Saving Seafood

MARYLAND: Ocean City ‘cannot be bought,’ mayor told US Wind in community benefit package rejection

February 28, 2024 — “As a member of this community, we believe it’s important to do what we can to help it thrive,” Sopko said. However, she added, “Ocean City’s position on community benefits has no impact on our project plans.”

US Wind holds the lease for an 80,000 acre area with a total capacity of around 2.2 GW around ten miles off the coast of Ocean City, where it plans to develop multiple projects as part of its Maryland Offshore Wind Project plan — including the 300 MW MarWin and 800 MW Momentum Wind projects, which have secured offshore renewable energy certificates from the state.

Meehan has for some time opposed the development of offshore wind off the coast of Ocean City. Throughout 2023, he warned about the potential impact of offshore wind development on tourism, and joined calls for a moratorium on development after a dead whale washed up on Assateague Island.

Read the full article at Utility Dive

 

VIRGINIA: Virginia lawmakers delay decision on Dominion Energy’s offshore wind monopoly

February 15, 2024 — Renewable energy advocates have vowed to double down next year on legislation designed to enable competition with Dominion Energy on offshore wind projects serving Virginia.

A legislative committee unanimously tabled a proposal to let private developers compete with the utility on offshore wind procurement. The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee’s late January decision to push Senate Bill 578 onto the 2025 agenda followed intense lobbying from Dominion Energy to protect its monopoly.

Evan Vaughan, executive director of the Maryland-based Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition Action (MAREC), was among the disappointed.

“We … will continue to advocate for competition as the best way for Virginia consumers to achieve a strong and cost-effective offshore wind industry,” Vaughan said in an interview.

Read the full article at Energy News Network

MARYLAND: House leaders prepping legislation to boost Maryland offshore wind

February 7, 2024 — Stung by news that one of the two companies that was planning to install wind energy turbines off the coast of Ocean City is reassessing its projects, House leaders are drafting legislation designed to shore up the state’s offshore wind industry.

House Economic Matters Chair C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) and Vice Chair Brian M. Crosby (D-St. Mary’s) will introduce a bill later this week to buttress USWind, the one company fully committed to building wind installations in federal waters near Maryland, and encourage more players to enter the marketplace.

“If you want to be a good partner and move in the direction that Maryland wants to move in, we want to help,” Wilson said in an interview Tuesday.

The state has ambitious goals to generate 8.5 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power almost 3 million homes, from offshore wind sources by 2031. But late last month, Ørsted, one of two companies that had won leases to build wind farms off the coast, announced it was “repositioning” its plans, pulling out of its agreement with the state and seeking alternative financing.

Although Ørsted is the biggest developer of offshore wind in the world, and was an early entrant into the still developing U.S. market, some of its American projects have struggled of late, due in part to inflation and worldwide supply chain issues for the industry. Last fall, the company abandoned two proposed developments off the New Jersey coast altogether.

That was a warning signal to Wilson, whose committee moved complicated legislation last year to expand the offshore wind industry in Maryland.

“We saw the writing on the wall when Ørsted pulled out of the New Jersey projects,” he said.

Read the full article at Maryland Matters

Ørsted Cancels Maryland Power Agreement as it Reviews US Offshore Wind Plan

January 29, 2024 — Ørsted is continuing with its efforts to realign its U.S. offshore wind portfolio while also taking steps to emphasize that it remains committed to the market and sees future opportunities. The U.S. division of the Danish offshore developer however announced that it has walked away from existing power agreements in New York and now Maryland positioning the projects for future offtake opportunities.

Plans for Skipjack Wind, a two-phase project with the potential for 966 MW of energy, were setback as the company reported it will withdraw from existing power agreements with the Maryland Public Service Commission agreed to in 2020 and 2021. The company said it determined that the payment amounts outlined in the orders “are no longer commercially viable,” while again citing market conditions, including inflation, high interest rates, and supply chain constraints.

According to Ørsted, the decision to withdraw from the orders with Maryland will “reposition Skipjack Wind for future offtake opportunities.” It is unclear then they might be able to rebid these projects.

Unlike its decision in November 2023 to end two New Jersey offshore wind projects, Ørsted intends to continue advancing development and permitting for the two phases of Skipjack. The company is submitting an updated Construction and Operations Plan for the wind farms to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for review.

Read the full article at the Maritime Executive

Maryland offshore wind developer pulls out of state agreement, seeks new financial support

January 26, 2024 — Maryland’s nascent offshore wind energy industry suffered a major blow late Thursday when one of the two companies planning to install wind turbines off the coast of Ocean City announced that it was “repositioning” its plans, pulling out of its agreement with the state and seeking alternative financial arrangements to keep the project going.

Ørsted, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind, emphasized that it was still committed to building its project in federal waters, but said it was opting out of the agreement it had reached with the Maryland Public Service Commission for financial clean energy credits intended to help fund the development. The company said that while it would still seek permits for the proposed wind farm from the federal government, and would continue to develop construction and operations plans for Maryland, the current financial realties of the offshore wind industry made it impossible to continue under the present arrangement.

A statement Ørsted issued late Thursday said the projected revenue from the state’s clean energy credits, which cap what the company can charge ratepayers for its wind power, is “no longer commercially viable because of today’s challenging market conditions, including inflation, high interest rates and supply chain constraints.”

Through two separate but adjacent leases known as Skipjack 1 and Skipjack 2 that had won state approval, Ørsted is ticketed to provide 966 megawatts of wind energy beginning later this decade. A company executive said Ørsted was determined to work with state officials, potential investors and other stakeholders in an effort to find a better way to finance and save the project.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

MARYLAND: Maryland embarks on marketing campaign for invasive blue catfish

January 10, 2024 — For decades, the rivers and shores surrounding the Chesapeake Bay have slowly been taken over by an invasive species – the blue catfish, otherwise known as Ictalurus furcatus.

The U.S. states of Maryland and Virginia, which border the bay, have had to deal with the species ever since anglers introduced it to Virginia’s waters in the hopes of establishing it as a fun and challenging fish to catch. Unfortunately, for all the other animals living in the bay – including important commercial species like blue crab, oysters, and rockfish – bay turned out to be the perfect habitat for the invasive blue catfish, which began to multiply exponentially in the decades following the initial release.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MARYLAND: Maryland loses bid for federal fishery disaster aid

January 8, 2024 — Blue catfish and other nonnative species may be gobbling up blue crabs and wreaking havoc on other Chesapeake Bay fisheries, but that doesn’t qualify for federal disaster assistance.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service has rejected Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s petition asking the agency to declare a federal fishery disaster because of the “explosion” of blue catfish, flathead catfish and northern snakeheads in the Bay.

In the petition submitted in March, Moore said scientists have been seeing “disturbing trends” of declines in crabs, striped bass and five other commercial fish since 2012, when blue catfish began to move into Maryland.

Read the full article at the Bay Journal 

 

Lawmakers rally behind visa exemptions for seafood processors

January 7, 2024 — U.S. senators are lining up behind legislation that would exempt seafood processors from the nation’s annual cap on H-2B temporary worker visas.

The seafood processing sector depends on foreign workers to meet seasonal demands. The Maryland crab industry, for example, brings in 500 workers annually via the H-2B program during the crab season.

“For years, the struggle to hire seasonal workers has put an incredible strain on America’s seafood industry,” U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) said in a statement. “The chronic worker shortage has put seafood and crab businesses, particularly those on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, at risk of permanent damage.”

Under the status quo, seafood processors must compete against other industries dependent on foreign labor in the visa lottery, introducing a high level of uncertainty as they attempt to fill out their workforce. The federal government has regularly issued additional visas beyond the statutory cap, but seafood companies still say it’s difficult to secure enough workers through the program.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US Wind requests marine mammal take authorization for offshore wind construction

January 7, 2023 — US Wind has submitted a request for Incidental Take Regulations to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in regards to construction of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project.

The regulations would govern the authorization of take of a small number of 19 species of marine mammals. A “small number” is considered less than one-third of estimated populations in the area, though specific small numbers are not defined. According to NOAA, take is harassing, hunting, capturing or killing any marine mammal, or attempting to do so. Though intentional take is prohibited, incidental take of small numbers can be allowed through an application process.

Actions of take can include negligent or intentional operation of an aircraft or boat, detaining marine mammals and other acts which result in disturbing them. Take can occur through acts with the potential to injure these animals in the wild, classified as level A harassment, or potential to disturb behavioral patterns like breathing, migration, breeding and sheltering, which are classified as level B harassment.

Read the full article at WRDE

MARYLAND: What happened to offshore wind in Maryland?

December 28, 2022 — Energy company Orsted is pausing “all development spend” on an offshore wind project in Maryland and may cancel the project entirely. The hiatus was announced by the Danish company’s CEO last month — on the same day Orsted also said it was ceasing development on two offshore wind projects in New Jersey.

Officials in both states were taken by surprise, including New Jersey’s governor, who publicly lambasted Orsted.

Orsted’s offshore wind project in Maryland, called Skipjack, has been in development since 2017, according to its website. The farm was supposed to generate 966 megawatts of clean energy, enough to power about 300,000 homes. The company also developed a site at Tradepoint Atlantic — a large industrial complex in Baltimore County that also houses distribution warehouses for companies like Amazon and FedEx — to support the now discontinued New Jersey offshore wind projects.

Read the full article at the Baltimore Banner