Saving Seafood

Environmental review puts Revolution Wind on the verge of federal approval

July 18, 2023 — A 4,928-page federal environmental review published Monday identifies the commercial fishing industry as a major stakeholder that would be affected by the construction of the proposed Revolution Wind offshore wind farm.

The report by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management states that, on average, about 290 commercial fishing boats visit the site of the proposed project each year, catching about $1 million worth of seafood there. By revenue, the area’s most lucrative species are lobsters, scallops, monkfish and squid. By poundage, the most prevalent species are skates and herring.

The proposed path of the undersea electric cable that would deliver power onshore could also impact fishermen on a smaller scale, according to the environmental review. The statement estimates about $360,000 of seafood is caught annually by commercial fishermen along the cable’s path.

In a press release announcing the release of the report, BOEM said it plans to issue a final decision on whether to approve Revolution Wind this summer.

Connecticut and Rhode Island have already inked power purchase agreements with the project’s developer, Orsted, a multinational energy company headquartered in Denmark. Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee called the completion of Revolution Wind’s environmental review a “major milestone” that brings the state closer to achieving its clean energy goals.

Read the full article at The Publics Radio

BOEM Completes Environmental Analysis for Fourth U.S. Offshore Wind Farm

July 18, 2023 — The United States is accelerating its offshore wind development with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) reporting it has completed its environmental analysis for the next offshore wind farm, coming less than two weeks after it published the Record of Decision for another wind farm.

The proposed Revolution Wind Farm Project to be located offshore Rhode Island would become the fourth, large-scale, commercial wind farm approved in the United States. Proposed by a partnership of Ørsted and Eversource, the plan for Revolution Wind calls for constructing an offshore wind energy project of up to 100 wind turbines, capable of generating up to 880 megawatts. It will be located approximately 15 nautical miles southeast of Point Judith, Rhode Island.

“This milestone represents another important step forward in building a new clean energy economy here in the United States,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. The process, she noted was informed by feedback from industry, ocean users, communities, Tribal Nations, and other stakeholders.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Budding U.S. offshore wind industry facing rough seas

July 17, 2023 — Just as the U.S. is plunging into the deep end of offshore wind energy development, the nascent domestic industry is facing major supply chain problems, surging costs, permitting delays, and other headwinds that could affect the aggressive installation timelines state and federal governments have targeted.

Those obstacles, chiefly triggered by the pandemic, inflation, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, should prompt states to more closely collaborate on workforce development, transmission planning, building a domestic supply chain, and other areas where they can work together to help keep costs down, said several panelists at an industry conference in Boston this week.

“It’s challenging,” said Tristan Grimbert, president and CEO of EDF Renewables, which is part of a joint venture with Shell New Energies to develop an offshore wind lease area off the coast of New Jersey. “It requires a lot of things to go right. It does create some costs because you have to build a supply chain from zero. … It’s a pretty ambitious thing that the U.S. is doing. Five years ago there was no offshore at all. Now you’re talking about dozens of projects that are ongoing.”

Read the full article at the New Hampshire Bulletin 

NOAA scientists say offshore wind fishery surveys won’t fill data gaps

July 11, 2023 — Monitoring plans by federal agencies and offshore wind power developers will not be enough to make up for the disruption that building dozens to hundreds of wind turbines will bring to annual fisheries surveys on the Northeast U.S. continental shelf, according to a recent report by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists.

“We found that project-level monitoring studies as currently designed for the NES (Northeast continental shelf) ecosystem will not yield information that can mitigate impacts to NOAA Fisheries scientific survey time series from offshore wind development,” wrote authors Elizabeth T. Methratta, Andrew Lipsky and Jason M. Boucher of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

With three wind turbine projects now approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management – and more in various planning stages from southern New England to the Carolinas – BOEM and NOAA recognized early that constructing wind turbine arrays would force changes on how NOAA conducts its annual at-sea surveys to monitor U.S. fish stocks and other marine resources.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

BOEM approves Ocean Wind 1 construction plan off New Jersey

July 6, 2023 — Ørsted’s 1,100-megawatt Ocean Wind 1 project off New Jersey won approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Wednesday, days after state legislators racing a budget clock approved channeling additional tax credits to the developer.

BOEM’s sign-off on the Ocean Wind 1 construction and operations plan marks the third approval of a commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project in the United States, following on the Vineyard Wind project off southern Massachusetts and the South Fork Wind project, south of Rhode Island and east of Montauk on the east end of New York’s Long Island.

Ørsted’s New Jersey project will be a first for that state and is a centerpiece for Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration plans for expanding renewable energy sources. Republican state lawmakers have been increasingly opposed amid stiff resistance from their constituents in coastal communities and critics’ warnings that offshore wind will increase consumers’ power costs.

The federal approval came days after the New Jersey state Legislature, under the gun to complete state budget votes by day’s end on June 30, approved bills that will allow Ørsted to use federal tax credits to bolster financing for the project.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: US gives go-ahead for Orsted’s New Jersey offshore wind farm to start construction

July 6, 2023 — The federal government gave the go-ahead Wednesday for New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm to begin construction, clearing the way for the first of at least three — and likely many more — such projects in a state trying to become the East Coast leader in wind energy.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved a construction and operations plan for Ocean Wind I, a wind farm to be built by Danish wind energy company Orsted between 13 and 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. The wind farm would power 500,000 homes.

Additional approvals from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency still must be obtained, which Orsted estimates will happen by the second quarter of 2024.

Read the full article at WSB-TV

Biden admin approves massive wind farm amid rising whale death toll

July 6, 2023 — The Biden administration is green-lighting a massive offshore wind farm off the coast of southern New Jersey despite calls for a pause on such development amid a spate of marine mammal deaths along the Atlantic Coast.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced Wednesday that it is approving the construction and operations plan for Ocean Wind 1, a 1,100-megawatt project that will be located 15 miles off the New Jersey coast, power 380,000 homes and enter commercial operations in 2025. The project will be made up of 98 wind turbines spread across a 68,450-acre lease area.

“Since Day One, the Biden-Harris administration has worked to jump-start the offshore wind industry across the country – and today’s approval for the Ocean Wind 1 project is another milestone in our efforts to create good-paying union jobs while combatting climate change and powering our nation,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

Read the full article at Fox News

U.S. reviewing proposal for 2.4GW wind farm off the Massachusetts coast

July 1, 2023 — A proposed wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts with a potential to meet the energy demands of 850,000 homes is under an environmental review, the U.S. government said Thursday.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced the review process was under way for the 2.4 gigawatt facility proposed by Beacon Wind.

BOEM is advancing the Administration’s ambitious energy goals while remaining diligent in our efforts to avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts to ocean users and the marine environment,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein.

The Energy Department released a plan in March to meet President Joe Biden‘s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore energy by 2030, which would power 10 million homes.

Read the full article at UPI

BOEM Commences Regulatory Review of Eleventh Offshore Wind Farm Plan

Jul 1, 2023 — U.S. regulatory announced today that they are commencing the review of the eleventh offshore wind farm plan as efforts continue toward the goal of deploying 30 GW offshore wind energy capacity by 2030. The process is expected to run for about a year and could lead to a two-phase project that could produce a total of 2,430 megawatts of wind energy powering over 850,000 homes.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is starting the next phase in the process for Beacon Wind, which is being developed in a joint venture between Equinor and BP. This review comes as the first two commercial-scale offshore wind farms planned for the United States also started building their offshore assets. The U.S. is expected to have its first large commercial wind farms operating by the end of 2023.

“BOEM is advancing the administration’s ambitious energy goals while remaining diligent in our efforts to avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts to ocean users and the marine environment,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. She notes that the environmental review process seeks input from government partners, the fishing community, and other ocean users and includes public comments.

The Beacon Wind lease area is approximately 17 nautical miles south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and approximately 52 nautical miles east of Montauk, New York. The unique position means that the wind farm has the capabilities when completed to provide power to multiple locations in the Northeast United States. The current plan calls for the installation of up to 155 turbines, up to two offshore substation platforms, and up to two offshore export cables. They would make landfall in Astoria, in Queen County New York, and Waterford, Connecticut.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Fishing, tourism dominate at Atlantic Shores public hearing

June 27, 2023 — Potential impacts on fishing, property values and tourism loomed large among critics of the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project during a virtual public hearing held by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The online proceedings during more than five hours Monday pitted those views against project supporters, who focused on climate change and how it will affect the densely populated New Jersey coastline.

BOEM’s draft environmental assessment for the Atlantic Shores project off Atlantic City runs over 6,000 pages. Opponents are asking the agency to extend a 45-day public comment period past July 3, insisting the public needs more time to understand the proposal and its implications.

With turbines standing 574 feet above sea level at their rotor hubs and 1,047 feet high at the blade tips, the future visual impact – amply illustrated by simulated images in the DEIS document – is alarming seaside homeowners and the tourism industry.

“Frankly, all of us have bought a view,” said homeowner Paul Snyderman. “Everyone living at or near the shore has made an investment.”

BOEM workers said the DEIS document notes alternatives to reduce the visual impacts seen from shore. Removing 31 turbines from the array would move the first visible machines out from 8.7 nautical miles offshore to 12.75 miles, for example. Those options include restricting the height of turbines to 522 feet at the hubs and 932 feet at the blade tips.

The Atlantic Shores plan would cover some 885 acres of natural sandy bottom – habitat for scallops and surf clams – with rock dumped to protect turbine foundations, said Blair Bailey, general counsel for the Port of New Bedford, Mass. New Bedford is the top East Coast port for scallop landings, with Cape May and Barnegat Light, N.J., not far behind.

“No one has any idea what the impact of offshore wind with be on commercial fishing,” said Bailey, citing a joint report by the industry group Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, BOEM and NMFS issued in March.

Offshore wind advocates who see unreasonable fears among critics need to understand “the fishermen have a fear of uncertainty,” said Bailey.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman