Saving Seafood

RODA Expands West Coast Fisheries Engangement with Launch of Pacific Advisory Committee

January 16, 2020 — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) is excited to announce the launch of a Pacific Advisory Committee, which brings RODA’s mission of improving the compatibility of new offshore development with commercial fishing to the West Coast.

As discussions of offshore wind development in the U.S. continue to progress, Pacific fishermen have expressed significant concern over the lack of communication and collaboration necessary to inform coexistence among ocean users.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has identified 3 Call Areas off of California as areas of interest for offshore wind development. The strongest wind speeds are located along the North Coast, near the BOEM Humboldt Call Area. The other two sites, Morro Bay and Diablo Canyon, for possible development are located on the Central Coast (For more information visit the California Offshore Wind Energy Gateway). BOEM has also initiated a process for siting offshore wind projects off of Oregon, although it has not yet identified Call Areas there.

The RODA-Pacific Advisory Committee is comprised of leaders from several West Coast fisheries throughout California and Oregon. Its purpose is to improve science and policy approaches to development, while also increasing and improving communication to help strengthen ties between Pacific fishermen and fishing communities across the country.

As of January 1st 2020, the RODA West Coast advisory committee consists of:

  • Mike Conroy, West Coast Fisheries Consultants
  • Hugh Link & Tim Novotny, Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission
  • Mike Okoniewski, Pacific Seafood Group
  • Noah Oppenheim, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations
  • Peter Flournoy, International Law Offices of San Diego
  • Steven Scheiblauer, Marine Alliances Consulting
  • Lori Steele, West Coast Seafood Processors Association (WCSPA)
  • Susan Chambers, WCSPA and Southern Oregon Ocean Resource Coalition

Additional Pacific fishing industry organizations and representatives are invited to contact RODA for inquiries about membership.

RODA is a membership-based alliance of fishing businesses and communities that provides a “strength in numbers” approach to advocacy on issues of mutual interest to seafood harvesters, processors, and affiliated entities. It works on behalf of fishermen with regulators, offshore developers, science experts, and others to coordinate science and policy approaches to proposed ocean development in a way that minimizes conflicts with existing traditional and historic fishing.

About RODA

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) is a broad, membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and companies working to improve the compatibility of new offshore development with their businesses. It seeks to coordinate science and policy approaches, through public and private partnerships, to manage development of the Outer Continental Shelf in a way that minimizes conflicts with existing traditional and historical fishing.

Pending Federal Report Key to Offshore Wind’s Future

January 13, 2020 — The forthcoming report from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on the cumulative environmental impacts of the Vineyard Wind project will determine the future of offshore wind development.

BOEM’s decision isn’t just the remaining hurdle for the 800-megawatt project, but also the gateway for 6 gigawatts of offshore wind facilities planned between the Gulf of Maine and Virginia. Another 19 gigawatts of Rhode Island offshore wind-energy goals are expected to bring about more projects and tens of billions of dollars in local manufacturing and port development.

Some wind-energy advocates have criticized BOEM’s 11th-hour call for the supplemental analysis as politically motivated and excessive.

Safe boat navigation and loss of fishing grounds are the main concerns among commercial fishermen, who have been the most vocal opponents of the 84-turbine Vineyard Wind project and other planned wind facilities off the coast of southern New England.

Last month, state Sen. Susan Sosnowski, D-New Shoreham, gave assurances that the Coast Guard will not be deterred from conducting search and rescue efforts around offshore wind facilities, as some fishermen have feared.

Read the full story at EcoRI

Offshore wind in New Hampshire: Now what?

January 10, 2020 — One year after Governor Sununu announced plans to investigate offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine, much has been accomplished.

The first official Intergovernmental Task Force meeting — established to gauge the technology’s potential — was held on Dec. 12. Convened by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM for short), the meeting was well attended and provided a great deal of information and clarification on what the Task Force’s next two years will entail.

Still, this meeting was just the beginning — an inflection point that has since sparked the beginning of many other initiatives throughout the region. All with the aim of establishing greater understanding of the gulf’s marine environment and how offshore wind might fit in.

Over the next three to five years, the states of New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts will be gathering information to determine the most appropriate siting locations for offshore wind development. While this data-collection effort includes many moving parts, one word in particular looms largest of all: assessment.

Read the full story at the New Hampshire Business Review

Fishing advocates propose transit lanes for offshore wind

January 7, 2020 — A coalition of commercial fishing groups is calling for 4-mile-wide transit lanes through offshore wind turbine arrays off New England, as federal ocean planners and the Coast Guard consider maritime safety aspects of the projects.

In a Jan. 3 letter to those agencies, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance proposed six vessel traffic lanes — each 4 nautical miles wide and up to 70 miles long — through wind turbine areas proposed by energy companies south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket off Massachusetts.

Those developers submitted their own proposal Nov. 1 to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Coast Guard, offering a consistent grid layout across their federal offshore leases that would space turbine towers 1 nautical mile apart.

Without endorsing that spacing — opposed by Rhode Island squid fishermen and others who say they cannot not work amid such arrays — the alliance letter is a counter-proposal that superimposes wider transit lanes on the developers’ plan.

“The proposal presented here utilizes the uniform 1×1 nm spaced turbines presented in the Nov. 1 proposal and includes transit lanes of adequate widths to preserve safe and efficient passage along the routes most often used by fishermen,” the letter states.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Offshore Wind Task Force Meeting Draws Crowd; Sununu Pushes For Quick Development

December 13, 2019 — Northern New England began an ambitious planning process for offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine Thursday.

More than 200 stakeholders packed into the first meeting of the new regional wind task force at UNH.

They say the new industry will take years to develop – but it could be a powerful way for Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire to fight climate.

The big turnout surprised organizers with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. One facilitator said he’d never been to a standing-room-only task force meeting before.

Governor Chris Sununu was energized as he kicked off the day-long event. He says he intends to see offshore wind development succeed in the Gulf of Maine as quickly as possible.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

New Task Force Will Consider Leases For Offshore Wind Energy Developers In The Gulf Of Maine

December 12, 2019 — A new task force will convene for the first time Thursday to consider how and where to lease potentially vast swathes of the Gulf of Maine to offshore wind-energy developers. The outcome could have big consequences for Maine’s fishing industry, and for the state’s role in the next wave of renewable energy development.

An earlier round of auctions awarded leases in federal waters off southern New England, where several large-scale wind projects should soon start churning out thousands of megawatts of electricity — a big down payment on state commitments to ramp up the use of renewable energy.

Now, at New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu’s request, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is starting a new process to designate the best areas for offshore wind projects farther north — in the Gulf of Maine. Analysts say investments could be worth billions of dollars, with thousands of jobs in the offing.

“This is a really significant opportunity for our energy future and economy,” says Dan Burgess.

Burgess directs Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ energy office, and he is leading the state’s delegation to the intergovernmental task force that will advise the Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management. The panel also includes representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, tribal governments and the feds.

Read the full story at Maine Public

New Hampshire Preparing for Offshore Wind Development

December 10, 2019 — Governor Chris Sununu signed an executive order preparing for future offshore wind development by establishing four advisory boards focused on informing New Hampshire’s next steps, while calling on state agencies to report on key studies.

Sununu says his order will ensure an open and transparent process involving diverse stakeholders to balance existing offshore uses with a new source of clean energy. “This will require enhanced coordination between state agencies, new studies, and continuous engagement with the public,” he says. “Most of all, it’s imperative that we go through this process the right way from day one to maximize all the potential benefits of this new industry.”

The first federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force meeting for the Gulf of Maine is December 12, 2019 at the University of New Hampshire.

The executive order establishes four advisory boards to work with stakeholders, and advise New Hampshire members of the BOEM Task Force throughout the process.

Read the full story at Business NH Magazine

Study finds declining costs make Oregon offshore wind ‘promising’

December 10, 2019 — The prospects for the development of wind power projects off the coast of Oregon are “promising” but would require floating wind turbine technologies, according to a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Offshore wind has become prevalent in Europe, but was slow to catch on in the United States before 2016 when the country’s first offshore wind project, the 30-megawatt (MW) Block Island Wind Farm, went online in Rhode Island.

Until then, the higher costs of offshore wind compared with onshore wind inhibited development, but technological improvements and economies of scale have brought costs down, resulting in a surge in projects, particularly in New England where several large projects are under way.

In December, Anbaric filed an application with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for the right to develop the Southern New England OceanGrid, an open-access offshore transmission system that would be capable of connecting up to 16,000 MW of offshore wind to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. And in October, the newly launched Offshore Wind California coalition called for setting a state goal of reaching 10 GW of offshore wind by 2040.

Oregon, in particular the southern coastal regions, has some of the best wind resources in the United States with average wind speeds near 10 meters per second, according to the NREL report, Oregon Offshore Wind Site Feasibility and Cost Study. But unlike the East Coast with its Continental Shelf, water depths off the Oregon coast present a challenge.

Read the full story at the American Public Power Association

Offshore Wind Awaits Federal Environmental Reports

December 6, 2019 — The offshore wind industry is rolling out new projects, but a forthcoming federal environmental report may determine how and when they get built.

The latest industry initiative is the expansion of a cable factory in Charleston, S.C., where Paris-based Nexans plans to make some 620 miles of high-voltage power lines for the five wind projects under development by the utility Eversource and Danish energy company Ørsted. The companies declined to say how the five-year contract was granted. Nexans is also building a new cable-laying vessel with a 10,000-ton capacity.

On Oct. 30, Massachusetts awarded a wind-facility lease to a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and EDP Renewables for the 804-megawatt Mayflower Wind wind project 20 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

The five projects boost state renewable-energy targets, but for the moment their immediate prospects await the outcome of reports by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Coast Guard.

The Port Access Route Study: The Areas Offshore of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, conducted by the Coast Guard, was prompted by the proposed navigation route changes in U.S. waters.

Read the full story at EcoRI

BOEM offshore wind review may go to late 2020; developers undeterred

December 6, 2019 — The Department of Interior’s review of potential cumulative impact of East Coast offshore wind energy development may continue into late 2020.

But industry advocates say the nascent U.S. industry’s momentum is continuing, with new contracts and commitments, and expectations of new Bureau of Offshore Energy Management offshore lease sales in New York Bight and California waters.

“In 2020 we’ll have additional leases coming on line in New York and California. This will become a bicoastal industry,” Liz Burdock, president and CEO of the Business Network for Offshore Wind, told audiences at the 40th annual International WorkBoat Show in New Orleans Thursday.

While BOEM controls the granting of offshore leases, “the states are feeding the market,” with their ambitious plans to dramatically boost renewable energy supplies, said Burdock. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and others are seeking offshore wind as a replacement as aging fossil fuel and nuclear power stations are phased out in the Northeast.

The process of permitting as many as 15 federal waters leases is on a pause along with a BOEM environmental impact statement on the Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts, as the agency examines the potential impact of building those turbine arrays on the environment and other maritime uses.

Read the full story at National Fisherman