Saving Seafood

New Autonomous Vehicle Helps Advance Understanding of the Deep Ocean and its Critical Minerals

July 8, 2025 — During a recent expedition led by the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute  (OECI), with support from NOAA Ocean Exploration, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), testing of a new autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) resulted in advancement to uncrewed systems technologies and the collection of images of manganese nodule-covered seafloor in ultra-deep waters near the Mariana Trench.

Built by New England-based startup Orpheus Ocean  , the small-footprint “Orpheus AUV” is advancing our understanding of some of the planet’s least explored regions at water depths up to 11,000 meters (6.8 miles). These areas include geological settings that may contain marine critical minerals such as polymetallic nodules, which are of interest to marine scientists, resource managers, and industry.

Field-testing of the new AUV took place during an expedition on Ocean Exploration Trust’s Exploration Vessel Nautilus  east of the Mariana Trench. The vehicle successfully completed several dives to depths exceeding meters (3.5 miles), imaging polymetallic nodules on the seafloor during two dives. These are the first direct observations of these sites and help NOAA, USGS, and BOEM refine their understanding of the resources that they are tasked with characterizing and managing.

A predecessor to Orpheus Ocean’s AUV was originally developed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and its evolution from prototype to operational vehicle has been supported over several years by NOAA Ocean Exploration and OECI. Orpheus Ocean, a startup company founded in 2024, aims to expand access to these unique, small-footprint robots to supercharge our ability to collect meaningful data that can ensure sound policy decisions about these unique environments.

Read the full article at NOAA Ocean Exploration

US Wind proposes USD 20 million in compensation funds for commercial fishers in Maryland, Delaware

May 22, 2025 — US Wind has agreed to provide USD 20 million (EUR 17.8 million) in compensation to commercial fishers and related businesses in the U.S. states of Maryland or Delaware who have been impacted by the development of wind power off the coast of Maryland.

In 2014, US Wind secured an 80,000-acre federal lease area in the Atlantic Ocean, with plans to build a wind energy facility just over 11 miles off the shores of Ocean City, Maryland. As part of securing a lease, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) determined that wind energy developers must compensate the commercial fishing sector for any potential lost revenue caused by construction.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Federal oil and gas leasing plan could include Maine coast

May 1, 2025 — The Trump administration is developing an offshore oil and gas leasing plan that could include waters in the Gulf of Maine.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine warns there are no economically recoverable fossil fuels in the region and that drilling risks environmental and economic harm.

“Offshore oil and gas exploration would directly threaten our marine ecosystems, risk devastation to our vibrant tourist economy, and harm our heritage fishing industry,” the council’s climate and clean energy director Jack Shapiro said in a statement.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this month opened public comment on developing a new five-year lease schedule for the outer continental shelf.

Read the full story at CAI

Offshore opponents urge Supreme Court to grant Vineyard Wind challenge

April 22, 2025 — Advocacy groups opposed to offshore wind development are calling for the Supreme Court to consider how federal approval of a project off the coast of Massachusetts could be violating recent high court decisions curbing agency authority.

The America First Policy Institute and others recently filed “friend of the court” briefs backing a pair of petitions led by the fishing company Seafreeze Shoreside and the fishing industry trade group Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) seeking to block completion of the Vineyard Wind 1 project.

The briefs are backing the parallel claims before the court: that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management overstepped its authority and that lower courts failed to properly review the agency’s decision after a Supreme Court decision limited courts’ deference to agency decision-making.

Read the full story at E&E News

Nantucket anti-wind group petitions feds to halt Vineyard Wind 1

April 21, 2025 — After the Trump administration suspended the Empire Wind offshore energy project over claims of rushed approvals and inadequate analysis, Nantucket nonprofit ACK For Whales is urging federal regulators to take similar action against Vineyard Wind.

The group is calling for Vineyard Wind’s revised construction plan to be revoked due to unresolved safety and environmental concerns.

The island nonprofit, which opposes offshore wind development, has formally petitioned the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to rescind the construction and operations plan for Vineyard Wind 1.

The revised plan was approved Jan. 17, 2025, following a major turbine blade failure and the discovery of potential manufacturing defects affecting as many as 66 blades.

Read the full story at MassLive.com

Trump escalates his feud with offshore wind

April 21, 2025 — Donald Trump took his disdain for offshore wind to a new level this week.

The president moved to halt a wind farm off New York’s coast that was already under construction — a step analysts say sets a dangerous precedent for all energy projects, not just renewable ones, writes Benjamin Storrow.

“No one with any kind of an energy project can rely on the permits that have been issued if this administration, for whatever reason — legally or illegally, rightly or wrongly — decides that they want to call into question permits that have already been issued,” Allan Marks with Columbia University told Ben.

“That should scare any investor in any energy project.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum delivered the administration’s rationale in a social media post on X. The 810-megawatt Empire Wind project is being halted, he wrote, to review information “that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”

Read the full story at Politico

 

Trump administration moves to shut down Empire Wind

April 17, 2025 — Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is directing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction activity on Equinor’s Empire Wind project off New York.

“Approval for the project was rushed through by the prior administration without sufficient analysis or consultation among the relevant agencies as relates to the potential effects from the project,” Burgum wrote in a memorandum Wednesday, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

Citing President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order calling for a broad review of all offshore wind power projects in federal waters, Burgum wrote that the construction halt will remain pending review to “address these serious deficiencies.”

Planned as an array of 54 turbines between shipping approaches to New York Harbor, the 810-megawatt project recently started with subsea rock installation on the turbine sites, and pile-driving for foundation installation expected in May.

Project opponents have furiously lobbied the administration to take dramatic action against the project, one of five East Coast wind installations where developers with approvals under the Biden administration have pressed forward despite hostility from Trump.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Trump administration issues order to stop construction on New York offshore wind project

April 17, 2025 — The Trump administration issued an order Wednesday to stop construction on a major offshore wind project to power more than 500,000 New York homes, the latest in a series of moves targeting the industry.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction on Empire Wind, a fully-permitted project. He said it needs further review because it appears the Biden administration rushed the approval.

The Norwegian company Equinor is building Empire Wind to start providing power in 2026. Equinor finalized the federal lease for Empire Wind in March 2017, early in President Donald Trump’s first term. BOEM approved the construction and operations plan in February 2024 and construction began that year.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Feds Push for Partial Dismissal in Ocean City’s U.S. Wind Lawsuit

April 11, 2025 — The federal government has asked a U.S. District Court Judge to partially dismiss a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), citing a similar offshore wind lawsuit in Rhode Island.

Ocean City and numerous co-plaintiffs first filed their lawsuit against the federal government in October of 2024 over the approval of offshore wind company U.S. Wind’s plans for wind turbines off of Delmarva’s coast. The lawsuit claimed U.S. Wind’s plans and the government’s approval, issued under the Biden Administration, were not in compliance with numerous federal agency rules and regulations.

On January 17, 2025, the federal government filed a motion of partial dismissal in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, according to court records. Specifically, the government argued that two of Ocean City’s claims against them were null. First was the allegation that BOEM violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and the second that BOEM violated the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) in its approval of U.S. Wind’s proposed project.

Granting approval for a third-party project (like U.S. Wind’s) that could hypothetically violate those acts in the future did not constitute actual or present violations by the government, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued.

Read the full article at WBOC

Nantucket files legal challenge against SouthCoast Wind

March 31, 2025 — An offshore wind development planned off the Vineyard’s coast has been hit with a legal challenge from the Town of Nantucket, where municipal officials are saying federal regulators failed to address the adverse impacts of the project to the town.

Targeting SouthCoast Wind, the town filed an appeal against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the federal agency that approves offshore wind projects, on Thursday to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The town argues that federal regulators broke federal laws by not considering the cumulative impact of multiple large offshore wind projects, including SouthCoast Wind, on Nantucket, which is designated as a national historic landmark. They also allege federal regulators and developers did not properly plan mitigation efforts, including “adequate visual simulations.”

“BOEM’s conduct sets a dangerous precedent by weakening the federal government’s review of all energy-related projects, including fossil fuel projects that contribute most to global warming,” William Cooke, an attorney from Cultural Heritage Partners representing Nantucket, said in a press release. “We need to defend federal laws that protect our cultural and environmental resources now more than ever.”

Read the full article at MV Times