Saving Seafood

Tricia Jedele: Offshore wind rush is irresponsible

May 21, 2018 — In an April opinion piece, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote that “affordable, reliable, and abundant American energy drives domestic jobs and prosperity.” If by “drives domestic jobs and prosperity” Zinke meant “threatens the very existence of New England fishermen,” then the East Farm Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island (which represents Rhode Island commercial fishermen) would agree.

Right now, Zinke’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is reviewing a construction and operation plan submitted by Vineyard Wind. Vineyard Wind is a project company owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, a company based in the industrial port city of Bilbao, Spain. These companies plan to install a massive offshore wind project in the waters south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.  In the first phase of the project alone, according to the plan, Vineyard Wind will install between 88 and 106 wind turbine generators, up to four electrical service platforms, 156.4 nautical miles of cable, and up to three offshore export cables that are each 122.5 nautical miles long. And this is just the first project.

There are two other project companies also vying for state contracts and state and federal approvals. Deepwater Wind’s Revolution Wind could be built off the Massachusetts’ coast at various sizes up to 400 megawatts in its first phase.  Bay State Wind, a 50-50 joint venture between Ørsted (a company based in Denmark) and Eversource Energy, is a proposed offshore wind project located 25 miles off the Massachusetts’ coast and 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard with the potential to build up to 2,000 megawatts of wind power in the area.  Combined and fully developed, these projects could install more than 500 turbines in the waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

 

Future offshore drilling could wreak havoc on deep sea ecosystems

April 27, 2018 —   In early January, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced that more than 90 percent of the outer continental shelf in federal offshore areas is now available for offshore drilling exploration and development. In the official release, Zinke noted that the plan for this new exploration would strike a balance between protecting the coasts and achieving “energy dominance” in America. But marine scientists say that scale is really tipped. Opening up more areas to drilling, they say, means far more disruption for marine ecosystems and an even greater increased risk for oil spills.

Offshore drilling is way more than sucking up oil through pipes.

Mohammed Gabr, professor of civil engineering at North Carolina State University, says that offshore drilling requires three steps: investigating the site, boring exploratory wells, and laying the pipe, and each one can affect the ecosystems that surround the area.

To find potential oil deposits, engineers can use seismic techniques like generating sound waves, Gabr says. The waves bounce along the sea bed and reflect and identify the kind of stone underneath. If sound waves indicate the possibility of oil beneath the ocean bottom, the oil company then builds an exploratory well. This initial drilling is not necessarily to look for oil Gabr says, but to understand the structure and composition of the soil sediments. He likens the process to sticking a straw into a piece of cake: when removed, the straw will contain every layer of that cake.

Once they understand the soil’s makeup, Gabr says the company starts the search for oil. With the hole in place, workers pump mud in to prevent it from caving in. Then they place a casing in to house the pipe that will pull the oil out. As the hole gets closer to hitting oil, workers use cement to secure the casing. This hole exists under pressure, which must be controlled to make sure that the oil doesn’t come rushing up too quickly, he says. An oil spill can happen at any point along the oil production process, including drilling and the set up that goes along with it.

Read the full story at Popular Science

 

Massachusetts: Offshore Oil Drilling Sparks Early Opposition on Martha’s Vineyard

April 18, 2018 — Island environmental groups and state legislators are strongly opposing a plan by the Trump administration to open up North Atlantic waters to offshore oil and gas exploration.

The five-year drilling plan announced in early January by the U.S. Department of the Interior calls for drilling along East Coast federal waters from Georgia to Maine, including waters off Massachusetts.

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission has gone on record early against the idea of drilling.

“Opening our coast to drilling and the potential for a dangerous spill is a reckless threat to our region,” wrote MVC executive director Adam Turner in a recent letter to Gov. Charlie Baker. “Any oil spill, even in a limited quantity, will have serious consequences to the Island and the region.”

Mr. Turner said he wanted to make it clear to the governor early on that the commission is opposed to the proposal.

“I’m concerned about what safeguards are in place to avoid an oil spill or contamination in the water,” Mr. Turner said. “What’s the impact on wildlife?”

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has also opposed the plan, saying that the drilling could threaten the state’s $7.3 billion fishing industry and 1,500 miles of coastline and raising the prospect of taking legal action.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

Interior secretary: ‘Opposition’ to offshore drill plan

April 9, 2018 — PLAINSBORO, N.J. — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday acknowledged there is “a lot of opposition” to President Donald Trump’s plan to open most of the nation’s coastline to oil and gas drilling.

Speaking at a forum on offshore wind energy in Plainsboro, New Jersey, Zinke touted Trump’s “all of the above” energy menu that calls for oil and gas, as well as renewable energy projects.

But he noted strong opposition to the drilling plan, adding there is little to no infrastructure in many of those areas to support drilling.

“There is a lot of opposition, particularly off the East Coast and the West Coast, on oil and gas,” Zinke said.

He said on the East Coast, only the Republican governors of Maine and Georgia have expressed support for the drilling plan, which has roiled environmentalists but cheered energy interests. Maine Gov. Paul LePage has endorsed the plan, but Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has hesitated to take a public position on it.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post

President Trump Expands Wind Leases Off Martha’s Vineyard

April 9, 2018 — The Trump administration will expand wind energy leases off Martha’s Vineyard, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior announced Friday.

In a press release, Secretary Ryan Zinke said two more areas off Massachusetts totaling some 390,000 acres would go up for sale for future commercial wind farms. The lease area lies near a 300,000-acre swath of wind-rich deepwater ocean already designated for commercial wind farms, roughly 15 to 25 miles south of the Vineyard.

No wind farms have been built yet off Massachusetts, but a high-stakes business race is on as well-funded developers work their way through a dense bureaucractic process of permitting at the state and federal level. Construction could begin by 2019 and run through 2022.

The next key date in the permitting process is April 23, when bid winners will be announced for state-mandated energy contracts with utility providers. Tied to a 2016 law signed by Gov. Charlie Baker requiring state utility companies to buy 1,600 megawatts of power from alternative energy sources in the next decade, the energy contracts are critical for wind developers since they provide a way for wind farms to transmit electricity to consumers via the grid.

To date, three developers have been awarded leases to build utility-scale wind farms off the Vineyard: Vineyard Wind, Deepwater Wind and Baystate Wind.

Vineyard Wind is a partnership between Vineyard Power, the Island energy cooperative, and the Danish company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which has an offshore wind development arm.

Deepwater Wind, based in Providence, R.I., has already launched the country’s first offshore wind farm off Block Island.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

National marine monument suit moves forward

March 22, 2018 — President Barack Obama is long gone from office, but the legal fight lives on against his use of the Antiquities Act to create the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument off the coast of southern New England.

A federal judge in Washington D.C. has lifted a 10-month stay on the lawsuit filed against the federal government by fishing stakeholders — including the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association — seeking to roll back recent uses of the Antiquities Act and block using the statute to create new national marine monuments in the future.

The order lifting the stay by U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg, who granted the stay at the request of the federal defendants last May 12, will allow the lawsuit to continue.

The lifting of the stay was greeted warmly by fishing stakeholders.

“We’re optimistically excited about the prospect of moving forward so the fishing industry can regain fishing grounds it’s lost without fear of being evicted again,” Beth Casoni, executive director of the Masssachusetts Lobstermen’s Association said Wednesday.

Also, according to one of the lawyers for fishing stakeholders, the lifting of the stay places the Trump administration in a position where it either must act on recommendations from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to reopen the area of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument to commercial fishing or defend Obama’s decision in court.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Massachusetts Senate declares opposition to New England offshore oil and gas drilling

February 23, 2018 — BOSTON — The Massachusetts Senate has registered its opposition to reopening any oil and gas exploration or drilling off the coast of New England.

A resolution passed by the Senate Thursday states that federal initiatives to reopen offshore drilling “threaten to jeopardize the environmental well-being of the Commonwealth, and more particularly, its coastal communities and waters.”

The measure asks the U.S. Department of the Interior to “take all possible action to protect the waters off the coast of the Commonwealth and New England, in particular Georges Bank, Stellwagen Bank, and Jeffreys Ledge, and to exempt these areas from oil exploration initiatives.”

The statement, co-authored by Sen. Mike Barrett, D-Lexington, and Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, comes days before the Bureau of Ocean Management plans a Feb. 27 public open house in Boston regarding its proposed National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program.

The Bureau of Ocean Management will soon seek environmental permits for its Jan. 9 draft plan to reopen fossil fuel exploration in nearly all ocean areas along the continental United States and Alaska. March 9 is the deadline for submitting public comments on the draft leasing document.

Read the full story at MassLive

 

Rhode Island: Ocean State Officials Pledge to Halt Offshore Drilling

February 13, 2018 — NARRAGANSETT, R.I. — Rhode Island’s governor and members of Congress are calling for an all-out effort to oppose President Trump’s plan for offshore drilling along the Eastern seaboard. They warned of the environmental and economic risks to the state’s fishing and tourism industries. They urged the public to submit comments on the proposal to the Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM) and to show their opposition at a scheduled Feb. 28 public workshop in Providence.

Referencing the six commercial fishermen in the audience at at Feb. 12 press event, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said he planned to advance a bill signed by all New England senators to ban offshore drilling off the New England coast. Whitehouse called the offshore drilling proposal a “dumb idea” and blamed the fossil-fuel industry for directing the Trump administration to enact it.

“This will not happen. Whatever it takes to prevent it, we will see takes place,” Whitehouse said.

Gov. Gina Raimondo promised to lobby governors of coastal states to pass resolutions opposing the offshore drilling plan.

“This is backwards. We ought to be moving forward for offshore wind farms, not backwards for offshore oil drilling,” she said.

Raimondo also restated her intent to have Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke follow through on his promise to meet her in Rhode Island and discuss the fossil-fuel project. Several East Coast governors called Zinke after he met with Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Scott apparently convinced Zinke to exempt his state from the offshore drilling plan. Although there is skepticism of the agreement after Zinke’s office backtracked somewhat on that promise and legal questions of such an exemption surfaced.

Whitehouse and Raimondo were asked whether a state or regional carbon tax would put economic pressure on Trump and the fossil-fuel industry. Both said they favor a national or multi-state fee on fossil fuels. However, Whitehouse said his carbon tax bill in the Senate won’t advance until the head of the Senate is a Democrat.

“The Republicans are keenly interested in trying to shovel this issue under the rug as much as they can to keep the fossil-fuel money flowing into their party. It’s a sad state of affairs,” Whitehouse said.

Raimondo said she favors advancing a carbon tax along with public pushback to offshore drilling.

Read the full story at ECORI

 

N.J. to Trump: Stay away from our ‘treasured coastal communities’

February 2, 2018 — The [Gov. Phil] Murphy administration has sent another signal to Washington that it does not want drilling off the Jersey Shore.

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal joined attorneys general from 11 other states in sending a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday, objecting to the new plan to drill for oil and natural gas throughout federal waters.

In the letter, the attorneys general express “deep concerns” and claim that the plan represents “disregard for vital state interests, economies, and resources.”

Grewal was joined by the attorneys general of North Carolina, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Virginia in the letter to Zinke. Each attorney general outlines concerns specific to their states.

Read the full story at NJ.com

 

Massachusetts: Baker forming group in opposition to offshore drilling

January 31, 2018 — Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday he’s working to build a coalition of eastern seaboard governors in opposition to the Trump administration’s plan to open the North Atlantic to offshore oil drilling.

Some governors of states along the coast have already reached out formally to the Department of Interior to express their opposition, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott won an exemption for his state. But while the Massachusetts Congressional delegation has called on Baker to speak up, the governor said he’s eyeing the Feb. 15 deadline for public comment.

“I would like to see if we can’t bring some of the other Republican and Democrat governors and maybe, with them, their delegations along, up and down the East Coast, so that’s really been our focus over the last few weeks,” Baker said during an interview on WGBH’s Boston Public Radio on Monday.

The Baker administration in June told Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke that Massachusetts does not support opening areas of the North Atlantic adjacent to the state for oil and natural gas exploration. That position was stated in a letter pertaining to the federal government’s review of protected marine monument areas.

Zinke announced earlier this month a plan to make more than 90 percent of the national outer continental shelf available for oil and gas exploration.

Read the full story at Worcester Business Journal