Massachusetts Archives - Page 159 of 356

MASSACHUSETTS: Gift from the sea: New Bedford’s bounty starts with scallops

July 16, 2019 — On a recent evening at Cork Wine & Tapas, which occupies a stone warehouse built when New Bedford was king of whaling, four people at the bar made quick work of the pan-seared sea scallops.

It’s a hard dish to eat slowly. I know — I’ve been hooked on Cork’s famous plateful since the harborside restaurant opened in 2007. The scallop meats, firm but tender, are served on ginger-garlic jasmine rice and irresistibly drizzled with roasted macadamia cream sauce. The added bonus, of course, is that the scallops on your fork are nearly fresh off the boat.

“Fresh! Never frozen,” said Cork’s chef, Nick Santerre, who receives two batches of scallops from his suppliers each week. “There’s no need for frozen!” Santerre spoke so fervently about how he sources his scallops, I thought he must be descended from Portuguese fishermen, but it turns out he’s part French and Irish with a whisker of Native American.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Vineyard Wind Dealt Setbacks By Local, U.S. Regulators

July 15, 2019 — The company hoping to build a planned wind farm off Massachusetts is appealing to the state after the project hit snags with local and federal regulators.

The Edgartown Conservation Commission on Martha’s Vineyard voted this week to deny Vineyard Wind’s application to lay transmission cables that would pass about a mile east of Edgartown.

Separately, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has delayed issuing a final environmental impact statement that would help clear the way for construction of the 84-turbine, 800-megawatt wind farm.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WBUR

VINEYARD WIND: Notice to Mariners and Fishermen No. 15

July 15, 2019 — The following was released by Vineyard Wind:

This notice replaces Notice No. 14. We wanted to let you know that Vineyard Wind will begin geological surveys on July 9th. The estimated duration is approximately 10 days, ending on July 19th (weather dependent). Surveys will take place nearshore in Centerville Harbor. Please see the full notice to fishermen and mariners here.

We encourage fishermen who may be working in the survey area to contact the fishery liaison.

This survey will gather data on the subfloor conditions that will assist in characterizing the subsurface conditions along the proposed offshore horizontal directional drilling (HDD) route.

Vineyard Wind is committed to communicating and working with the local fishermen in the region during all stages of development of the proposed offshore wind farm.

If you have any questions, please contact Erik Peckar, Fishery Liaison via email at erik@vineyardpower.com or via cell phone at 703-244-9585.

Feds: Vineyard Wind review window ends in 2020

July 12, 2019 — The federal agency evaluating the environmental impact of Vineyard Wind provided no explanation for its decision to extend the time period for review beyond Friday, but noted it has until March 2020 to complete its work, several months after the offshore wind developer had planned to begin construction.

Stephen Boutwell, a spokesman for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, issued a statement Thursday afternoon saying the agency is continuing to evaluate the environmental impact of the project.

“Proposed offshore wind facilities are major infrastructure projects, and BOEM is still within the two-year review window established under Executive Order 13807 to complete its reviews,” the statement said. “When the work has concluded, BOEM will publish its findings and notify all stakeholders.”

The federal agency published a notice of intent to issue an environmental impact statement for Vineyard Wind in the Federal Register on March 30, 2018, which would mean the two-year window would end on the same date in 2020.

The timing is important because Vineyard Wind is operating on a very tight construction schedule calling for work to begin this year and be completed in 2021. A delay of any length could jeopardize that schedule and put the company at risk of missing key milestones in its power-supply contracts with Massachusetts utilities.

Read the full story at The Commonwealth Magazine

Vineyard Wind faces new delay

July 11, 2019 — Offshore wind power developer Vineyard Wind may miss its late 2019 construction start, with a delay in the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s review of the project’s environmental impact statement.

The plan for 84 wind turbines off Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., was poised for a formal start to onshore construction activity in December 2019. But on Tuesday the company announced BOEM would not meet an anticipated July 12 milestone for approving the final EIS for the 800-megawatt project.

BOEM and the company are under pressure from Massachusetts and Rhode Island fishermen who fear loss of access to fishing grounds, and dangers navigating turbine arrays. BOEM and Coast Guard officials last year put wind developers on notice that they will be required to plan for safe transit lanes through the wind towers.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Nantucket group protests draft authorization for Vineyard Wind

July 11, 2019 — A Nantucket group wants to delay a key permit needed by Vineyard Wind to construct its 84-turbine wind farm south of the Islands.

ACK Residents Against Turbines, a group of more than 100 citizens, claims that federal regulators favor offshore wind over commercial fishing and intend to allow serious harm to endangered North Atlantic right whales.

“This process is moving too fast, and everyone needs to slow down and make sure we aren’t creating problems for the North Atlantic right whale that can’t be reversed,” Vallorie Oliver of ACK Residents Against Turbines said Tuesday. “This particular animal is clearly struggling, yet it appears that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, in their rush to clear the path for Vineyard Wind, are forgetting their obligation to protect the whale.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Gloucester Lobster Industry Feeling The Pinch From China Trade War

July 11, 2019 — In Massachusetts, lobster is about as local a food as you can hope to find. These days, it’s also likely to be on the menu in Beijing and Shanghai. China has become a major lobster importer.

But one year into the U.S. trade war with China, U.S. lobster sales to China are down, and coastal communities — including Gloucester — are feeling the pinch.

Vince Mortillaro, who runs a lobster wholesale company in Gloucester, has worked over the last decade to capitalize on the demand for lobster from China, developing systems that enable him to ship fresh lobster from Gloucester to China in 36 hours and spending $3 million to build a new dock and warehouse to hold extra product.

The payoff was enormous: a 30 to 40 percent jump in business.

Then the trade war began, and lobster, like soybeans and steel, was caught in the cross hairs. In response to U.S. tariff increases on Chinese goods in July 2018, China raised tariffs on U.S. imports — including lobster. It now costs Chinese companies an extra 25 percent to buy lobsters from the U.S.

“We’re down over $6 million in sales,” said Mortillaro. “Over a million dollars a month.”

But China is still importing plenty of lobster — now, from Mortillaro’s competitors in Canada. In the wake of raising U.S. lobster tariffs, China lowered tariffs on Canadian lobsters to 7 percent.

Read the full story at WGBH

Vineyard Wind dealt blows on two fronts

July 11, 2019 — The Edgartown conservation commission, in a 5-1 vote, has denied a permit for cables that would pass through the Muskeget Channel.

Vineyard Wind proposed to bury two 400 megawatt export cables one mile off Chappaquiddick from its proposed wind farm 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard to a site in Barnstable.

The cables had been approved by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, but at the Edgartown hearings fishermen pushed back strongly against them saying that the cables might have detrimental marine effects.

Vineyard Wind and their consultants, Epsilon, appeared stunned after the vote. No one from the contingent would comment on the decision. Later, Scott Farmelant, a spokesman for the project, issued a statement: “Vineyard Wind appreciates the efforts of the Edgartown Conservation Commission and local stakeholders for its very detailed project review process, which focused on a broad range of issues associated with the work contemplated in the Muskeget Channel…”

Read the full story at the MV Times

Feds throw up uncertainty for Vineyard Wind project

July 11, 2019 — Federal officials are not ready to issue an approval for the Vineyard Wind offshore power project, which may affect the project’s timeline.

Project officials late Wednesday announced that they had been informed by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that “they are not yet prepared to issue” the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the 800 megawatt project.

The schedule had called for a decision on the EIS by Friday, July 12. Project officials have long been planning to start construction on the 84-turbine installation in federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard by the end of 2019, and become operational in 2021.

Asked whether federal officials had offered a new timeline for a decision on the EIS, a project official declined to comment.

“We understand that, as the first commercial scale offshore wind project in the U.S., the Vineyard Wind project will undergo extraordinary review before receiving approvals,” Vineyard Wind said in a statement on its website. “As with any project of this scale and complexity, changes to the schedule are anticipated. Vineyard Wind remains resolutely committed to working with BOEM to deliver the United States’ first utility-scale wind farm and its essential benefits – an abundant supply of cost-effective clean energy combined with enormous economic and job-creation opportunities.”

The Interior Department in April got a new secretary, David Bernhardt of Virginia, who had served in leadership roles at the department for nearly a decade.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times

New RAS proposal entered for former Garbo Lobster facility in Connecticut

July 9, 2019 — Officials in Groton, Connecticut, U.S.A. announced recently a private company is interested in buying a recently shuttered lobster facility in the city and turning it into a land-based fish farm.

East Coast Seafood’s Garbo Lobster facility caught the eye of Deaderick SSB, a Delaware-based limited liability company, according to The Day.

The 34,700-square-foot former facility at 415 Thames Street, built in 2002, is located along the Thames River and is owned by Just in Case LLC under East Coast Seafood Group of Topsfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A., according to land and business records. East Coast, which owns Garbo Lobster, shuttered the lobster facility in January. The company said at the time it planned to shift Groton’s operations to a Prospect Harbor, Maine, facility that East Coast Seafood and Garbo Lobster acquired in 2012, as well as to its facility in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Mark Branse, a lawyer hired by Deaderick SSB to work on local land-use issues, told The Day the company plans to purchase the property and raise fish in the facility.

Read the full story at Seafood Source