Saving Seafood

Appeal filed objecting to continued lease of Sound to Cape Wind

November 30, 2017 — The Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) are among those who have appealed a federal decision that reaffirmed Cape Wind’s long-term lease on 46 miles of Nantucket Sound, according to a press release.

The lease was reaffirmed in September despite the objections of dozens of stakeholders, including state and local leaders, the Aquinnah tribe, and the Steamship Authority, who all wrote letters to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management objecting to the ongoing lease. Cape Wind had proposed 130 wind turbines for Nantucket Sound, but the project has been stalled by legal challenges, and utilities have walked away from power purchase plans.

Read the full story at the Martha’s Vineyard Times

 

Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Cape Wind Energy Project

August 7, 2017 — On Friday, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued its final supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) on the 468-megawatt Cape Wind project. In July of last year, an appeals court held that the agency should have used better data to determine the conditions of the seafloor for the project before issuing a lease. The final EIS states that the additional data it gathered does not change its prior finding that drilling foundations for the project in the seabed would only temporarily disturb sedimentation, and the overall impacts to water quality would be minor. The Cape Wind project is on hold after it missed a financing deadline, which led National Grid and NStar (now Eversource) to cancel contracts to buy power from it:

BOEM is announcing the availability of the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Cape Wind Energy Project. This supplement to the 2009 Final EIS has been prepared in response to a 2016 remand order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility v. Hopper, 827 F.3d 1077 (D.C. Cir. 2016).

The Final SEIS is available for review on the BOEM website at: https://www.boem.gov/Massachusetts-Cape-Wind/.

In the Final SEIS for the Cape Wind Energy Project, BOEM examines the available geological survey data, including the geotechnical data and reports submitted to BOEM since the 2009 Final EIS, and any other relevant material that relate to the adequacy of the seafloor to support wind turbines in the lease area.

The Final SEIS also includes a summary of all the comments received on the Draft SEIS and BOEM’s responses to those comments.

Now Available: BOEM Provides New Resource for Atlantic Fishing Industry

July 14, 2016 — The following was released by the Bureau of Ocean Managment:

BOEM is pleased to announce that we have recently added a new webpage for the commercial fishing industry to serve as a single point of entry for updates on Atlantic offshore renewable energy planning and leasing efforts.

http://www.boem.gov/Atlantic-Fishing/

The webpage will provide users with status updates, charts and maps, and project-specific developer contact information for fisheries liaisons and fishery representatives.

Please bookmark this link to find the latest information. We encourage and welcome feedback on how we can further enhance this resource. Please send your comments to the email address below.

MASSACHUSETTS: State set to deny extending Cape Wind permits

March 30, 2016 — A state board on Tuesday issued a tentative decision denying the extension of permits that would allow Cape Wind to build an electricity transmission line to connect its proposed offshore wind farm to land, further complicating the beleaguered project’s already grim prospects.

Members of the Energy Facilities Siting Board will meet next week to finalize a decision on whether or not to renew nine state and local permits the board initially granted as a so-called “super permit” to the offshore wind energy developer in 2009. The permits allowed Cape Wind to construct a transmission line through state-owned territory in Nantucket Sound and Hyannis Harbor and across multiple Cape towns.

Cape Wind had initially requested a two-year extension of the permits to May 1, 2017, which is unreasonable because it would not be enough time for Cape Wind to overcome the obstacles the project faces, according to the siting board’s tentative decision.

“At this time, Cape Wind needs a lengthy, almost open-ended extension period,” siting board presiding officer James Buckley wrote in the 26-page document. “An open-ended extension obviously would be unreasonbable. Any extension of the magnitude needed here, especially in light of the minimal investigation and review by Cape Wind for this proceeding, likewise would be unreasonable.”

The decision would be yet another major setback for the project, which has faced stiff opposition since it was first proposed in 2001. Last year, it suffered a major blow when Eversource Energy and National Grid canceled contracts to buy power from the 130-turbine wind farm.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

European firm pitches huge wind farm off Martha’s Vineyard

November 10, 2015 — A major European energy company is proposing what could be North America’s largest offshore wind farm 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, outlining its plans less than a year after the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound suffered a stunning financial setback.

Denmark-based DONG Energy A/S, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind farms, Monday said it would build up to 100 giant wind turbines, generating as much as 1,000 megawatts of electricity — more than double the output Cape Wind had proposed for its site off Cape Cod. The Danish company recently acquired one of the leases for a stretch of ocean that the US government has designated for wind farms. It has dubbed the local operation Bay State Wind.

Company officials, seeking to distinguish their plans from the controversial Cape Wind project, pointed to DONG Energy’s long track record in building ocean wind farms. They also noted the turbines would be much farther out to sea, potentially drawing less opposition from oceanfront homeowners than Cape Wind.

“We have the experience and we have the expertise,” said Thomas Brostrom, the company’s North American general manager said in an interview Sunday.

DONG Energy faces lengthy Massachusetts and US permitting processes that include environmental reviews and approvals for where its power lines would come ashore. Once those approvals are in hand, DONG Energy said, it would take about three years to build the wind farm, and the first phase could include 30 to 35 turbines and be in service by early next decade.

Other than getting the transfer of the lease approved by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, DONG Energy has yet to file any applications for the projects with the federal or state government.

The group that battled the Cape Wind project since its inception has adopted a much softer tone for the Danish project and others proposed in the waters south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Activity increasing all along New Bedford, Mass. Harbor

September 6, 2015 — The Port of New Bedford is not only home to the vastly profitable scallop industry, making it the No. 1 value fishing port in the nation, it is also the No. 2 commercial port in Massachusetts, after Boston.

Commercial and recreational activity in the port has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, with an occasional setback. Plans for a waterfront casino fell through this year when the developer could not find financing. The state-funded development of a $100 million-plus maritime shipping terminal in the South End wound up without its major client when the Cape Wind offshore wind energy    project was abandoned.

Even at that, there is activity everywhere. This summer has seen a large increase in the number of recreational boaters who have decided to dock in New Bedford. Some of that is a reflection of the good publicity that the port received when the Boston 2024 Olympic Committee, now disbanded, chose New Bedford to be the home of the sailing competition in those games.

Shipping is also increasing. Cargo ships carrying clementines from Morocco or Spain have sharply increased their number of arrivals at State Pier in the last couple of years. Plans are in place to refrigerate the State Pier storage facility so clementines can be shipped through the port during warm weather, which they cannot do at present.

Read the full story from the New Bedford Standard-Times

$113m New Bedford, Mass. marine terminal sits largely idle

August 30, 2015 — The new waterfront terminal in New Bedford was supposed to be teeming with activity by now, a staging ground for a massive wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

But with a cancellation of a lease by Cape Wind, the 28-acre site has instead remained largely idle this summer. Efforts by the quasi-public Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to hire a company to position the property for cargo shipping are also taking longer than anticipated.

The $113 million terminal was built primarily with state bond money under Deval Patrick’s administration as a staging ground to ship and repair heavy offshore wind turbines. The idea, in part, was to enable New Bedford’s struggling economy to capitalize on an emerging industry by creating more clean energy jobs. But without Cape Wind as an anchor, there is no offshore wind work in sight.

To supporters, the terminal is still viewed as a potentially viable, vibrant piece of the city’s waterfront. To critics, the terminal is seen as an unnecessary expense of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

For Matthew Beaton, Charlie Baker’s energy and environmental affairs secretary, the real question is how the state can recoup its hefty investment in a mostly dormant terminal.

Read the full story from The Boston Globe