Saving Seafood

Offshore wind developers need workforce, ‘predictable’ regulations

June 27, 2018 — The budding Atlantic offshore wind industry needs a skilled workforce in the Northeast and a consistent federal approach to permitting and regulation, experts told members of Congress Tuesday.

The Northeast region alone aims to generate 7,500 megawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, said Stephen Pike, CEO of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, who called it “a once in a lifetime opportunity to establish a new industry in the United States.”

The House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources was hearing testimony on legislation that would create a federally funded wind career training grant program, and to extend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act so the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management can offer wind energy leases off U.S. territories.

“Guam is a logical place to start looking,” Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, told Rep. Madeleine Bordallo, D-Guam, sponsor of the extension measure. Bordallo said offshore wind makes sense for the Pacific island where power is generated with expensive imported petroleum, and Luthi said several developers have expressed interest.

“We would be more than happy to work with the territories,” said James Bennett, who heads BOEM’s renewable energy program. As it has with states, the agency would start by creating task forces to identify potential lease areas and determine what kinds of studies are needed, he said.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

New York: Plans For Offshore Wind Energy Draw Criticism At Hearing In Southampton On Monday

May 8, 2018 — The difference between what the federal government and New York State have carved out for renewable wind energy projects destined to be built off the south shore of Long Island is about 2.7 miles.

That’s a big difference, especially for the commercial fishermen, environmentalists and South Fork residents who voiced their concerns Monday about wind farms proposed in their backyards.

“We know the moment [the federal government] gets a taste of wind farms in the Atlantic, we are going to be playing whack-a-mole with energy and oil companies creeping up on our fishing grounds,” Bonnie Brady said at a presentation by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, or NYSERDA, on Monday night at the Southampton Inn.

Ms. Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in Montauk, said that, like other commercial fishermen in the audience, she worries that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, which has jurisdiction over the Atlantic, will lease more ocean for wind energy development and wind up hurting the industry.

In October 2017, NYSERDA recommended two leasing areas to BOEM after various studies. The state’s master plan was praised by some residents, like Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island, for its speedy analysis.

Read the full story at 27 East

 

Rhode Islanders march against offshore drilling

March 5, 2018 — PROVIDENCE, R.I. — More than a hundred Rhode Island residents gathered at the State House Wednesday to protest the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposal to lift the long-standing ban on offshore fossil fuel drilling in large swaths of US coastal waters.

The protest, organized by Save the Bay, an independent, nonprofit organization devoted to protecting and improving Narragansett Bay, was preceded by a press conference wherein several state officials spoke out against BOEM’s proposal.

Concerned RI residents packed into the State Room as Governor Gina Raimondo, Senator Dawn Euer, Mayor Scott Avedesian of Warwick and others railed against the expansion of offshore drilling in RI and elsewhere.  The proposal came after President Donald Trump’s latest executive order to reverse existing policy that protects waters from oil and gas drilling.

According to BOEM, the proposal, “The Five Year Program, is an “important component” of the President’s executive order to allow domestic oil and natural gas production “as a means to support economic growth and job creation and enhance energy security.”

“While offshore oil and gas exploration and development will never be totally risk-free, since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill, the U.S. Department of the Interior has made, and is continuing to make, substantial reforms to improve the safety and reduce the environmental impacts of OCS oil and gas activity,” reads the proposal.

However at Thursday’s press conference, Raimondo said the proposal is a “terrifying” move in the wrong direction, citing “tragedies like Exxon Valdez and the BP oil spill.”

“We should be focusing on harnessing our offshore wind power – not digging for oil off our coast. The proposal that came out of Washington in January to open up our coastal waters to offshore drilling is terrifying,” Raimondo said, to thunderous applause.  “Rhode Island won’t stand for it.”

Reaching the coastlines of all five Gulf Coasts, the long-term impacts of the Deepwater spill are still felt today, taking a devastating impacts on birds, mammals, fish, and other creatures.

Read the full story at the Narragansett Times

 

Gloucester Times: Government must listen on ocean drilling

March 1, 2018 — Opponents of drilling for oil and gas in the offshore waters of New England are legion, and they have plenty to say.

If only they could find a way to get their government to listen.

What was touted earlier this year as a public hearing on the proposal by the Bureau Ocean Energy Management was anything but Tuesday. The event, which had been postponed and seen its location shift a handful of times, could be better described as an infomercial. There were business expo-style booths aplenty at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, and even a promotional video touting the plan.

But if you wanted to let government leaders know in person how you felt about drilling into the seabed, you were out of luck — the bureau was accepting written comments only. It’s a common tactic used by officials to stifle public debate. By accepting written comments, you can pretend you’ve listened to the people without having to actually face them in an open, public and often messy forum.

And folks in these parts are demanding to be heard on the Trump administration’s plan to open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore waters to oil and gas exploration. When it was announced a few months ago, the proposal garnered immediate praise from the giant energy conglomerates who seem to have the president’s ear on issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline to so-called “clean coal.” Every other interest, meanwhile, came out against the plan. Republicans and Democrats — including Gov. Charlie Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey — are united in bipartisan opposition. The commercial fishing industry and the environmental lobby, which have been bitterly at odds over the last 30 years, are standing side-by-side.

“Opening up our coast to offshore drilling would be terrible for Massachusetts,” Emily Norton of the Massachusetts Sierra Club said Tuesday. “We will be fighting this with everything we’ve got, in the courts, on the streets and at the ballot box.”

Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken, who cut her political teeth opposing drilling as a member of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association (she is still the group’s vice president), noted a single leak from an oil well in an offshore fishing area “could devastate us all.”

She’s right. It would be the end of New England commercial fishing, which is less an “industry” like the oil and gas behemoths and more a loose confederation of small businesses ranging from shoreside bait and ice providers to marine repair yards to the boats themselves, the oceangoing equivalent of a mom-and-pop store. Together, however, they comprise a $7 billion-a-year piece of the economy.”

And that’s not taking into account Massachusetts’ recreational fishing and tourism businesses, which rely on clean water and pristine beaches to attract visitors.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times