Saving Seafood

Judge Tosses Seafood Industry Challenge to East Coast Wind Farm

October 3, 2018 — A seafood industry challenge to a $42.5 million lease for a wind farm off the coast of New York was filed prematurely, a federal judge has ruled.

Led by the Fisheries Survival Fund, the plaintiffs in the case said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management failed to adequately consider how the Statoil Wind US LLC wind energy facility would impact fishermen, along with other environmental and economic impacts.

The plaintiffs also argued that the agency failed to consider adequate alternatives or prepare an environmental impact statement, which the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said was unnecessary after determining that there were no foreseeable environmental impacts that would significantly impact the human environment.

But U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, while finding that  the Fisheries Survival Fund and the other  plaintiffs had standing to bring claims under the National Environmental Policy Act, ruled Sunday they were not yet ripe.

That’s because Statoil Wind US LLC, the company developing the 26-mile wind farm roughly 11 miles out from Long Island, must first submit its construction and operations plans, along with a site assessment, while the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management retains authority to reject any or all of those.

“The presence of these ‘conditions’ does not transform the lease into an irretrievable commitment of resources,” the 24-page ruling says.

Chutkan later adds: “The lease sale does not represent the final word on anything, nor does it commit any resources, even putting aside the question of whether it does so irretrievably,” the 24-page ruling says.

If its site assessment plan is approved, Statoil will have five years to conduct surveys and propose construction and operations plans.

Read the full story at Courthouse News

BOEM looking at traffic lanes, buffers for offshore wind power

September 24, 2018 — Concerns raised by the maritime and commercial fishing industries now have federal officials considering wider buffer areas, and spacing as far as two nautical miles between proposed offshore wind power turbines.

At meetings in New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, representatives of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said the burden of proof is on offshore wind energy development companies to show their plans for turbine arrays will be compatible with other ocean industries.

“Right now we’re asking developers to prove that fishermen can still fish” if offshore turbines are built, said Amy Stillings, an economist with BOEM.

The agency is also looking at setting aside a corridor for shipping and barge traffic cutting across the New York Bight, which extends from Cape May Inlet, N.J., to Montauk Point, N.Y., on the eastern tip of Long Island, to maintain a safe buffer between future turbine arrays and vessel traffic.

That idea for a cross-Bight corridor nine nautical miles wide – a five-mile traffic lane, with two-mile buffers on either side – recognizes trends in maritime transportation that allow towing vessels to take the route farther offshore than the traditional paths closer to shore.

Read the full story at Work Boat

 

The New York Bight – a Hydra of Difficult Issues

September 18, 2018 — Amidst an atmosphere of possible resurgence in the domestic offshore oil energy, maritime stakeholders are also reminded that there is more than one kind of energy available for development off the four collective coasts of the United States. That process is underway in the Great Lakes; it has already happened off of New England. To that end, and last April, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) published a ‘Call for Information and Nominations.’

This ‘Call’ started a formal process for BOEM to gather information about developers’ interest in commercial wind energy leases in the Atlantic outer continental shelf. More specifically, this meant within sections of the New York Bight, the portion of the Atlantic extending northeasterly from Cape May Inlet in New Jersey to Montauk Point on the eastern tip of Long Island. The comment period was first set to close at the end of May, but it was extended to the end of July.

BOEM will use the comments to first gauge the interest among energy project developers, and secondly, to assess the broader concerns associated with possible wind energy projects within the Bight. There already is interest in this set of Call Areas. In December 2016, for example, BOEM received an unsolicited lease request from PNE Wind USA, Inc. (PNE) for 40,920 acres offshore New York. PNE seeks a lease to develop a 300–400 MW project, primarily within the Call Area Fairways South. Beyond this, BOEM’s map lists Statoil, US Wind and Ocean Wind as also having interests in various lease areas.

Curiously, offshore wind – that long awaited renewable source of energy – has as many detractors as its dirtier fossil fuel cousins.

Read the full story at Marine Link

Effects of Florence on Long Island fishing are a mixed bag

September 14, 2018 — Fearsome Hurricane Florence may have missed Long Island by several hundred miles, but her high seas have stretched across the Atlantic Coast from Florida to New England. Following strong offshore winds that saw ocean swells topping 12 feet last weekend, the influence of the massive hurricane — plus the possibility of more heavy seas from two additional named storms now swirling in the Atlantic — have anglers wondering how the fishing might shape-up once the waves finally lay down.

Big storms can have a huge influence on Long Island’s fishing prospects, especially during September when many local species like fluke, sea bass, porgies and weakfish begin transitioning from the bays and coastlines out to deeper ocean waters. Some anglers believe a heavy storm at this time of year can shut the action down for days or even weeks; others think just the opposite, feeling that rough seas and dropping temperatures may spark the start of a fall bite. Depending on the year and the storm, it’s likely both camps are right some of the time.

“I’m worried that heavy seas and all the rain we’ve already had might slow the action for a few days,” said Capt. Joey Leggio of the Oceanside charter boat Frankie James. “At the least, all this foul weather will push fish further offshore. Anglers have been catching brown sharks and even cobia — a southern visitor that loves warm water — in as little as 20 feet of ocean water. I’m pretty sure those fish will move deeper. Fluke might make an adjustment, too. The biggest ones are already in 60- to 80-foot depths. They might just keep on going. You just never know.”

Read the full story at Newsday

New York’s offshore wind plan faces commercial fishing opposition

September 13, 2018 — The plan to turn ocean wind into energy calls for anchoring 15 wind turbines, each one a little taller than the Washington Monument, into the sea floor more than 30 miles off the coast of Montauk, Long Island.

They’ll be far enough out in the Atlantic that they won’t be seen from Long Island’s beaches, so far in fact, that it will require miles and miles of cable to deliver their 90 megawatts of energy – enough to power 50,000 homes – from ocean to land.

And that’s right smack in the middle of where Chris Scola makes his living.

Several days a week, Scola motors his rusting trawler – the Rock-n-Roll III — into the waters off Montauk’s coast, drops a dredging net onto the ocean floor and scoops up hundreds of pounds of scallops.

Once those cables go in, Scola fears his nets will get entangled, making dredging so difficult he’ll need to find a place to fish further offshore with a larger boat, sending himself deeper into debt.

“This isn’t just about fishermen,” said Bonnie Brady, the executive director of the Montauk-based Long Island Commercial Fishing Association. “This is about the environment. You’re industrializing the ocean floor.”

Brady said developers have failed to properly account for the impact that two processes essential to the Montauk wind farm project will have on fishing habitats. One is the pile driving required to anchor 590-foot tall turbines in the ocean floor and the other is jet plowing, which liquidizes sediment so cable can be dug four to six feet into the ocean floor.

The project’s developer, Deepwater Wind, says the processes might have an initial impact on fishing habitats but over time things will return to normal.

Read the full story at the Poughkeepsie Journal

Deepwater Will File Wind Farm Application With The State Without Waiting For East Hampton Trustees’ Approval

September 12, 2018 — Deepwater Wind says it will file its massive application for the South Fork Wind Farm with the New York State Public Service Commission this month—without waiting for the East Hampton Town Trustees to vote on whether they will grant a lease to the company.

A spokesperson for the wind farm company confirmed that the application, already months behind when the company originally hoped to file, is expected to be submitted to the state this week or next.

The Trustees have not voted on a resolution to allow Deepwater to run the wind farm power cable beneath Trustees-owned beach at Beach Lane in Wainscott, or to vote on one “memorializing” their intention to do so, as the Town Board did in July for allowing the cable to run under town roads.

But Deepwater spokesperson Meaghan Whims cited the recent unanimous support of the Trustees for hiring a municipal contract attorney to represent the board in the negotiations of the lease, and said the company has taken it as a sign that the Trustees ultimately expect to hammer out an agreement with Deepwater—though she acknowledged that the application with the state also will account for the possibility that one or both of the town entities will balk when it comes to signing actual contracts.

Read the full story at 27 East

 

NEW YORK: LI farmers and fishermen outline problems for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand

August 20, 2018 — Long Island farmers and fishermen on Saturday outlined many complicated and pressing problems to U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Their to-do list included: cleansing polluted bays by reconnecting them to the sea, obtaining an emergency permit to use a banned pesticide, policing counterfeit seafood, and securing seasonal workers despite an immigration crackdown.

Gillibrand, who stands for election in the fall and who might have presidential aspirations, vowed to “elevate” many concerns aired at a panel she convened that was hosted by the Ammerman campus of Suffolk County Community College in Selden.

To Bob Nolan, a New York Farm Bureau director, who described the labor shortage, she pledged to “take a good look” at the temporary worker program.

Read the full story at Newsday

New York clammer gets deferred-prosecution deal in fisheries case

August 16, 2018 — A Northport clammer who was the first Long Islander to challenge at trial charges growing out of the federal government’s ongoing fisheries probe has accepted a deferred-prosecution agreement that could see his case dismissed in a year.

Thomas Kokell, a former commercial trawler-boat captain, was indicted in 2016 on four counts of mail fraud, conspiracy and filing false fishing reports in connection with an alleged scheme to illegally harvest nearly 200,000 pounds of fluke in 2011 and 2012. The fish were valued at nearly $400,000.

Kokell was released Tuesday on his own recognizance after a court appearance in which the deal was approved by a federal judge, according to federal court documents and Kokell’s attorney. He will not enter a plea and the charges will be dismissed, avoiding prison time and fines, if he “avoids future misconduct” over the next year, according to his attorney Peter Smith and court documents.

The company affiliated with his fishing operation, however, will pay a fine of $5,000, according to Smith and the documents. Other fishermen caught up in the federal probe have seen several years of prison time and fines over $900,000.

Read the full story at Newsday

NEW YORK: NYPA to lead offshore wind study; LIPA will also have role

August 9, 2018 — A memorandum of understanding has been signed by New York power agencies and partners to conduct a study of successful offshore wind transmission models, with a specific focus on large-scale European projects, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Aug. 8.

The New York Power Authority will lead the study and a number of parties including the Long Island Power Authority will collaborate with NYPA on the initial phase of the research.

Input gained from the study will help determine the optimal infrastructure required to support offshore wind targets set by the governor.

Earlier this year, Cuomo announced the New York State Offshore Wind Master Plan, which will guide the state in the development of 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind by 2030. The plan describes the conditions needed for the state to achieve its offshore wind target and indicates the need for future technical studies and analyses to advance the most cost-effective and responsible development.

Cuomo’s office said the findings of the study will be timely as the state looks at transmission costs which the master plan estimates could comprise 30 percent of total costs of an offshore wind development.

Particular attention will be given in the study to the physical design, including radial and network connections and interconnections between the projects and to the respective onshore transmission systems as well as development and rate structures.

It will also focus on the ownership structures, business models and financing approaches used in each jurisdiction, as well as the regulatory approaches governing transmission development and cost recovery.

Read the full story at the American Public Power Association

NY ratepayers will pay for $2.1B offshore wind plan, but won’t get the energy

August 8, 2018 — New York state ratepayers will pick up the tab for the Cuomo Administration’s multi-billion dollar plan to jump-start the offshore wind industry, but most won’t benefit from the energy produced.

Only consumers in Long Island and New York City will be able to access the wind-powered energy that’s going to be generated in the waters off the state’s Atlantic coast in the years to come.

As soon as 2020, typical residential ratepayers could see an increase of up to 76 cents a month in their electric bills as the state goes all-in on offshore wind as a critical piece of the state’s renewable energy future, The Journal News/Poughkeepsie Journal has learned.

That’s in addition to the average $2 per month charge state ratepayers are already paying for the bailout of three struggling upstate nuclear power plants for the next ten years.

The New York State Public Service Commission announced last week that it had agreed to procure some 800 megawatts of offshore wind energy over the next two years, the first phase in an effort to develop 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, enough to power 1.2 million households in New York City and Long Island.

“Robust offshore wind development is not only critical to meeting our clean energy and carbon reduction goals, this investment has the potential to create thousands of jobs and fuel a $6 billion industry for New York as it combats climate change,” Cuomo said.

The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association (LICFA), based in Montauk, have joined a lawsuit challenging the decision by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to allow thousands of acres off the Atlantic coast of Long Island to be leased to offshore wind companies.

The six areas available for lease could hold up to 200 wind turbines.

“The historical, traditional commercial fishing communities of Long Island, which include hundreds of small business owners, the very tax and rate-payers whose businesses help to support other small businesses throughout Long Island, are ground zero for having their very livelihoods and businesses destroyed,” Bonnie Brady, the executive director of LICFA wrote in April.

Read the full story from the Poughkeepsie Journal at the Ithaca Journal