Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: Federal government will auction off another offshore wind site in Virginia

July 1, 2024 — The 176,000-acre lease area is located directly east of where Dominion Energy is already building the nation’s largest offshore wind farm.

The federal government announced Friday that it will soon auction off two more offshore wind energy leases in the central Atlantic Ocean — including one off the coast of Virginia just east of Dominion Energy’s wind farm already under construction.

The Biden administration said in a news release that the auction on August 14 is part of its effort to fight climate change by expanding access to renewable energy sources. Under the current administration, the Interior Department has approved eight commercial-scale wind energy projects in federal waters.

The upcoming auction includes a 101,443-acre area about 26 miles off the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware.

Read the full article at WHRO

Green sand threatens Biden’s offshore wind ambition

June 25, 2024 — A green mineral scattered along the Atlantic Ocean’s seafloor is the latest hurdle for President Joe Biden’s plan to jump-start the offshore wind industry.

Glauconite is sediment that resembles the green sand in a fish tank. But if pounded by pile drivers, it shatters to form a claylike layer.

Monopiles — hollow steel tubes driven deep into the seafloor to support turbine towers — often cannot be hammered through the thick paste, cutting off the cheapest and most widely preferred foundation for the first U.S. offshore wind farms.

“It’s almost like magic what happens when the monopile is driven through it,” said George Hagerman, an offshore wind expert at the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “It all of a sudden becomes very, very, sticky, almost like plaster.”

Identified in several offshore wind lease areas in the north Atlantic, the mineral poses a growing hazard to offshore wind projects that already face high costs and razor thin margins. At least four wind lease areas off the coast of New England and New York — Beacon Wind, Empire Wind, New England Wind and Sunrise Wind — have all have grappled with glauconite.

Read the full article at E&E News

US acknowledges Northwest dams have devastated the region’s Native tribes

June 19, 2024 — The U.S. government on Tuesday acknowledged, for the first time, the harmful role it has played over the past century in building and operating dams in the Pacific Northwest — dams that devastated Native American tribes by inundating their villages and decimating salmon runs while bringing electricity, irrigation and jobs to nearby communities.

In a new report, the Biden administration said those cultural, spiritual and economic detriments continue to pain the tribes, which consider salmon part of their cultural and spiritual identity, as well as a crucial food source.

The government downplayed or accepted the well-known risk to the fish in its drive for industrial development, converting the wealth of the tribes into the wealth of non-Native people, according to the report.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

White House announces US strategies for sustainable ocean management

June 8,2024 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has issued a trio of new federal strategies for sustainable ocean development.

“President Biden has been leading the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history while accelerating locally led conservation efforts, creating good-paying jobs, and enhancing coastal community resilience to the effects of climate change,” White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory said. “The reports announced help us better understand how to achieve our shared conservation and ecosystem restoration goals and integrate climate action and environmental justice into a sustainable ocean economy.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Biden releases management plan for Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

June 5, 2024 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has released its final management plan for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

“I applaud the release of the final management plan, a critical and giant stride by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] and NOAA to realizing the potential for stewarding our interactions with, teaching about, and studying the inner workings of this ocean wilderness,” Mystic Aquarium Senior Research Scientist Peter Auster said in a statement.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Biden-Harris Administration invests $2.1 million for measuring surface ocean carbon through the Investing in America agenda

June 2, 2024 — Today, the Department of Commerce and NOAA announced the award of $2.1 million to support surface ocean and atmospheric carbon observations and monitoring through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. These funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will allow NOAA to expand a global network of sensors to track carbon dioxide in the ocean. They will also serve to improve the understanding and forecasting of global climatic and environmental changes.

“Thanks to President Biden’s historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this investment of over $2 million will help NOAA continue leading the way on the vital work to observe and forecast the impacts of climate change globally,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “It will also create innovative partnerships with private companies to improve carbon emissions tracking and strengthen the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations.”

Monitoring changes in surface ocean and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is key to understanding the impact of human-caused emissions on climate change and ocean health. The ocean naturally absorbs approximately a quarter of carbon dioxide released by fossil fuel burning and other human activities. This natural absorption reduces the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that remain in the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. However, the increase of concentration of CO2 in the ocean can also have negative implications for the broader marine ecosystems, notably ocean acidification.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Federal judge rejects request to halt Dominion’s Virginia Beach offshore wind farm

May 29, 2024 — A federal judge has denied a request from a coalition of conservative interest groups that sought to halt construction of Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm in Virginia Beach.

The groups sued the Biden administration earlier this year, arguing federal agencies ignored threats to endangered whales when approving the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

The suit will still move forward this fall, but the decision issued last week denied plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to stop construction while the lawsuit is decided.

U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan said there wasn’t enough proof that plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm from construction on the project moving forward.

“Plaintiffs fail to take into account the extensive measures already in place to minimize potential harm to the (North Atlantic) Right Whale during construction,” AliKhan wrote. They “have not explained why these measures would not be sufficient.”

Read the full article at WHRO

Biden awards USD 20 million for regional fishery management council projects

May 29, 2024 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has awarded USD 20 million (EUR 19 million) in Inflation Reduction Act funding to regional fishery management councils around the country as part of its ongoing Investing in America agenda.

“Regional fishery management councils are some of NOAA’s most critical partners that help develop conservation and management measures for our nation’s marine fisheries,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said. “This USD 20 million investment, made possible thanks to President Biden’s historic Inflation Reduction Act, will support councils in their important work to incorporate fishery management measures and processes necessary to improve climate resiliency and responsiveness as we tackle the impacts of climate change.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Biden administration advances bid to list Gulf of Alaska king salmon as endangered or threatened

May 26, 2024 — The Biden administration says that listing numerous Alaska king salmon populations under the Endangered Species Act could be warranted, and it now plans to launch a broader scientific study to follow its preliminary review.

Citing the species’ diminished size at adulthood and spawning numbers below sustainable targets set by state managers, the National Marine Fisheries Service announced its initial conclusion early Thursday in a 14-page federal notice.

It said a January 2024 listing request from a Washington state-based conservation group had met the legal criteria to advance the agency’s examination of Gulf of Alaska king salmon populations to the next stage, which is a rigorous scientific review expected to take at least nine months.

Endangered Species Act experts said the initial hurdle is typically an easy one for advocacy groups to clear, while the second stage can take much longer — with the courts often brought in to settle disputes over delays and scientific conclusions.

“The review really starts in earnest now,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group that isn’t involved in the king salmon proposal but frequently petitions and litigates for protections for other species. The preliminary decision, he added, is “part of the process, but the initial finding in no way predetermines an outcome.”

The listing petition was submitted by the Wild Fish Conservancy, which has previously filed Endangered Species Act lawsuits to protect other populations of Alaska and Washington salmon and steelhead.

The group’s previous efforts threatened to close down a longstanding small-boat king salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska and drew broad condemnation from fishermen, state wildlife managers and even conservation groups.

Read the full article at Northern Journal

MAINE: Maine to spend $25 million to rebuild waterfront after devastating winter storms and flooding

May 14, 2024 — Maine’s government will spend tens of millions of dollars to rebuild the state’s working waterfront communities after a series of devastating winter storms pummeled the state’s docks, wharves and coastal businesses.

The back-to-back storms hammered the Northeast in January and hit Maine and New Hampshire especially hard, bringing flooding and heavy damage to dozens of businesses. State officials in Maine said the storms, which were later declared a “major disaster” by President Joe Biden, caused about $70 million in damage in the state.

Applications for funding are now available to repair and rebuild working waterfront areas damaged by the storms, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said Thursday. The $25 million being made available is part of a $60 million rebuilding package approved by the Maine Legislature for storm rebuilding, Mills said.

Read the full article at the Associated Press