Saving Seafood

Massachusetts: Fed’s offshore oil plan raises local concerns

January 12, 2018 — The possibility of having an offshore oil rig a handful of miles from Cape beaches is drawing concern from elected officials and preservation groups.

The Trump administration at the turn of the new year released its draft proposal that would enable energy companies to lease large swaths of ocean and drill for oil and gas in federal waters off both coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Federal waters typically begin three miles from shore.

“Reckless does not begin to describe the Trump Administration’s decision to expand offshore oil and gas drilling coast-to-coast. This unprecedented move ignores concerns expressed by military leaders and the deep and widespread bipartisan opposition voiced by municipal and state representatives,” Rep. William Keating (D-Ninth Congressional District) said in a Jan. 5 statement.

“Allowing this drilling threatens the safety of our waterfront communities, the health of our oceans, and the future of our climate – not to mention the havoc it could wreak on the local economies of coastal communities, like those across New England, who count on fresh fish and clean beaches for their seafood and tourism industries,” he added.

The five-year plan is detailed in a document titled “2019-2024 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program, and is online at boem.gov.

The proposal, a few hundred pages long and broken into geographic territories, shows Massachusetts in the northern Atlantic section. The draft proposes two leases in the north Atlantic.

Read the full story at the Wellfleet Wicked Local

 

Massachusetts: The final blow for Cape Wind

December 4, 2017 — The proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm is no longer.

After more than 16 years, tens of millions of dollars spent and seemingly endless, at times deafening, debate, the announcement Friday that Cape Wind is officially dead came quietly by email.

“Cape Wind has confirmed to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that it has ceased development of its proposed offshore wind farm project in Nantucket Sound and has filed to terminate its offshore wind development lease that was issued in 2010,” according to a statement sent to the Times by Cape Wind vice president Dennis Duffy.

The project first proposed in 2001 and reviewed by dozens of local, state and federal agencies succumbed not under the weight of pressure from opponents or failure to clear any particular regulatory hurdle but rather from a combination of time and financial constraints that tightened and loosened over many years before constricting for good when utilities killed the contracts to buy power from the project’s 130 wind turbines in early January 2015.

Even after losing customers for its power, however, Cape Wind Associates LLC continued to shell out $88,278 to pay for a lease secured in 2010 covering 46 square miles of federal waters in the middle of the sound. That amount was a drop in the bucket compared to the more than $100 million the company had already spent on the project but whether it was what finally tipped the scales is unclear.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

It’s Over: Cape Wind Ends Controversial Project

December 4, 2017 — Cape Wind Associates announced today that it has ceased the development of its proposed offshore wind farm and is surrendering its federal lease for 46 square miles in Nantucket Sound, officially putting an end to a 16-year effort to build the controversial project.

“Cape Wind has confirmed to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that it has ceased development of its proposed offshore wind farm project in Nantucket Sound and has filed to terminate its offshore wind development lease that was issued in 2010,” according to a statement emailed to the Times by Cape Wind vice president Dennis Duffy.

The project was dealt a major setback in January 2015, when Eversource and National Grid ended those contracts to buy power from the turbines, and again in 2016 when the state Energy Facilities Siting Board declined to extend permits for the project that had originally been issued in 2009.

Opponents had argued the project was a danger to navigation, marine life, birds and the local economy. Proponents argued it was necessary to help combat climate change, would create jobs and would launch the country’s offshore wind energy industry.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

Appeal filed objecting to continued lease of Sound to Cape Wind

November 30, 2017 — The Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) are among those who have appealed a federal decision that reaffirmed Cape Wind’s long-term lease on 46 miles of Nantucket Sound, according to a press release.

The lease was reaffirmed in September despite the objections of dozens of stakeholders, including state and local leaders, the Aquinnah tribe, and the Steamship Authority, who all wrote letters to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management objecting to the ongoing lease. Cape Wind had proposed 130 wind turbines for Nantucket Sound, but the project has been stalled by legal challenges, and utilities have walked away from power purchase plans.

Read the full story at the Martha’s Vineyard Times