BOEM Archives - Page 71 of 82

MASSACHUSETTS: Public Meetings on New York Bight Offshore Wind

September 14, 2018 — The following was released by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management:

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will be hosting three public meetings and a webinar to discuss feedback that we have received from a recently published Call for Information and Nominations (Call) for potential offshore wind energy leasing and development in the New York Bight.

The meetings will be held at the following locations:

Monday, Sept. 17, 2018
Riverhead, NY
Shade Tree Community Center
60 Shade Tree Lane
Aquebogue, NY
5:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018
New Bedford, MA
Waypoint Event Center at Fairfield Inn & Suites
Sea Loft Room
185 MacArthur Drive
New Bedford, MA 02740
5:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018
Long Branch, NJ
Long Branch Library
328 Broadway
Long Branch, NJ 07740
5:00 -7:45 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018
Webinar hosted by BOEM
https://orep.adobeconnect.com/nybightareaid/
1:00 – 4:00 p.m.

At each meeting, BOEM will present its most recent analysis that incorporates comments received from the Call. In addition, there will be an opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback to help inform BOEM’s decision-making process.

Scientists discover hidden deep-sea coral reef off South Carolina Coast

August 28, 2018 — If you think Charleston, South Carolina, has plenty of history within its pre-Colonial grounds, just look at what’s been hiding 160 miles off the city’s coast for thousands of years: a giant deep-sea coral reef system. The chief scientist who helped make the discovery called it unbelievable.

Little is known about the natural resources of the deep ocean off the United States’ Southeast coast from Virginia to Georgia, so Deep Search 2018 was created to learn more by exploring the deep sea ecosystems. The project, consisting of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and the US Geological Survey, is nearing the end of its 15-day voyage aboard the research vessel Atlantis.

Read the full story at CNN

Sturgeon, scallops and wind turbines

August 24, 2018 — Offshore wind energy companies are contending with many of the same environmental issues as other maritime industries in U.S. waters, and on a compressed timeline.

Pumped up by state policies encouraging renewable energy, and the Trump administration’s big buy-in to promote new domestic energy production, a dozen federal wind energy leases are already approved off the East Coast, and construction and operation plans for two projects are under review.

Deepwater Wind could have turbines on its South Fork Wind Farm off the east end of Long Island, N.Y., operational in 2020. The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says developers have plans for 8.5 gigawatts capacity of offshore wind power, with construction picking up pace through the 2020s.

Renewable energy advocates hail this as a train coming down the track. Fishermen want scientists’ help to at least slow it down.

“We’re really hoping to partner with the scientific community in this process,” lawyer Anne Hawkins told an audience at the American Fisheries Society annual meeting in Atlantic City, N.J., this week.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

Ocean science needs to catch up with offshore wind energy

August 23, 2018 — Construction could begin on East Coast offshore wind energy projects in the next couple of years, but the state of science to monitor their environmental effects is lagging badly, experts said at the annual American Fisheries Society meeting.

“We’re talking about building projects in a few years…yet we lack a built, on-the-ground monitoring program,” said Andrew Lipsky, a planning officer who leads research into offshore wind energy with the National Marine Fisheries Service Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states are “where all the electrical demands are,” said Brian Hooker, a marine biologist with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy’s renewable energy program. Those states are driving the demand and developers have a dozen approved federal leases, with BOEM now reviewing two construction and operation plans, Hooker said Tuesday at the AFS meeting in Atlantic City, N.J.

A daylong session featured presentations by researchers looking at how building arrays of wind turbines on the shallow continental shelf could affect fish populations, and the commercial fishing industry.

For all its promotion as a “green” technology, offshore wind power faces its share of environmental hurdles. Wind developers will need to deal with potential conflicts over marine mammals, including the highly endangered northern right whales that migrate near massive wind arrays proposed off Massachusetts.

For mobile gear fishermen, there is fear that large parts of the leases could be effectively off-limits to them because towers are too close together to safely trawl or dredge. Advocates for the scallop and surf clam fleets argue that turbine arrays will effectively create “sanctuaries” for shellfish that are available in abundance thanks to responsible management.

This spring industry advocates organized the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, to bring together diverse East Coast fishing fleets and operators to more effectively engage the wind industry and federal and state regulators.

Their goal is to “get better outcomes,” said Anne Hawkins of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, a Washington, D.C., law firm that represents scallop fishermen who have sued in federal court over New York offshore wind proposals.

Maps prepared by BOEM using federal fisheries data shows existing wind leases and potential future lease areas overlapping with the scallop fishery, based out of ports like New Bedford, Mass., and Cape May, N.J.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

NCFC Members Urge BOEM to Include Commercial Fishermen in Windmill Siting Decisions in the New York Bight

August 17, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities:

Late last month, members of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) submitted two letters asking Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to consider the economic importance of the commercial fishing industry before deciding where to site windmills in the New York Bight.

367 individuals signed a national letter calling on Secretary Zinke not to rush offshore energy development and to ensure projects are “sited, constructed, and operated using the best scientific information available.”

“The Interior Department should provide for intelligent and deliberate offshore renewable energy development, rather than fall prey to the gold rush mentality promoted by BOEM and financially-interested wind developers, most of which are foreign-owned,” the NCFC members wrote.

The signers also invoked President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to support working class Americans.

“When President Trump campaigned and was elected, he promised to look after America’s working middle class, of which we are all a part,” the letter stated. “You will not be honoring the President’s commitment if you allow BOEM to lease ocean areas first, and ask and answer the necessary questions later.”

Another 103 individuals and 32 vessels and businesses from Massachusetts signed a separate letter asking BOEM to reconsider its plan to develop four offshore wind farms in the New York Bight. They specifically cited the damage such development would cause to important Northeast fisheries such as the scallop fishery.

“This is an ill-conceived idea that will cause irreparable economic harm within the fishing communities along the entire East Coast,” the signers wrote. “The harm to Massachusetts will be especially significant, given that it is the center of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery and contains major surf clam and ocean quahog operations.”

The letter pointed out that, on average, nearly $54 million is generated by scallop landings annually from the areas under consideration in the New York Bight, according to data from the National Marine Fisheries Service. An additional $8 million is generated by surf clam and ocean quahog.

East Coast Offshore Wind Outlook

August 16, 2018 — There is no question that 2018 is emerging as a watershed year for the offshore wind energy industry in the U.S., with several large wind farms having their site plans approved and states increasing their commitments and goals for offshore wind energy.

In the midst of this energy and excitement, we need to keep in mind that regional cooperation between developers, suppliers, and between the states is going to be critical to building a healthy and sustainable industry supported by a viable supply chain.

We use the term “co-opetition” to describe the combination of competition and collaboration, and apply it to remind the industry that no single state is going to own the entire supply chain. The U.S. offshore wind energy pie is big, and there is enough for every state so they don’t need to fight but work together on complex issues such as commercial fishing, navigation, environmental impacts, and supply chain development on a regional basis.

To those waiting for this technology to come online and start replacing fossil fuel power plants, a year or two or even five years may seem like a long time to wait, but timing projects so we have a “good pipeline” — a steady, consistent stream of projects throughout the 2020s — is important, so construction projects don’t stack up on each other and we don’t have huge, expensive pieces of customized offshore wind equipment and highly skilled labor forces standing idle one year and strained to the breaking point the next.

Read the full story at Wind Systems Magazine

NY ratepayers will pay for $2.1B offshore wind plan, but won’t get the energy

August 8, 2018 — New York state ratepayers will pick up the tab for the Cuomo Administration’s multi-billion dollar plan to jump-start the offshore wind industry, but most won’t benefit from the energy produced.

Only consumers in Long Island and New York City will be able to access the wind-powered energy that’s going to be generated in the waters off the state’s Atlantic coast in the years to come.

As soon as 2020, typical residential ratepayers could see an increase of up to 76 cents a month in their electric bills as the state goes all-in on offshore wind as a critical piece of the state’s renewable energy future, The Journal News/Poughkeepsie Journal has learned.

That’s in addition to the average $2 per month charge state ratepayers are already paying for the bailout of three struggling upstate nuclear power plants for the next ten years.

The New York State Public Service Commission announced last week that it had agreed to procure some 800 megawatts of offshore wind energy over the next two years, the first phase in an effort to develop 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, enough to power 1.2 million households in New York City and Long Island.

“Robust offshore wind development is not only critical to meeting our clean energy and carbon reduction goals, this investment has the potential to create thousands of jobs and fuel a $6 billion industry for New York as it combats climate change,” Cuomo said.

The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association (LICFA), based in Montauk, have joined a lawsuit challenging the decision by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to allow thousands of acres off the Atlantic coast of Long Island to be leased to offshore wind companies.

The six areas available for lease could hold up to 200 wind turbines.

“The historical, traditional commercial fishing communities of Long Island, which include hundreds of small business owners, the very tax and rate-payers whose businesses help to support other small businesses throughout Long Island, are ground zero for having their very livelihoods and businesses destroyed,” Bonnie Brady, the executive director of LICFA wrote in April.

Read the full story from the Poughkeepsie Journal at the Ithaca Journal

Bay State Wind alters layout for offshore wind farm, but fisheries call foul

August 8, 2018 — Bay State Wind LLC is changing the turbine layout of its 800-MW Bay State Offshore Wind Project to accommodate the U.S. commercial fishing industry’s ability to work between turbines. But fisheries say the changes are too little, too late and underscore their growing frustration with the offshore wind sector.

Bay State Wind, a partnership between Danish energy developer Ørsted A/S and New England utility Eversource Energy, announced on Aug. 6 that the new plan reorganizes wind turbines in rows running east-to-west and incorporates one nautical mile between rows to allow fishing vessels more space to travel through, “keeping in mind the need to balance safe navigation, fishing concerns and clean energy production.” The updated turbine layout will be included in Bay State Wind’s construction and operations plan that it intends to submit to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management by early 2019.

However, the commercial fishing industry is not satisfied with Bay State Wind’s changed layout. Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Rhode Island-based frozen seafood producer Seafreeze Ltd., said one-mile-wide transit lanes can make it dangerous for trawl vessels to fish with their nets without hitting other boats or project infrastructure. Buffer zones for each side of a transit lane are also needed due to potential radar interference from the turbines.

“Unfortunately, developers only seem to do what is convenient for them at a low cost in response to fishing issues and concerns,” Lapp said. “The right step for a long-term working relationship between the fishing and wind industries is to address these and other commercial fishing concerns before we reach the stage of construction plans. Which is not being done in any meaningful way.”

Bonnie Brady, director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said the frustration with Bay State Wind’s project is not unfamiliar. She recalled similar issues with Deepwater Wind‘s Deepwater Offshore Wind Energy Center (South Fork Wind Farm) proposed off of Rhode Island, which has a turbine layout that would require fisheries to make detours that would add hours and costs to fishing trips.

Read the full story at S&P Global Market Intelligence

Bay State Wind Revises Turbine Layout To Make It More ‘Fishing-Friendly’

August 7, 2018 — In response to feedback from fishermen and community members, Bay State Wind has revised the turbine layout pattern for its Massachusetts offshore wind project.

The new plan realigns the layout so that the turbines are located in rows running east to west, the preferred orientation for fishing, according to the developer. The updated layout also includes an average of one nautical mile between turbine rows to create distinct fishing corridors while continuing to optimize wind energy production.

According to Bay State Wind, feedback from the local fishing community indicated that the irregular pattern of the previous plan could make fishing in and transiting through the wind farm area difficult, especially in bad weather or during towing or setting gear.

Bay State Wind is a partnership between global offshore wind developer Ørsted and New England electric transmission company Eversource. The partners will submit a construction and operations plan to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in early 2019, which will include the updated turbine layout.

Read the full story at North American Wind Power

Geologists examine R.I. Sound seabed for wind turbines

August 6, 2018 –Before you can build a wind farm in the ocean, you have to understand what’s on and underneath the ocean floor.

The differences between sand, silt, rocks and clay will go a long way to determining what kind of foundations can be used to hold towering wind turbines above the water’s surface and how those foundations will be anchored to the bottom.

“That data is crucial to how we build a wind farm,” said Paul Murphy, vice president of operations and engineering at Deepwater Wind.

Deepwater is set to embark on a study that could last a month or more to determine the underwater geology of 256 square miles of Rhode Island Sound about 18 miles southeast of Block Island.

There, in waters that it’s leasing from the federal government, the Providence-based company plans to install dozens and dozens of wind turbines over the next decade to supply power to New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

A liftboat brought to Rhode Island from Louisiana and retrofitted with a drilling rig at the Quonset Business Park was set to depart Sunday for Deepwater’s lease area, where it will take core samples from deep within the ocean bottom.

Once it’s in place, the specialty ship named “Supporter” will lower three tubular legs to the seabed about 120 feet below and then raise itself up about 30 feet above the water to create a stable base for drilling to proceed.

The results of the survey will be used to supplement the construction and operations plans that Deepwater must submit for approval to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the arm of the U.S. Department of the Interior that oversees all offshore energy.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal