Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Peaceful Protesters Air Concerns Over Wind Farms

April 28, 2021 — Jeff Reichle and his son, Wayne, didn’t hold up signs expressing their opposition to a proposed offshore wind farm during a peaceful protest Tuesday outside of the Cape May County Administration Building in Cape May Court House.

But the two men, from Lund Fisheries Inc. in Cape May, along with several of their fellow fishermen and women, are concerned.

They are concerned about their livelihood and what the gigantic wind turbines built in the ocean could mean to marine life and how they could safely navigate the structures and what the project would do to commercial and recreational fishing.

“Our issue is they haven’t reached out to the fishing industry,” said Jeff Reichle, chairman of Lund. “People think you can go fish somewhere else. But that is not the way it is. This is our business. We just don’t know how this will affect us. There are too many unanswered questions.”

Wayne Reichle added, “There is no proof that the wind farm will have a positive impact on fishing, only negative.”

Read the full story at OCNJ Daily

Offshore Wind Agenda Still Has Some Bight

April 27, 2021 — The Biden administration isn’t bowing to all local opposition to offshore wind development (“Railing Against the Wind,” Review & Outlook, April 21). Although the wealthy residents of the Hamptons succeeded in preventing offshore wind farms from spoiling their ocean views, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to sink all opposition to development in the New York-New Jersey Bight, a roughly triangular area bordered by New Jersey and Long Island.

In December 2020, the Interior Department’s Office of the Solicitor issued a detailed ruling that commercial fisheries’ interests must be considered when siting offshore wind. But in March the Biden administration rescinded that ruling. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to ignore fisheries’ interests, even though the Bight is home to some of the most productive fisheries in the world and is a migratory route for endangered right whales.

In the end, the fisheries industry and thousands of jobs at risk are no match for Big Wind’s lobbyists, whose European customers stand to reap billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars from the Biden administration’s new offshore wind-investment tax credit and the sky-high prices for the intermittent and unreliable power that regulators will force utility customers to buy.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK: No Wind Farms in ‘Fairways’

April 23, 2021 — Two areas off the South Shore of Long Island that had been identified as potential federal lease areas for development of offshore wind will not be considered for leases, an official of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said last week.

The announcement came on April 14, during a BOEM-hosted virtual meeting of the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Forces, comprising representatives from 14 coastal states, local governments, tribes, and federal agencies. A second meeting was held on Friday.

The areas in the New York Bight known as Fairways North and Fairways South, respectively 88,246 and 23,841 acres, “will not be considered for leases,” said Luke Feinberg, a BOEM project coordinator. The Bight is in the waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

The Fairways North area is approximately 15 miles south of Long Island, stretching from Moriches Bay to Montauk Point. Fairways South is farther west and mostly farther offshore. The New York Bight also contains federal wind energy areas known as Hudson North and the Central Bight, off Great South Bay, and Hudson South, south of New York City.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

NEW JERSEY: Long Beach Island Residents Critical of Ocean Wind Project During Scoping Meeting

April 21, 2021 — Long Beach Island residents aired criticisms and concerns about a proposed wind farm off the Atlantic City coast at a scoping meeting held online April 15, as required by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

When the BOEM published its notice of intent to engage in an environmental impact study for Ørsted’s Ocean Wind offshore wind farm, it triggered these so-called scoping meetings in which the public is invited to voice concerns or alternatives to the planned wind farm.

Ørsted, a Danish energy company, is in the process of developing a wind farm to be located 15 miles off Atlantic City on the outer continental shelf that will include 98 turbines on monopoles and generate 1,100 megawatts of wind-generated power, enough to power 500,000 homes.

Ørsted held three online scoping meetings this month and on April 15, Beach Haven Mayor Colleen Lambert and Bob Stern, a representative of the Long Beach Island Coalition for Wind Without Impact, both asked that the Ocean Wind turbines be moved farther out to sea. Lambert asked why the Hudson South call area had been abandoned in favor of a lease much closer to shore when there would be more wind farther out. She expressed concern about the visibility of turbines if they are located nearer to the coast. “The alternative is to impact tourism with a decrease of 40% of revenue if turbines are visible.” She noted that New York has required turbines to be located 17 miles from shore.

Read the full story at The Sand Piper

Ocean Wind project worries New Jersey beach resorts, fishing industry

April 20, 2021 — As the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management prepares for an environmental review of the Ocean Wind project off New Jersey, the prospect of seeing wind turbines arise on the horizon is raising alarms in prosperous resort towns.

Politically the state government has been all-in on offshore wind, with $250 million planned for investment in manufacturing at the port of Paulsboro on the Delaware River, and plans for a new port downriver – beyond the air draft limitations of river bridges – to accommodate wind turbine installation vessels.

The Biden administration’s policy imperatives for renewable energy include a dramatic expansion of new wind leasing in the New York Bight. Ocean Wind, a 75/25 percent joint venture of Ørsted and the PSEG utility group, could be sending power ashore in 2024.

The 1,100-megawatt array would be built between 15 and 27 miles offshore on Ørsted’s federal lease east of Atlantic City, with up to 98 turbines feeding power to three offshore substations.

From there, export cables would carry the energy to a couple of once-thriving power plants on New Jersey bay shores: The disused BL England coal plant, considered by state regulators for conversion to natural gas a few years ago, and the obsolete Oyster Creek nuclear generating station, an industry showpiece when it entered operation in the 1960s. Both sites have grid connections to handle the wind-generated power.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: Residents, officials reiterate concerns about wind farm off Atlantic City

April 19, 2021 — Rick Robinson likens the idea of building up to 98 wind turbines on the ocean horizon to placing them on the rim of the Grand Canyon. The Seven Mile Island homeowner was among numerous people who spoke this week at a federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management virtual hearing on a proposed wind farm 15 miles off Atlantic City.

In addition to ruining a magnificent view, the 850-foot turbines will endanger wildlife, scar coastal land, scare away fish, interfere with shipping operations and raise electric bills, according to about 20 speakers in opposition.

Others at the hearing spoke in favor of the Ocean Wind farm. They touted wind energy as a way to bring abundant and clean energy to New Jersey, while helping fight climate change and creating jobs.

“Rather than continue down the path toward catastrophic sea level rise and flooding,” said Hayley Berliner of Environment New Jersey, “we can instead start to mitigate that by replacing our fossil-fuel power with clean, renewable offshore wind power.”

Read the full story at The Press of Atlantic City

BOEM pulls two areas from New York Bight wind planning

April 16, 2021 — Federal energy planners dropped two areas near Long Island from immediate consideration for offshore wind energy leases, citing potential conflicts with maritime traffic, fishing and seaside views from exclusive New York beach resorts.

The Fairways North and Fairways South areas, named for nearby shipping approaches to New York Harbor, were also seen as less attractive to wind developers for their smaller power potential. Removing them from Bureau of Ocean Energy Management planning still leaves more than 627,000 additional acres in the region available for future lease sales.

New York State officials recommended against planning for leases in the Fairway areas, saying the closest 15-mile proximity to Long Island runs counter to the state’s policy of keeping wind generation at least 18 miles from shore.

The BOEM decision came as the agency commenced online meetings of its New York Bight task force, including federal, state and local government representatives and other stakeholders.

One prominent group not in virtual attendance Wednesday was the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a coalition of fishing groups and communities. The group has been meeting for years with BOEM planners and wind developers, but in recent weeks reacted with alarm to the Biden administration’s full-court press to expand the industry.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind power lines: Buried under Island Beach State Park, hooking into Oyster Creek

April 15, 2021 — The developer of New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm plans to run the project’s power lines under Island Beach State Park, across Barnegat Bay and connect to the electrical grid at the former Oyster Creek nuclear plant, according to plans submitted to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Ørsted, the Danish power company that is proposing to build 98 wind turbines southwest of Atlantic City, has applied to the bureau to construct an offshore wind farm powerful enough to supply electricity to half a million homes.

If approved, wind farm construction would involve tunneling under Island Beach State Park and laying power lines under the auxiliary parking lot of Swimming Area 2. From there, the power lines would run southwest under the bottom of Barnegat Bay and connect to the grid at the former Oyster Creek nuclear power plant, which ceased generating electricity in 2019.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

NEW YORK: Latest Hamptons Offshore Wind Farm Idea Shelved

April 15, 2021 — A heavily disputed plan to build a wind farm off the coast of the Hamptons is no longer under consideration, federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) officials said on Wednesday.

Two weeks after the agency first announced the plan to create five new offshore wind farm development zones in the Atlantic Ocean between New York and New Jersey, officials pulled the plug on two of the zones closest to Long Island — Fairways North, off the coast of the Shinnecock Inlet, and Fairways South, off Fire Island.

The two zones “will not be considered for leasing at this stage,” Luke Feinberg, project manager for BOEM, said during an online task force meeting on the proposed zones, citing issues with commercial fisheries.

Commercial fishing groups had opposed the wind farms on the grounds that it will interfere with their ability to make a living. New York State Energy Research and Development Authority officials also opposed the Fairways zones.

“I think we have some challenges that we have identified in the Fairway sites both in the relative size and distance from the shore,” Gregory Lampman, program manager for environmental research at NYSERDA, said during the meeting. “We’ve been pretty clear, and we want to make sure the projects are more than 18 miles from shore. And they fall at 15.”

Read the full story at Dan’s Papers

RODA Urges BOEM: ‘Don’t Forget Fishermen’ Amid Offshore Wind Development Process

April 9, 2021 — Fishing communities across the east coast of the United States submitted a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) again asking for a “transparent and balanced” nationwide planning process for offshore wind development.

“Ahead of the Record of Decision for the Vineyard Wind I project, which would be the first commercial-scale offshore wind energy project in U.S. federal waters, the signers request that BOEM adopt reasonable and consistently requested fisheries mitigation measures for the project if it is approved,” the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) wrote in a release.

Read the full story at Seafood News