Saving Seafood

NOAA scientists propose more protection for right whales in offshore wind area

November 30, 2022 — The following is an excerpt from an article published by the New Bedford Light:

As America’s offshore wind industry gets ready to launch new clean energy projects off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, conservationists and federal scientists have communicated worries over how the installations could harm the endangered North Atlantic right whale, now numbering an estimated 340.

In light of these potential threats, a federal scientist proposed a “conservation buffer” zone — or area of no wind turbines — of about 10 nautical miles adjacent to the Nantucket shoals and seemingly overlapping with offshore wind development planned in southern New England.

Sean Hayes, chief of the protected species branch at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) and the letter’s signatory, proposed the buffer zone in a letter this spring to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) — the lead regulator for offshore wind development. According to maps of the wind lease areas, the proposed 20-kilometer buffer beginning at an area called the “30-meter isobath” in the shoals appears to overlap with an eastern portion of the Massachusetts-Rhode Island wind energy area.

Scientists in a 2022 New England Aquarium-led study found an increasing trend of right whales in the waters off of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket during all seasons (instead of just in the winter and spring) and cited climate change as a possible driver with a warming ocean shifting the whales’ feeding and migration patterns.

NOAA Fisheries submitted a public comment to BOEM for the Mayflower Wind project several months before Hayes’ letter (sent in May of this year) that included a similar proposal. While not explicitly mentioning a conservation buffer zone, it recommended BOEM in its environmental impact statement (EIS) include a project alternative of no turbines in a portion of the lease.

“We recommend BOEM evaluate in the EIS an alternative that limits the portion of the lease where [wind turbine generators] can be installed, which would result in no [wind turbine generators] in the northern portion of the lease area,” said the comment letter. “This alternative would reduce project overlap with some of the highest documented densities of North Atlantic right whale aggregations in the lease area…”

The 800-megawatt Mayflower Wind project is currently under review by BOEM. Asked if the company is planning to establish turbine-free areas in the lease as a potential mitigating measure for the right whales, Daniel Hubbard, director of external affairs and general counsel for Mayflower Wind, said by email that they are reviewing information and that “as the permitting process progresses, as with all material presented, we will take it into consideration.”

Research has found turbines will likely affect tidal currents and the water column in which zooplankton (right whales’ food) are found. Whales require dense collections of zooplankton, and any disruptions to that could have “significant energetic and population consequences,” Hayes wrote, particularly for their winter feeding area.

“It’s like the perfect storm of what could go wrong,” said Erica Fuller, a senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF).

Fuller said the area in and around the New England waters where wind development is set to take place was poorly surveyed for right whales before the federal government identified it for multiple energy leases. In recent years, aerial surveys have shown it’s become a year-round foraging habitat for the whales.

Through federal authorizations, the government limits how many individuals of a given species can be incidentally (not intentionally) harassed, disturbed or injured by an activity. Commercial fishing is an existing industry that has operated with such authorizations, which are now being reviewed and given to wind developers.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Light

NORTH CAROLINA: Will North Carolina get offshore wind farms? Right now it’s up to one state commission

November 21, 2022 — There’s a swath of ocean just over the horizon off Oak Island, in the southeast corner of North Carolina, that one day could be home to hundreds of towering offshore wind turbines. The project, federal regulators say, could produce as much power as Duke Energy’s nearby Brunswick Nuclear plant.

Duke Energy won the rights to build a wind farm in one of two leases off the coast of Brunswick County and Myrtle Beach, called the Carolina Long Bay area. The company said that lease is not part of the sale it announced recently of its renewable energy business.

This is all part of a plan, passed last year by the General Assembly, to reduce carbon emissions from power companies by 70% by 2030 and make power generation carbon neutral by 2050.

But how that works, and what role offshore wind plays in North Carolina’s clean energy mix, is now in the hands of the state Utilities Commission. The commission, which oversees North Carolina power companies, has been taking comments and proposals for months.

“We know the absolute earliest we’ve seen anyone projecting offshore wind is in the 2030 timeframe,” said Katherine Kollins, a wind industry advocate who leads the Southeast Wind Coalition. “That still is a lot of lead time, more than I would like.”

Read the full article at Spectrum News

BOEM adapts Gulf of Mexico wind planning to central Atlantic

November 21, 2022 — Eight proposed wind energy areas off the U.S. central Atlantic coast announced Wednesday total about 1.7 million acres, reduced from 3.9 million in the original call area outlined by the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management.

Ranging in distance 19 to 77 miles from the coasts of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, the WEAs could be the first to venture to the edge of the East Coast outer continental shelf – potentially requiring use of floating turbines, if wind choose to bid on the most distant, deepest areas.

BOEM officials say they have been gathering information since the call area was released in April, from sources including the Central Atlantic Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force; other federal agencies and the four states;  and input from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina State agencies; input from Federal agencies; and “comments from stakeholders and ocean users, including the maritime community, offshore wind developers, and the commercial fishing industry.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Panelists say BOEM, fishing industry still far apart on offshore wind

November 21, 2022 — With the first offshore wind lease sales impending off California, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and commercial fishermen still have a chasm to gap before the new and old industries can reasonably co-exist, panelists said at the Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle Friday.

BOEM’s early years of reviewing and permitting the first U.S. federal waters wind projects off southern New England failed to anticipate and head off conflicts with the region’s 400-year-old fishing industry, said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.

While the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project is moving ahead, BOEM and the developers are still contending with a lawsuit brought by Northeast fishermen with the assistance of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

New York’s largest offshore wind farm takes key step

November 18, 2022 — New York regulators have granted approval for a 25-mile transmission that will carry power from the state’s largest offshore wind farm to a substation in Suffolk County, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office on Thursday announced.

The transmission line approval by the New York State Public Service Commission is an important development for the proposed Sunrise Wind Farm off the coast of Long Island.

Read the full article at NY1

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford’s port director on balancing fishing and offshore wind

November 18, 2022 — The following excerpt is from The Publics Radio:

Ben Berke: We’re making more money from seafood in this port than any other port in America. But there are some fisheries that aren’t financially stable anymore. As offshore wind starts to move in, do you think the fishing industry’s physical presence in New Bedford will shrink?

Gordon Carr: No. I don’t. What I have seen with that industry over 20 or 30 years of observing it is that it’s an extraordinarily resilient commercial industry that is also sustainable and understands the importance of the ecology of the ocean to their livelihood. They adapt and have for decades. I will say that it is a top priority of the Port Authority, and certainly the City of New Bedford to help them do that however we can — making sure that we have the facilities that they need, the policies in place that they need, and that we advocate on their behalf at every level.

Berke: Last year, the owner of New Bedford’s biggest fishing fleet, Roy Enoksen, actually sued the city over a proposal that could basically force him to give up a piece of the waterfront he leases from the city to the offshore wind industry. When a conflict like that arises, how do you pick between leasing to a fishermen versus leasing to an offshore wind contractor?

Carr: Well, I think it’s sort of hard to speculate on something like that. That’s a hypothetical. But that’s what long term planning is for, right? It’s to not get yourself into that sort of bind.

Berke: But this piece of the waterfront that Enoksen sued over is a real example of this kind of conflict. So in the end, does the Port Authority simply give the lease to whoever’s willing to pay more?

Carr: I don’t think so. I mean, I’m not going to prejudge our decisionmaking on the use of the site. There’s all kinds of other factors that go into that. Somebody could offer to spend a lot of money and create relatively modest or minimal economic impact or jobs, and that’s a judgment call that we will want to make.

Read the full article at The Publics Radio

NEW JERSEY: Fiscal headwinds challenge offshore projects

November 16, 2022 — The offshore wind industry is facing new scrutiny as some initial proposals to build big wind farms off coastal waters are running into unforeseen fiscal challenges driven by high inflation, rising interest rates and continued constraints in the supply chain.

Those factors have led one company to ask to renegotiate its contract to build a 1,200-megawatt offshore wind farm in Massachusetts, a bid so far rejected by regulators there. They have also spurred Public Service Enterprise Group to reconsider its 25% investment in Ørsted’s 1,100-MW project to be built 15 miles off the Atlantic City coast.

Whether those issues are significant enough to slow New Jersey’s aggressive push to be a leader in the emerging industry remains to be seen, but there are critics who hope it does.

“The dirty secret of offshore wind is the economics don’t make sense,’’ said Mike Makarski, a spokesman for Affordable Energy of New Jersey, an organization that has been a persistent critic of the Murphy administration’s plan to shift to 100% clean energy by mid-century.

Read the full article at the New Jersey Spotlight News

Inflation’s next victim: U.S. offshore wind projects

November 15, 2022 — A rising tide of interest rates, supply chain bottlenecks and inflation is threatening the Biden administration’s ambitious offshore wind targets, creating a significant challenge for one of the president’s top climate priorities.

Recent weeks have seen a series of developers raise concerns over rising costs. In New Jersey, a developer warned earlier this month that a planned 98-turbine project off the coast of New Jersey could threaten its finances.

In New England, two developers with contracts to sell power to Massachusetts have sought to renegotiate the deals, only to get shot down by state regulators.

Many developers bid aggressively in state auctions to win those contracts but are now locked into agreements that didn’t account for rising costs, said Sam Huntington, director of North American power and renewables at S&P Global Commodity Insights.

The financial difficulties call into question the Biden administration’s goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by the end of this decade.

“We don’t see them hitting that,” Huntington said. “It is going to be something to watch. I don’t have a good sense of whether these will get renegotiated or canceled.”

The doubts are shared by other analysts. Bloomberg New Energy Finance sees the United States falling 3 to 4 GW short of its 2030 target due to long development timelines and an immature supply chain. The London-based renewables market intelligence firm Renewables Consulting Group estimates the United States will reach just over 25 GW by 2030.

Read the full article at E&E News

Dungeness crab dying amid low oxygen levels linked to climate change

November 8, 2022 — Terry “Chop” Arnold Jr. remembers the first few times he climbed in his dad’s 36-foot fishing boat at an old log boom, near the northernmost tip of Washington.

“I started going out with him when I was 10,” said Arnold, a Makah tribal fisherman. “And I never looked back.”

For decades, Chinook salmon were plentiful along the beach, he said. But in the ‘90s, the Arnolds had to troll as far as 30 miles offshore to find fish.

Fishing for many species has proved pretty steady over the years for Arnold. But lately, there have been seasons where there’s little or no crab, he said.

Not too far down the coast, piles of dead Dungeness crab washed ashore on Kalaloch Beach this summer. Meanwhile, fishers have shared stories about hoisting up dead or suffocating crabs in their pots, said Jenny Waddell, research ecologist with the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

Now, scientists are working to understand how climate change is affecting Dungeness crab, which is both culturally significant and a pillar of Washington’s seafood industry. From 2014 to 2019, coast-caught Dungeness was worth an annual average of $45 million.

Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a $4.2 million award for a four-year study on Dungeness crab and krill that will bring together researchers and experts from coastal tribes, public universities and federal agencies from Northern California to Washington.

Climate change has been exacerbating existing marine environmental stressors through changes in temperatures, ocean chemistry and seasonal cycles.

Read the full article at The Seattle Times

Did climate change really kill billions of snow crabs in Alaska?

November 7, 2022 — The disappearance of billions snow crabs from the Bering Sea has captivated the world’s attention since Alaska shut down the fishery for the first time in October 2022. But where exactly did these snow crabs go? And what caused them to vanish so quickly?

Scientists are still grappling with these questions, but climate change is the most cited hypothesis for the species’ retreat. Erin Fedewa, a research fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said the decline of the species, Chionoecetes opilio, coincided with a marine heat wave that swept through the Bering Sea between 2018 and 2019, which possibly caused the species to experience starvation, increased disease or predation.

Some fishers and crab experts put forward a different idea: They’ve suggested that fishing, particularly the unintentional capture of crabs in fishing gear known as trawls, also contributed to the loss of the snow crab, or at the very least, impeded the species’ recovery from low population levels.

The snow crab fishery’s closure has amplified a chorus of concerns around Alaska’s trawling industry — mainly from within the fishery sector itself — and the knowledge gaps around its potential impact on fisheries.

Read the full article at Mongabay