Saving Seafood

U.S. sets plans to protect endangered whales near offshore wind farms; firms swap wind leases

January 26, 2024 — Two federal environmental agencies issued plans Thursday to better protect endangered whales amid offshore wind farm development.

That move came as two offshore wind developers announced they were swapping projects.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released final plans to protect endangered North American right whales, of which there are only about 360 left in the world.

The agencies said they are trying to find ways to better protect the whales amid a surge of offshore wind farm projects, particularly on the U.S. East Coast. They plan to look for ways to mitigate any potential adverse impacts of offshore wind projects on the whales and their habitat.

The strategy will use artificial intelligence and passive acoustic monitoring to determine where the whales are at a given time and to monitor the impacts of wind development on the animals.

It also calls for avoiding the granting of offshore wind leases in areas where major impacts to right whales may occur; establishing noise limits during construction; supporting research to develop new harm minimization technologies; and making it a priority to develop quieter technology and operating methods for offshore wind development.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

BOEM Seeks Public Comment on Draft Environmental Analysis of Central Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Areas

January 11, 2024 — The following was released by BOEM:

In another step by the Biden-Harris administration to support the growing momentum across America for a clean energy economy, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) today announced the availability of its draft environmental review of wind energy areas offshore the U.S. Central Atlantic region. 

BOEM’s Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) considers potential environmental consequences of site characterization activities (e.g., geophysical, geological, and archaeological surveys) and site assessment activities (e.g., installation of meteorological buoys) associated with issuing wind energy leases in the Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) offshore Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The Draft EA also considers project easements and grants associated with each potential lease, including subsea cable corridors. The public comment period for the draft EA runs through Feb. 12, 2024

Glauconite forcing changes to wind farms off East Coast

December 24, 2023 — Glauconite, a tricky green mineral, has complicated another offshore wind project along the East Coast. Its presence will likely force wind developer Ørsted to build fewer turbines in its Sunrise Wind project south of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Sunrise Wind may be capped at 80 to 87 turbines, instead of as many as 94, according to the project’s final environmental impact report, released last week. Ørsted cites “glauconite feasibility issues” with installing turbine foundations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s report.

The Sunrise Wind project, about 40 miles south of New Bedford, will connect to the New York power grid. It’s the second confirmed offshore wind project along the East Coast that has rejected proposed turbine layouts due to the presence of glauconite. Empire Wind, off Long Island, has also had to do so, The Light reported in October.

BOEM, the U.S. ocean energy bureau, appears to be taking steps to address glauconite’s challenge to offshore wind development, its report last week signals.

“BOEM is developing further guidelines for developers to avoid these issues in the future,” read an agency response to a comment on the Sunrise Wind project. The comment was critical of the later timing of geological surveys, which can identify whether glauconite is present and might create an issue with certain turbine layouts.

BOEM did not provide a response to emailed questions on the agency’s comment about developing guidelines to avoid further issues.

The NOAA Fisheries Atlantic office, which cooperates with BOEM in reviewing projects, has also expressed concern with geological surveys occurring “late in the process.” In the case of Sunrise Wind, the fisheries agency said the timing reduced the government’s options for avoiding or minimizing impacts on marine resources.

Glauconite’s presence caused BOEM to reject a proposed wind turbine layout, preferred by NOAA Fisheries, that would have excluded Sunrise Wind’s turbines from a key area of Atlantic cod spawning habitat.

In response to a request for comment, a Sunrise Wind spokesperson said by email, “Impacts due to glauconite are not expected to affect this project.”

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Wind farms will be 15 miles away. But Preservation Society says they will spoil their ‘viewshed’ | Opinion

December 19, 2023 — Bill Fitzgerald lives in Newport.

I read that the Preservation Society of Newport County is filing a lawsuit to stop or alter the wind farm being developed 15 miles out to sea. I was a little dumbfounded. How is this going to help them? Perception is everything in the tourism business and it makes the Preservation Society look like a NIMBY poster child for the fossil fuel industry.

I guess that is what the rich and powerful do if they don’t like something.

In the complaint, the Preservation Society argued that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management improperly approved the wind farms that will damage historic resources in the City of Newport, which is heavily dependent on heritage tourism. Federal law, it claimed, “makes clear that the ‘viewsheds’ of historic resources are as important as bricks and mortar. These appeals seek to preserve historic and pristine views from industrial-scale development.”

Read the full article at the Providence Journal

BOEM intends to lease more wind farm area off Delaware coast

December 18, 2023 — The U.S. Department of the Interior recently announced a proposal of another offshore wind lease sale, this time in ocean waters about 26 nautical miles from Delaware Bay.

“We are taking action to jumpstart America’s offshore wind industry and using American innovation to deliver reliable, affordable power to homes and businesses, while also addressing the climate crisis,” said Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a prepared statement.

According to the announcement, the new areas have the potential to power more than 2.2 million homes with clean energy.

Read the full article at the Cape Gazette 

 

Environmentalists Face Off Against Environmentalists Over Offshore Wind Projects

December 2, 2023 — Offshore wind turbines are pitting environmentalists against environmentalists—threatening to impede progress toward an ambitious U.S. goal for such projects.

The Energy Department estimates offshore wind turbines could produce as much as 20% of regional power needs along the densely populated Eastern Seaboard from Florida to Maine by 2050.

To reach that goal, the Biden administration had hoped to green-light 30 gigawatts from utility-scale offshore wind farms by 2030—enough to power nine million homes. That now seems wildly ambitious, as billions of dollars in projects have been canceled amid staggering cost overruns, soaring interest rates and supply-chain delays.

Added to these economic woes are persistent environmental concerns, as attested to by some recent federal lawsuits. In September, for example, Cape May County, N.J., and a coalition of regional environmental, fisheries and tourism groups sought to stop development of two utility-scale projects off the New Jersey coast.

Read the full story at the the Wall Street Journal

MAINE: Maine leaders urge federal government to ban offshore wind in fishing area

November 20, 2023 — Maine leaders are urging federal energy regulators not to pursue offshore wind projects in fertile fishing grounds off the state’s coastline.

In a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gov. Janet Mills and the state’s congressional delegation members call on the agency to remove a section of state waters — included in the so-called Lobster Management Area 1 — from the federal government’s plans to develop offshore wind.

“Given the importance of these fishing grounds to Maine’s fishing industry, the significant feedback that your agency has already received, and the recently passed Maine law that disincentivizes development in LMA 1, it is clear these areas are inappropriate for inclusion in the final Wind Energy Area,” they wrote.

Read the full article at the Center Square

Could wind turbines affect right whales’ food source? More study needed, says new report

November 16, 2023 — More research is needed to determine whether offshore wind turbines will affect North Atlantic right whales’ food source around the Nantucket Shoals, scientists have concluded in a new report. And it may be challenging to divorce those impacts from those brought by climate change.

Right whales, a critically endangered species, are using the shoals, an area of shallow waters, for breeding and feeding. The shoals lie east of several planned offshore wind projects. Last year, federal scientists expressed concern that wind projects could disrupt right whales’ food supply: dense collections of tiny organisms, called zooplankton.

In response, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the lead agency on offshore wind development, convened an independent committee in April to evaluate what impacts wind turbines might have on the shoals and the whales’ prey.

However, due to knowledge gaps and a lack of research on this side of the Atlantic, the answers remain elusive.

“The studies available about the effects and implications of wind farms on local ecosystems are not sufficient to say with absolute certainty whether the turbines would have effects,” said committee chair Eileen Hofmann, a professor at Old Dominion University and chair of the scientific committee, which worked under the National Academies of Sciences.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Offshore wind power impact on right whales uncertain, says National Academies study

November 13, 2023 — Wind energy projects under construction off southern New England could have effects on the endangered North Atlantic right whale and ocean ecosystem in the Nantucket Shoals region. But it is difficult to determine how those impacts are different from ongoing climate change and other ecosystem trends, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

“The report recommends further study and monitoring of the oceanography and ecology of the Nantucket Shoals region to fully understand the impact of future wind farms,” according to a summary from the academies.

Right whales have increased their use of Nantucket Shoals waters in recent years, and some scientists have recommended setting buffer areas around wind energy development areas to ensure future turbine operations don’t alter the local ocean ecosystem.

The National Academies study was commissioned by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to address those concerns. The resulting 106-page paper released Oct. 13 concludes that much more detailed study and modeling is required to predict how operating massive wind turbines may change wind and water currents, and food available for whales.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Fishing industry in ‘fight of our lives’ over offshore wind

November 10, 2023 — The drive to develop U.S. offshore wind industry is growing along the West Coast, and fishermen should pay close attention to the political and legal battles already ongoing in the Atlantic states, a panel of experienced activists said at the Pacific Marine Expo Thursday in Seattle.

“I’ve been fighting offshore wind since 2003,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association. In those early years, the first proposed projects “died because of the cost,” she said.

Today, “there are a multitude of projects going on,” Brady said, as a screen flashed map graphics showing about 30 proposed wind turbine developments from the Gulf of Maine to the Carolinas, and now more off California and Oregon.

California fishermen were later observers to what is now a concerted push by federal and state governments, but now they too are alarmed, said Jeremiah O’Brien, vice president of the Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Association.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman