Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Vineyard Wind debris confirmed on Hyannisport beaches

August 23, 2024 — The following was released by Town of Barnstable:

On Wednesday, August 21, 2024, Vineyard Wind confirmed that pieces of foam collected on Hyannisport beaches, and which were reported through the Vineyard Wind Debris Reporting Hotline, are from the damaged Vineyard Wind turbine blade.

The Town of Barnstable would like to remind the public that Vineyard Wind is responsible for collecting and removing any/all related debris, and only trained Vineyard Wind employees and/or Vineyard Wind contractors should handle debris.

• DO NOT put any debris in your home garbage for collection.

• DO NOT bring the debris to the Barnstable Transfer Station.

• DO notify the Vineyard Wind Reporting Hotline directly and immediately if you identify debris so they can remove it for analysis and proper disposal.

Any debris identified in the water or along Barnstable shorelines should be reported directly to Vineyard Wind’s Debris Reporting Hotline at 781-831-1134 to allow assigned crews to manage the proper recovery and clean-up of debris. This phone number is intended to provide improved and quicker service.

You can also report debris online: https://vineyardwind1.ethicspoint.com.

This page has updated information on GE blade debris recovery: https://static1.squarespace.com/…/1724075…/Updated_Blade Incident – Guidance for Communities_Final.pdf

Cape Cod scientists delay controversial climate change project after feds raise concern

August 19, 2024 — Cape Cod scientists are delaying a geoengineering project that looks to dump more than 60,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide into the ocean and has caught federal concerns around potential impacts on the ecosystem.

Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth have pushed back the project from mid-September to next summer because they say a fully-equipped research vessel is no longer available.

Woods Hole’s decision to delay became public two days after the National Marine Fisheries published a warning last Monday that the project could “adversely affect federally-managed species and other NOAA trust resources.”

The experiment, consisting of two phases, would dump sodium hydroxide and freshwater into the Atlantic, temporarily changing the water’s chemistry – increasing carbon dioxide levels that the ocean absorbs.

Scientists say it’s an effort that could be a way to slow climate change in the long run.

The first phase of the so-called LOC-NESS project, short for “Locking away Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope,” would release 6,600 gallons of sodium hydroxide solution roughly 10 miles south of Normans Land, an island off of Martha’s Vineyard.

The release of the solution would occur over two to three hours to “create a patch of alkalinity on the ocean surface and then monitored for up to 5 days by an on-site scientific research team,” according to project documents.

In the second phase, pushed back to 2026, scientists would dump up to 66,000 gallons into the Wilkinson Basin, nearly 40 miles northeast of Provincetown.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Vineyard Wind Removes Final Pieces Of Damaged Blade Hanging From Turbine

August 16, 2024 — Vineyard Wind announced Thursday that it had removed the remaining pieces of the damaged blade that had been hanging from one of its turbines since the failure event on July 13.

The hanging pieces of the blade – which once measured 351 feet and weighed 55 tons before it folded and shattered last month – were removed through a “controlled cutting operation” which Vineyard Wind had previewed in its action plan released on August 11.

“While most of the debris was collected during the operation, some entered the water column before it could be recovered,” the town of Nantucket announced on Thursday following an update from Vineyard Wind officials. “Vineyard Wind has assured the town that they will maintain teams at sea, by air, and onshore on Nantucket and surrounding areas to monitor and address any additional debris that may be found.”

Read the full article at the Nantucket Current

How abundant shellfish help create healthy waters

August 16, 2024 — As a fisheries and aquaculture specialist at the Barnstable County Cooperative Extension, Abigail Archer spends a lot of time trying to help the public connect the dots between shellfish, nitrogen, and healthy estuaries. This relationship starts when nitrogen travels through freshwater streams and runoff into our marine environment.

“Oysters are kind of like sheep grazing out in a field. And so, you know, the sheep are not standing in a field absorbing the nutrients from the grass. They’re actually munching on the grass and then eating that and then getting the nutrients in the grass,” she explained.

Read the full article at CAI

MASSACHUSETTS: Cape Codders protest offshore wind plans as Gov. Healey visits Barnstable ice cream shop

August 16, 2024 — Opponents of landing more offshore wind cables in Barnstable got a chance to confront Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday when she visited Cape Cod.

Members of the community groups Barnstable Speaks and Save Dowses Beach protested across the street from Four Seas ice cream in Centerville, where Healey stopped to promote the new Massachusetts Ice Cream Trail.

About 25 protesters held signs and chanted, “Protect our beaches. Say no to Avangrid.” They waited outside as the governor went in, greeted the staff, and tried the mint chip ice cream.

Read the full article at CAI

Using Environmental DNA to Understand Biodiversity in a Marine National Monument

August 16, 2024 — When I tell my friends that I’m going to collect environmental DNA samples in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, their first question is always: Where is that?

Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National is a highly protected area located about 130 miles east-southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It is similar in size to Connecticut. President Obama designated this area as the first marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean in 2016.

NOAA shares management responsibilities with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for activities and species within the monument. It is a relatively undisturbed environment, which could be called a true ocean wilderness. The chief scientist of this research expedition, Peter Auster, is a research professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut and a senior research scientist at Mystic Aquarium. When Peter asked me if I’d be interested in sailing together to collect environmental DNA samples from the monument, I answered with an enthusiastic yes.

An interdisciplinary research group mustered aboard R/V Connecticut. Peter Auster and others scuba dove to deploy baited remote underwater video cameras to study apex predators. Meta Miner and Mael Glon from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted seabird surveys. Mary Beth Decker of Yale University used a specialized net to collect and identify gelatinous animals.

And of course, I collected seawater samples for eDNA metabarcoding analysis to study biodiversity in the monument, including fish and marine mammals.

Besides the fascinating habitat we studied, this expedition offered unique research opportunities for me.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

Vineyard Wind construction resumes one month after turbine blade failure. What we know.

August 15, 2024 — Even as investigations continue into what caused the blade on Vineyard Wind turbine AW-38 to collapse last month, sending splintered fiberglass, rigid foam and balsa wood into the ocean, limited construction is resuming on the 806-megawatt offshore project.

On Tuesday, Foss Maritime‘s Prevailing Wind barge — one of only two vessels in the world capable of transporting Vineyard Wind’s massive turbine components in an upright position — left the New Bedford Marine Commerce terminal loaded with tower sections and a nacelle and headed for the project area south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Also on board was a rack of three blades, though according to the wind developer this was “solely for the purpose of ensuring safe and balanced composition for the transport,” not for installation. The company said the blades will be returned to the commerce terminal later this week.

Read the full article at The Herald News

Feds allow Vineyard Wind to resume partial installation

August 14, 2024 –A fully loaded feeder barge with turbine components, which for weeks has been sitting in New Bedford, left port and headed out to the Vineyard Wind site Tuesday morning. There, a vessel will offload the nacelle and tower components, but the blades will stay on and return to port.

The federal government this week updated its suspension order, allowing the project-on-pause to resume partial installation of new turbines as the parties continue to analyze the blade failure, which happened one month ago.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)’s latest suspension order continues to prohibit further blade installation or power production at this time.

In response to a request for comment, a BSEE spokesperson said the agency issued the latest suspension order on August 10. The order requires “risk analysis and mitigation approved by BSEE prior to being able to conduct any activities on the damaged turbine.”

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Work begins to remove broken Vineyard Wind turbine blade

August 14, 2024 — One month since an incident that sent part of a turbine blade plunging into the Atlantic Ocean and littered debris across area beaches, Vineyard Wind said Tuesday that it has cut away much of what remained from the damaged blade and has been cleared to resume some offshore wind construction activities, though it still cannot produce power.

The company said “controlled cutting operations” on Sunday and Monday “removed a substantial amount of the remaining portions of the damaged blade that pose a risk for further debris falling into the ocean.” But Vineyard Wind and blade manufacturer GE Vernova are still trying to finalize plans to do more cutting if necessary, secure and remove debris that fell onto the turbine platform, remove the blade root and deal with debris that’s settled on the seabed.

GE Vernova, the company selected by Vineyard Wind to manufacture its project’s blades and turbines, said last month that it has “no indications of an engineering design flaw” that could have caused the blade failure, but instead thinks it was a result of an issue in the manufacturing process, specifically “insufficient bonding.”

Read the full article at wbur

High-Tech “Crawlers” Deployed to Survey Vineyard Wind’s Turbine Blades

August 13, 2024 — A month after an embarrassing incident in which one of the turbine blades broke at the Vineyard Wind offshore wind farm, the developer presented its recovery plan. It is working with the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard, and has retained Resolve Marine to assist Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova in the recovery effort. At the same time, residents continue to report finding fragments washed up on the shoreline of Massachusetts.

The project continues to repeat the preliminary assessment that is now completed by GE Vernova which cites a “manufacturing deviation” in the bonding of the composite material used to make the blades. The companies had said it was an identifiable issue with the adhesion that should have been discovered during quality control.

The blade initially broke on July 13 while one of the turbines not in service was undergoing testing. The automated safety controls stopped the individual turbine. Parts of the blade remained attached, while some sections were caught on the base and the remainder fell into the water. Elements of the composite material and the lightweight foam began washing up before the blade broke further in the following days. Work at the wind farm both on the turbines in service and construction was suspended and remains under a stop work order from BSEE.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive