether the program is misguided, due to its high price on both the taxpayers and the environment remains. It will need continual rejuvenation as even the best-engineered beaches lose sand frequently regardless of storms.

As sand becomes increasingly valuable, fisherman expect underwater ridges to be depleted, despite being home to large schools of fish and other sea life. And with an expected sea-level rise, there’s no telling how the ecosystem will adjust or how much sand will be required. The only certainty is that local underwater sand hills will be exhausted before century’s end.

Read the full story at NJ Spotlight

NEW JERSEY: Fishermen’s Energy Ocean Wind Project Tries Again for Governor’s Approval

March 24, 2016 — Fishermen’s Energy, a consortium of South Jersey commercial fisheries that formed a wind power company in order to influence where such farms on the ocean can locate – away from important fishing and ocean scalloping grounds – has sought for six years to set up a demonstration wind farm 2.8 nautical miles off Atlantic City. Its plan for six wind turbines, producing 24 megawatts of electricity, has the backing of the New Jersey Legislature, environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the federal Department of Energy, and it obtained permits from state and local entities.

The only roadblock has been the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. The BPU must issue a wind renewable energy certificate, a funding mechanism for the proposed project, before the small wind farm can move forward. The BPU has said in the past that the project would be too costly for ratepayers to support. Fishermen’s Energy has always denied that claim, stating the BPU had come to a faulty conclusion through faulty mathematics.

After a 2015 bill that would have given Fishermen’s Energy Wind Project an expedited pass through the BPU was pocket-vetoed by Gov. Chris Christie, the Legislature recently passed a revised bill that now awaits the governor’s signature.

The revised Senate bill, S-988, passed the Senate, 23-11, in February. The concurrent bill A-3093 was passed by the Assembly on March 14.

The Senate bill was sponsored by Sen. Jim Whelan, with the concurrent bill sponsored by Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, both of Atlantic County. The revised bill eliminated language that directed the BPU to grant the required permit, and it deleted some language in the previous Assembly bill that would have eliminated a cost-benefit analysis. The cost-benefit analysis has been the bone of contention between the BPU and Fishermen’s Energy for the past two years.

Paul Gallagher, Fishermen’s Energy’s chief operating officer and general counsel, said he has no fears of such an analysis by the BPU now that certain qualifications have changed.

A company from China was originally going to supply the turbines, but now Fishermen’s Energy has decided to purchase turbines from Siemens, the world’s leader in wind turbine technology, with ocean turbines built in Germany and Denmark. On Tuesday, Gallagher said, “In December, Congress passed a five-year extension of the tax benefit project that makes it easier to attract investors. So we have a newly configured project, using Siemens turbines made in Germany and Denmark, traditional Western financing, plus tax incentives to make it even a more cost-effective project then what was rejected before” by the BPU.

“The bill is a relatively benign bill. It tells the BPU to let us come in and submit again. It’s on the governor’s desk, and we hope he signs it.”

Read the full story at The Sand Paper