Saving Seafood

MARYLAND: White House OKs Maryland wind energy project to be built about 10 miles off Ocean City

September 6, 2024 — Offshore wind energy is coming to Maryland, and with it, union jobs.The Biden administration on Thursday approved Baltimore-based US Wind’s project to build offshore wind turbines about 10 miles off the coast of Ocean City.

The offshore wind farm could generate over 2 gigawatts of wind energy and power over 718,000 homes, according to the Department of the Interior.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that the wind energy industry had been “struggling to gain a foothold” in the years before he came into office.

“From manufacturing and shipbuilding to port operations and construction, this industry will support tens of thousands of good-paying and union jobs, provide reliable clean power to homes and businesses, strengthen our power grid against outages, and help reduce pollution – all while protecting biodiversity and marine ecosystems,” the president said.

Read the full article at Capital Gazette

Rough sailing toward Maryland’s offshore wind energy goals

September 5, 2024 — While neighboring states have begun construction on their offshore wind farms, Maryland has yet to install one turbine foundation, though its offshore wind energy goals are more ambitious.

In April 2023, Gov. Wes Moore signed the Promoting Offshore Wind Energy Resources Act, which set Maryland’s goal of 8.5 gigawatts of offshore wind energy generation by 2031—more than enough to meet the state’s residential power needs.

By comparison, New York – a leader in the renewable landscape with some of the most ambitious state clean energy goals – passed a law in 2019 mandating 9 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035. The Empire State just completed its first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in March: South Fork Wind, with 12 turbines that can generate about 132 megawatts of energy. Two more projects have been approved for construction – Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind – that together should produce 3 gigawatts.

Read the full article at The Center Square

Judge orders feds to protect endangered whale from oil drilling

August 22, 2024 — Marine species advocates scored a long-awaited legal victory this week, after a judge found the federal government had underestimated the risks of offshore oil and gas development to the critically endangered Rice’s whale and other wildlife.

On Monday, a federal district court in Maryland tossed out NOAA Fisheries’ Trump-era assessment — known as a biological opinion, or BiOp — effective Dec. 20, forcing the federal government to develop a new plan for protecting marine life like Gulf sturgeon and sea turtles.

Read the full article at E&E News

US must do more to protect species from Gulf of Mexico drilling: judge

August 21, 2024 — A U.S. judge at the urging of environmental groups has thrown out an assessment by a federal agency governing how endangered and threatened marine species should be protected from oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Monday ruled the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Services’ so-called “biological opinion” was flawed and did not adequately address risks species face from oil spills and vessel strikes.

Read the full article at Reuters

Ocean City prepares federal lawsuit over offshore wind projects. Here’s why.

August 13, 2024 — The Ocean City Town Council has announced legal counsel has already been consulted over a possible federal lawsuit if offshore wind plans proceed.

What it would take for Ocean City to ‘file suit against the BOEM’

During the most recent normal legislative meeting, Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan noted he was not surprised members of the municipal government did not have all the details of the proposed offshore wind development by US Wind. He cited the planned 114 turbines would be “between 10.7 to 10.9 miles off our coast. At a minimum they will be 938 feet tall, and that’s three and half times taller than any building in Ocean City. If built on land, they would be the tallest structures in Maryland.”

The federal government leased the land on which these turbines are slated to be built according to the company’s federal permit application.

Read the full article at the Yahoo! News

Why wild Chesapeake catfish should be the new salmon

July 30, 2024 — Restaurants. Stadiums. Prisons. There’s a big new push to get invasive blue catfish out of the Chesapeake Bay and onto a variety of menus.

Why it matters: The Bay’s blue catfish population is booming, which is bad for the native species they outcompete for food and habitat, and those they prey on — especially our dwindling juvenile crab population.

The big picture: Blue catfish get a bad rap. “When I hear ‘invasive,’ it’s like aliens coming down. It’s not sexy, it’s not appetizing,” says Matthew Scales, seafood marketing director for Maryland’s Department of Agriculture.

  • The agency is working with grocers and chefs to show consumers that blue catfish are sustainable and delicious.

Catch up quick: Blue catfish arrived in the Chesapeake Bay only a few decades ago — originally introduced in the ’70s for sports fishing in Virginia — but they’re already in the bay’s top three invasive species.

  • Blue cats can balloon to the size of small kids, over 5 feet long and 100-plus lbs, reproduce like crazy, and travel great distances without food. But when they eat — crabs, menhaden, eels — they’re voracious.

By the numbers: The blue catfish commercial harvest in Maryland and the Potomac River skyrocketed from over 609,000 pounds in 2013 to 4.2 million pounds in 2023 — an increase of more than 500%. But that’s hardly enough to curb the population.

What they’re saying: Part of the problem is branding. “We’re battling the mindset that catfish are these dirty fish, bottom feeders,” Branson Williams, DNR’s invasive species manager, tells Axios. That’s not true, at least with blue cats.

Read the full article at AXIOS

Interior finishes review of Maryland offshore wind project

July 30, 2024 — The Interior Department released a final environmental review Monday of what could be the first offshore wind farm off the coast of Maryland, noting its potential to disturb fisheries and marine life.

Developed by US Wind, the three-phase wind array could power up to 770,000 homes, if approved by the Biden administration.

The final environmental analysis released Monday brings the project closer to that green light. If approved, the project would be the 10th offshore wind array advanced by the Biden administration. The White House aims to reach 16 approved offshore wind projects by the end of the year to fuel its goal of installing enough offshore wind to power 10 million U.S. homes by the end of the decade.

Read the full article at E&E News

BOEM Releases Final Environmental Impact Statement for Wind Energy Project Offshore Maryland

July 29, 2024 — The following was released by BOEM:

In support of the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) today announced the availability of its final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed wind project offshore Maryland. BOEM has now completed environmental reviews for ten commercial-scale offshore wind projects since the start of the Biden-Harris administration. If approved, this project could generate between 1,100 and 2,200 megawatts of clean, renewable energy for the Delmarva Peninsula, and power up to 770,000 homes.

US Wind is seeking approval for its proposed Maryland offshore wind project, which includes three planned phases. Two of those phases, MarWin and Momentum Wind, have received offshore renewable energy certificates from the State of Maryland.

“Our environmental review carefully considered the best available science and information provided by Tribes, other government agencies, local communities, industry, ocean users, and environmental organizations,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. “This vital collaboration with all our government partners and stakeholders will continue through the subsequent phases of the project.”

BOEM held three public scoping meetings in June 2022 to solicit public input on the environmental review process, and hosted two in-person and two virtual public meetings in October 2023 to gather feedback on a draft of the EIS from Tribal Nations, local community members, commercial fishing interests, and other ocean users.

If approved, the project proposes to install up to 114 turbines, up to four offshore substation platforms, one meteorological tower, and up to four corridors for offshore export cables, which would make landfall in Delaware Seashore State Park. The lease area is approximately 8.7 nautical miles (nm) offshore Maryland and approximately 9 nm offshore Sussex County, Delaware, at its closest points to shore.

If approved, the development and construction phases of the project could support an estimated 2,679 jobs annually over seven years.

Biden-Harris Administration’s Progress to Catalyze the Offshore Wind Industry

Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of the Interior has approved the nation’s first nine commercial scale offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of more than 13 gigawatts of clean energy — enough to power nearly 5 million homes. In that time, the Department has held four offshore wind lease auctions – including a record-breaking sale offshore New York and the first-ever sales offshore the Pacific Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The Department also recently announced a schedule to hold up to 12 additional lease sales through 2028. On August 14, BOEM will hold an offshore wind lease sale for the Central Atlantic, auctioning areas offshore Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia that could generate up to 6.3 gigawatts of clean energy and power up to 2.2 million homes.

The Department has also taken steps to grow a sustainable offshore wind industry by encouraging the use of project labor agreements, strengthening workforce training, bolstering the domestic supply chain, and undertaking enhanced engagement with Tribes, fisheries, underserved communities, and ocean users.

The Maryland Offshore Wind Project final EIS will be published in the Federal Register in the coming days. For more information, visit BOEM’s website.

MARYLAND: Scallops, The next big shellfish in the Chesapeake Bay?

June 26, 2024 — Next week, Maryland will expand the definition of shellfish in the state, and one particular mollusk could benefit the most by the change.

Currently, shellfish as defined by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are ‘live oysters, seed oysters, oyster shells, live hard-shell clams, live soft-shell clams, and clam shells’. But thanks to SB303, passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Wes Moore, the definition will expand on July 1 to all ‘live bivalves and bivalve shells’.

Read the full article at WYPR