November 19, 2019 — New Hampshire will host the kick-off meeting of a federal offshore wind task force for the Gulf of Maine. The meeting is set for Dec. 12 at the University of New Hampshire.
It will be open to the public, with time for public input.
The task force will include state, local and tribal government officials from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine, and from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
November 15, 2019 — For the past seven years, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has given a weekly address about the dangers of climate change. Increasingly, some greens wonder if he is full of hot air.
The Rhode Island Democrat, one of the Senate’s top climate hawks, has emerged as a leading critic of Vineyard Wind, an 84-turbine offshore wind project proposed in federal waters 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Whitehouse has questioned the federal government’s review of the project, the first large-scale development of its kind in the United States, and criticized Vineyard Wind for failing to adequately consult fishermen.
His barbs have raised eyebrows in climate circles and in Massachusetts, where Vineyard Wind has the enthusiastic backing of the state’s political establishment, and comes as the Trump administration weighs the future of the project.
In August, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt called for an additional round of environmental review of the project (Climatewire, Aug. 12). A division of Interior, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, is currently conducting a cumulative impact study of other offshore wind projects proposed for the area.
In an interview, Whitehouse said he was simply pushing for improvements to BOEM’s permitting process to better accommodate the concerns of fishermen and other ocean users.
He argued that Vineyard Wind had already settled on the design of its project with investors before taking input from fishermen. And he cited the Block Island wind farm, a five-turbine project built by Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind, as an example of how wind developers should approach fishermen’s concerns.
Keating said he appreciates the difficulty Whitehouse faces in balancing the concerns of fishermen next to the economic potential of offshore wind. He represents New Bedford, Mass., America’s largest commercial fishing port, and has heard similar concerns about offshore wind from some constituents. But he added: “I really feel an urgency and I feel an imperative that we have to go forward on this. This is gonna be great for our economy.”
October 31, 2019 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:
U.S. offshore wind energy development is moving at a fast pace. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council has created a new offshore wind updates email list to distribute updates on offshore wind energy developments that may affect Mid-Atlantic Council-managed fisheries.
These email updates will be sent about once per month and will contain relevant updates from the previous month; however, the Council makes no guarantees that they will contain the most current information or all potentially relevant updates.
To sign up for this list, go to http://www.mafmc.org/email-list, enter your email address and check the box for “Offshore Wind Updates.” If you are already subscribed to any other Council email lists, this will not affect your other subscriptions.
The first offshore wind update for October 31, 2019 is included below. If you do not sign up for the offshore wind updates list at the link above, you will not receive future updates on this topic.
Updates for October 31, 2019
1. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is seeking public comments on draft guidelines for lighting and marking of structures supporting renewable energy projects, including offshore wind projects. More information is available here.
2. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) finalized contracts with Equinor Wind US LLC for the Empire Wind project in the New York Bight and with Sunrise Wind LLC (a joint venture of Ørsted A/S and Eversource Energy) for the Sunrise Wind project south of Rhode Island.
3. NYSERDA published a report titled Launching New York’s Offshore Wind Industry: Phase 1.
4. Equinor Wind created a brochure describing feedback they have received from the fishing industry to date on the layout of offshore wind turbine arrays for their Empire and Boardwalk Wind projects off New York/northern New Jersey.
5. A graduate student at the University of Rhode Island is conducting an online survey of members of the commercial fishing industry on their preferences for offshore wind farm layouts. Click here to take the survey.
More Information
For information on specific projects, please see the individual developer webpages linked at: http://www.mafmc.org/northeast-offshore-wind.
All recent notices to mariners (e.g., notices of survey activities) received by the Council are posted at: http://www.mafmc.org/offshore-wind-notices.
If you wish to suggest an item for inclusion in the next month’s update, please email wind@mafmc.org.
Wind updates from the New England Fishery Management Council are included in their periodic news roundups. To sign up for New England Fishery Management Council updates, please email Janice Plante at jplante@nefmc.org.
October 24, 2019 — Two months after the U.S. government abruptly delayed Vineyard Wind’s 800-megawatt offshore wind project, the industry is still looking for answers.
It’s not exactly clear when Vineyard will get its final go-ahead, let alone what effect the government’s unexpected “cumulative impacts analysis” will have on the pathbreaking $2.8 billion project or the broader American offshore wind market.
If anything, the timeline for a resolution has slipped. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management initially said it anticipated completing Vineyard’s supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) in late 2019 or early 2020, delaying the project by about six months. But BOEM Acting Director Walter Cruickshank said this week that the Interior Department agency now expects to have the supplemental draft EIS “out for public comment early next year.”
October 23, 2019 — Highlighting the critical connection between early and effective engagement with the fishing industry and successful offshore wind development, EnBW North America today has welcomed long-time fishing advocate Beth Casoni as the company’s fisheries liaison. The company has also announced its new membership in the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance’s (RODA) joint industry task force, devoted to addressing issues of mutual interest to commercial fisheries and offshore wind.
While federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM) rules require offshore wind area leaseholders to employ a fisheries liaison, EnBW North America says it made the decision to retain Casoni before obtaining site control in order to fully engage with the fishing community before project design and development. The company’s immediate attention is on the New York Bight – an area off the coasts of New York and New Jersey, where BOEM is expected to auction wind lease areas in late 2020.
Casoni, a Marshfield, Mass., resident, has worked at the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association since 2007 and has served as its executive director since 2014. Her experience includes serving on the Massachusetts Ocean Advisory Commission, which contributed to the development of the Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan. She serves also on the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team and several fisheries and seafood marketing boards, including the New England Marine Fisheries Herring and Habitat Advisory Panel and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Herring Advisory Panel. A fishing community native whose family includes commercial fishermen, Casoni is also a former reserve intermittent police officer with the Cohasset (Massachusetts) Police Department.
September 30, 2019 — A Trump Administration official attending a conference in Boston on Friday repeatedly refused to say when the agency’s review of the Vineyard Wind project would be completed.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management put the offshore wind farm on hold indefinitely in early August while it tries to gain a better understanding of the cumulative impact of the many East Coast wind farm projects currently in the pipeline. With the project in danger of being canceled if the delay lasts too long, James Bennett, the renewable energy program manager at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, gave no indication of when the agency’s review will be completed.
“It’s going to take some time, longer than we expected for this project,” said Bennett, who was asked about the agency’s timetable by Attorney General Maura Healey’s chief of staff, Mike Firestone. Bennett was at the Sheraton Boston Hotel taking part in an offshore wind panel at an eastern region meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.
After the panel was over, Bennett again refused to elaborate. “We’re working on a schedule to complete whatever we have to do to keep the project moving forward,” he said.
September 26, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
The Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species, or AMAPPS, allows researchers to put all the information about abundance, distribution, ecology and behavior of protected species – from whales, dolphins, and seals to marine turtles and seabirds – into an ecosystem context so resource managers can use it for conservation measures and decision-making.
“Long-term year-round ecological data on protected species and their environment in the Atlantic are limited,” said Debra Palka, a research biologist at the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center who coordinates the program for the Northeast and Southeast Fisheries Science Centers. “The aerial and shipboard observations, oceanographic sampling, telemetry and passive acoustic monitoring supported by AMAPPS give us data that can be used to quantify changing distributions and assess the potential impact on protected species caused by human
activities.”
The primary funders of AMAPPS are NOAA, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Navy. One of the goals of the program is to develop models and related tools to provide distribution patterns and density estimates by season and location that includes habitat characteristics of marine mammals, turtles and seabirds along the U.S. East Coast.
September 10, 2019 — Construction of the country’s first commercial scale offshore wind farm off Massachusetts’ coast will be delayed until at least next year while the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management determines the cumulative effect of construction of multiple wind farms in the region, the agency said in a recent update.
Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Copenhagen Investment Partners and Avengrid Renewables, is developing the 800-MW, $2.8 billion project. Five other offshore wind projects are planned adjacent to the site.
The developers had expected to begin construction before the end of the year to take advantage of a significant federal tax credit for renewable energy that expires on Dec. 31.
BOEM’s original timeline was to release a final environmental impact statement in July, but that timeline was delayed when BOEM said stakeholders and cooperating federal agencies requested “a more robust cumulative analysis.” It anticipates completing the supplement to its draft EIS “late this year or early next year,” with a public comment period and public meetings to follow.
September 3, 2019 — Plans for the country’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm remain on hold, and state leaders and environmental groups are calling on the Trump administration to speed it along.
Vineyard Wind, a $2.8 billion, 84-turbine wind farm planned 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, was delayed last month by federal regulators amid concerns about the impact on commercial fishermen. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said additional review is needed in light of the concerns raised by “stakeholders and cooperating agencies.”
Vineyard Wind would generate enough energy to power more than 400,000 homes, representing about 20% of electricity consumed in the state, according to its designers. A law signed by Gov. Charlie Baker in 2016 requires the state to have at least 3,200 megawatts of electricity provided by offshore wind by 2035 as part of a shift to renewable energy sources.
Baker, who recently met with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt in Washington, D.C., to push for the project’s movement, told reporters Wednesday that he remains confident about its future. The Republican said he believes the federal government is committed to a March 2020 deadline to wrap up its review.
August 27, 2019 — Bay State Wind, a joint venture between Ørsted and Eversource, has submitted a proposal for offshore wind energy generation in Martha’s Vineyard.
The proposal was submitted on Aug. 23 in response to the commonwealth’s second Request for Proposals.
A previous bid was made by Vineyard Wind, a joint venture by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables.
Gov. Charlie Baker had previously shown his support for the project, meeting with the Interior Secretary, David Bernhardt, who oversees the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.