Saving Seafood

VA: Clock ticking for Hampton Roads and offshore wind industry, state official says

January 24, 2020 — Hampton Roads has a chance to create thousands of jobs and attract a potential multibillion-dollar industry to the region. The only question now is whether regional stakeholders are up to the task.

That’s the message Virginia wind energy leader Jennifer Palestrant told a room full of Hampton Roads mayors, city council members and others during a Hampton Roads Planning District Commission meeting Jan. 16.

“We’re going to get one shot at this,” said Palestrant, chief deputy for Virginia’s Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. “One. This opportunity will not come again.”

Palestrant said she believes momentum is building toward making Hampton Roads one of the largest, most important locations for wind turbine construction on the East Coast. With it could come a large chunk of an estimated $70 billion industry and 14,000 Virginia jobs, according to the commission.

“This is a game changer,” Palestrant said.

Read the full story at Inside Business

Virginia Beach business owners rush to fight Trump administration’s approval of seismic testing

December 7, 2018 — When the Trump administration OK’d seismic testing along the Atlantic coast to explore the possibilities of offshore drilling, business owners in Virginia’s largest city condemned the approval and scrambled to plan how to oppose it.

The exploration carries risks, such as damage to marine life and Virginia’s coasts, and could threaten the tourism and fishing industries, the port of Hampton Roads and even the military, opponents here said.

Laura Habr is co-owner of Croc’s 19th Street Bistro in the ViBe District and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast, an organization that represents roughly 43,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families from Maine to Florida.

For her, the next several days will be filled with meetings and conference calls, where a community on high alert will work to decide how to push back against the decision.

Read the full story at The Virginia-Pilot