Saving Seafood

Vineyard Wind opponents ask federal judge to halt project over environmental concerns

January 26, 2023 — Opponents of an offshore wind turbine farm under construction south of Martha’s Vineyard are asking a federal judge to halt the project, and require federal authorities to take another look at the project’s potential impacts on the environment and wildlife.

The nonprofit group Nantucket Residents Against Turbines is trying to put the brakes on Vineyard Wind, which was approved in May 2021 by the Biden administration, and is being built a dozen or so miles off the resort island.

Amy DiSibio, a member of the group’s board, told reporters before a hearing Tuesday in US District Court in Boston that federal endangered species and environmental laws were not “carefully considered” when the project was approved, and deserve much more scrutiny, she said.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Construction for nation’s largest commercial offshore wind farm underway, but challenges loom

January 23, 2023 — Offshore wind industry experts say that wind could be the answer to minimize our carbon footprint, and here in the U.S., we’re seeing one of the country’s first offshore wind projects come to life off the coast of Massachusetts where the wind will be used as an emissions-free energy source.

Vineyard Wind is currently constructing the country’s largest commercial offshore wind project, and the goal is to use electricity produced by wind turbines to power homes starting in 2023.

“We’re about a year into onshore construction, and we’ve just begun offshore,” said Andrew Doba, spokesperson for Vineyard Wind. “One spin of the turbine will power a home for 24 hours in the U.S.”

There will be 62 turbines spaced about a mile apart that will produce power for about 400,000 homes. The turbines will be constructed about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Underwater cables will bring that energy from the turbines to Covell’s Beach in Barnstable, Massachusetts.

Read the full article at Fox Weather

Do Offshore Wind Turbines Impact Fishing?

April 20, 2022 — Offshore wind seems poised to set sail on U.S. coasts. According to the Department of Energy, the burgeoning electricity source has the potential to generate more than 2,000 gigawatts (GW) of capacity per year—nearly double the nation’s current electricity use. Last fall, the Interior Department announced the commencement of construction on the nation’s first commercial scale wind farm, 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard, and approved a deal for the second off Rhode Island. The Biden administration aspires to launch 16 such sites by 2025 and generate 30 GW of energy by 2030. But what impact will all the construction have on wildlife and fishing? A 10-year, $11 million U.S. Wind and University of Maryland study aims to find out.

Wind is the fastest growing energy source in the U.S., providing 42 percent of the country’s new energy in 2020. So far, most of that has come from land-based wind turbines. But, faster and steadier offshore wind speeds offer more potential. And as the cost of efficiently harnessing offshore wind has plummeted, that potential has soared.

But not everyone is pleased. A lone standoff last fall between a fishing boat and one of U.S. Winds’ giant research vessels symbolized the grievances of a key constituency: the ocean fishing community. Fishermen expressed concerns about damage to their equipment, disruption of the fishing grounds, and even the loss of their way of life. Annie Hawkins, the executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a trade association representing commercial fishermen, told the Guardian, “The fishing industry feels very strongly that they still do not have a meaningful voice in the process nor an authentic seat at the table.”

Read the full story at Field & Stream

Additional Offshore Wind Lawsuit Reflects LBI Opposition Concerns

February 11, 2022 — The U.S. Department of the Interior is facing another legal challenge to its handling of offshore wind, this time for its approval of an offshore wind project to be constructed on a 65,000-acre tract in federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard. The suit comes three weeks after a grassroots organization from Long Beach Island made good on its intention to sue the federal agency.

Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a broad membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies, filed suit Jan. 31 in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.

“In its haste to implement a massive new program to generate electrical energy by constructing thousands of turbine towers offshore the eastern seaboard on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf and laying hundreds of miles of high-tension electrical cables undersea, the United States has shortcut the statutory and regulatory requirements that were enacted to protect our nation’s environmental and natural resources, its industries and its people,” said Annie Hawkins, executive director of the alliance. “The fishing industry supports strong action on climate change, but not at the expense of the ocean, its inhabitants and sustainable domestic seafood.”

Read the full story at TheSandPaper.net

 

Responsible Offshore Development Alliance Files Complaint in Vineyard Wind Lawsuit

January 31, 2022 — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:

Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), a broad membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies, filed suit today challenging the Interior Department’s approval of a massive offshore wind project to be constructed on a 65,000-acre tract in federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard. The suit, filed in U.S. district court for the District of Columbia, names the U.S. Interior Department and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, among others. The suit alleges that government agencies violated numerous environmental protection statutes in authorizing the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind energy project.

Annie Hawkins, Executive Director of RODA, stated: “In its haste to implement a massive new program to generate electrical energy by constructing thousands of turbine towers offshore the eastern seaboard on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf and laying hundreds of miles of high-tension electrical cables undersea, the United States has shortcut the statutory and regulatory requirements that were enacted to protect our nation’s environmental and natural resources, its industries, and its people.” She added, “The fishing industry supports strong action on climate change, but not at the expense of the ocean, its inhabitants, and sustainable domestic seafood.”

On October 19, 2021, RODA issued the government agencies a 60-day Notice of its Intent to Sue if they did not comply with the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and other federal environmental statutes. “The Alliance received no reply, and the environmental violations were not remedied,” Hawkins stated. “The decisions on this project didn’t balance ocean resource conservation and management, and must not set a precedent for the enormous “pipeline of projects” the government plans to facilitate in the near term. So we had no alternative to filing suit.”

 

EPA Approves Permit for Wind Farm Off Martha’s Vineyard

January 20, 2022 — The final air quality permit was approved for an offshore wind project by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday, paving the way for full project approval that was granted this morning.

South Fork will be a 130-megawatt wind farm off the southwest coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The EPA permit restricts air pollution during the construction and operation of the wind farm.

Construction is set to kick off with cable being laid on the sea floor, the company stated last week.

Final approval for the project from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management was announced this morning.

Read the full story at WBSM

MASSACHUSETTS: Oyster Buyback Spawns New Ecology Program in Edgartown

October 1, 2021 — Prior to the pandemic, Ryan Smith, whose Signature Oyster Farm operates out of Katama Bay, sold about 30,000 oysters per week — nearly all of which went to restaurants and raw bars across the Northeast.

By March of 2020, with in-person dining all but completely shuttered, the number dropped to about 300.

“Everything just halted,” the veteran waterman recalled. “I was selling door to door . . . it was terrible. You didn’t know how long it was going to last. But obviously, it lasted a lot longer than anybody could have anticipated.”

And as demand dwindled, the oysters themselves did the opposite, growing too large and gnarled for ritzy raw bars. Farmers like Mr. Smith were left with a fisherman’s catch-22, unable to sell the properly-sized oysters when restaurants closed, and unable to sell the oversized oysters once they reopened.

“I’ve got some that are the size of my boot,” Mr. Smith said. “I’m a size 12.”

Now more than 18 months later, an innovative partnership between The Nature Conservancy and the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group has found a solution, providing a new home for 200,000 overgrown oysters by buying them from Mr. Smith and fellow Katama Bay oysterman Scott Castro at a discounted price and re-seeding them in the Slough Cove section of the Edgartown Great Pond.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

New slow zone to protect right whales off Martha’s Vineyard

July 7, 2021 — The federal government is implementing a new “slow zone” for boaters south of Martha’s Vineyard to try to protect rare whales.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday that the new slow zone will be in effect until July 18. It’s designed to protect North Atlantic right whales, which number only about 360.

The agency is asking mariners to route around the area altogether or travel through it at 10 knots (11.5 mph) or less. The zone went into effect on July 2.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Martha’s Vineyard Seafood Collaborative opens its doors

June 3, 2021 — A small but lively crowd of people clapped excitedly as John Keene, president of the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, cut the red rope Tuesday, signaling the opening of the Martha’s Vineyard Seafood Collaborative. The red rope was a significant symbol because it is a weak line that’s mandatory for fishermen to use for traps because it breaks at a certain weight and is safer for whales, according to the Trust’s executive director, Shelley Edmundson.

The Seafood Collaborative was created as an extension of the trust, and will act as a wholesale market to connect Island fishermen to buyers. According to the collaborative’s website, the focus is “to wholesale a seasonal variety of local species both on- and off-Island to restaurants, markets, private chefs, caterers, and larger wholesale distributors.”

Present at the event were Keene, Edmundson, and Pete Lambos, director of operations for the collaborative.

Keene said the collaborative works to cooperate with the fish markets and fishermen of the Islands. He said the collaborative wants to conduct business “without disrupting balances that are already in place.” It will sell fishermen’s catches to various food providers, but not to individuals, to avoid being a competitor to local markets.

Read the full story at the MV Times

Vineyard Wind paying UMass scientists to survey ocean area it’s leasing

May 24, 2021 — The company that intends to build a $2.8 billion offshore wind project south of Martha’s Vineyard is paying the UMass Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association about $2 million a year to survey the sea floor before, during and after construction and see what impact the project has on the ocean.

Vineyard Wind has contracted with the School for Marine Science and Technology to send scientists out on local lobster and fishing vessels to measure, tag and count the lobsters and fish they catch before releasing them back into the ocean. The data they collect will establish a baseline of what sea life inhabits the 167,000 acres of ocean that the company is leasing, as well as an adjacent area for comparison.

“We have a strong interest in using local mariners with local knowledge as much as possible,” said Andrew Doba, a Vineyard Wind spokesman.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald