Saving Seafood

Vineyard Wind meets one 2024 deadline, misses another

January 3, 2024 — Vineyard Wind made mixed progress on its wind farm at the end of the year, meeting one deadline while missing another. It installed the last of 62 foundations for its wind turbines, a new map shows, pounding the remaining pieces into the seafloor before a New Year deadline, when pile driving is restricted through May. But the project missed its former goal of being fully operational by 2024, and has quite a bit of work ahead in 2025.

With the foundations finished, all but three are now connected to yellow transition pieces, which will allow tower installation to proceed, according to the Dec. 30 map. But the same map shows the project still has to install 30 towers and generators, and about 120 blades. That means dozens more barge transits in and out of the Port of New Bedford with the major turbine components on board.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: Fishing Vessel Guardian runs aground near Wellfleet

January 3, 2024 — Early Thursday morning, the F/V Guardian ran aground about a mile north of Newcomb Hollow Beach near the Truro/Wellfleet line. Local emergency responders, including Wellfleet and Truro Fire Departments, Cape Cod National Seashore Park Rangers, Massachusetts Environmental Police, and Wellfleet Police, quickly mobilized to the scene.

The Wellfleet Fire Department reported receiving the initial dispatch at 8:48 a.m., prompting a coordinated response effort. A Wellfleet crew used the department’s UTV to access the beach, while ambulances from both Wellfleet and Truro were staged at the Newcomb Hollow parking lot as a precaution.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

2024 in review: Major milestones and epic failures mark offshore wind industry

January 2, 2024 — 2024 was going to be the year when the U.S. made a small but significant dent in reaching its goals of bringing offshore wind power to the nation’s electric grid.

Offshore wind did reach major milestones in 2024, with “steel in the water” at four projects. But due to an unexpected failure at sea off the Massachusetts coast, the country remains under one gigawatt of operating offshore wind power — a long way from its 2030 goal.

The expected 800-megawatt contribution from Vineyard Wind 1 didn’t happen, in large part due to a catastrophic blade failure over the summer that made headlines and brought the 62-turbine project and its partial power generation to a halt.

Despite this incident — and the re-election of Donald Trump, a vocal critic of offshore wind — the industry celebrated breakthroughs and earned significant investments this year, both locally and nationally. In Massachusetts, officials remain bullish.

Vineyard Wind turbine blade fails

Months after celebrating first power, Vineyard Wind 1 came to a halt in July when a blade that was undergoing testing snapped offshore, sending foam and debris to coastal towns.

The federal government for months suspended most construction and operations, significantly stalling construction at the site, which was supposed to be completed in 2024. The Light visited Vineyard Wind by boat on Nov. 20 and found that only a third of the planned turbines were completed. Vineyard Wind removed blades from at least two turbines, but was permitted to install one set of blades in December.

The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), continues to investigate the incident and has yet to release its findings to the public. It has not yet allowed Vineyard Wind 1 to resume generating power.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

‘They’re stuck’: Cape Cod seeing more whale, turtle and dolphin strandings

December 30, 2024 — While Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is known as a popular vacation destination in the north-east US, it has built a reputation for an entirely different reason this year: animal strandings.

Dolphins, whales, sea lions and turtles are turning up in large numbers on the beaches of the famous peninsula in a phenomenon that has experts scrambling to execute more rescue operations than ever before. The cause? Changing tides.

A sea animal is considered “beached” or stranded when it is found alive but injured or stuck on the shore. Without expert assistance, many animals are unable to get back into the water and could die.

Brian Sharp, a senior biologist at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, one of the largest animal conservation organizations in the world, said that the best way humans can understand what it is like for an animal to be stranded “is probably similar to the stress and shock we experience in a car accident”.

Read the full article at The Guardian

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘It’s not going to be pretty’

December 26, 2024 — On a chilly November evening, the first after a string of 70-degree days, people made their way to a former storefront on Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford’s North End. Some of the 50 or so gathered made small talk with friends, mainly in Spanish and K’iche’, a language spoken by over a million people in rural Mayan communities of Guatemala.

Voters had elected Donald Trump to the presidency a second time just two weeks before, and this fact sat heavily in the air among those in attendance — primarily immigrants from Central America, many of them undocumented — at the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (CCT), or Worker’s Community Center.

During the campaign, Trump promised voters mass deportations, pledging at points to declare a national emergency and involve the military in rounding up immigrants. He has publicly mused about changing the Constitution to end birthright citizenship. In an appearance on “Meet the Press,” Trump said he’d consider deporting US citizen children of deportees to avoid separating families, and his pick for border czar, Tom Homan, said the largest deportation operation in history would start on January 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration.

The first speaker of the evening was New Bedford Police Chief Paul Oliveira, who was peppered with questions in Spanish about how Trump’s deportation plans might affect the work of the local police. If we suffer a hate crime, can we still report it? If Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issues a detainer, do police act on it?

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: Biden team OKs another wind project off Martha’s Vineyard

December 23, 2024 — In the 11th hour, the Biden administration approved its 11th offshore wind project, SouthCoast Wind, greenlighting the installation of up to 141 turbines south of Martha’s Vineyard.

The project approval comes just ahead of the second Trump presidency, which, at worst, is expected to be hostile to offshore wind, and, at best, to slow progress and permitting that accelerated during the last four years.

The record of decision issued Friday is a joint decision by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, NOAA Fisheries, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: A shifting wind

December 20, 2024 —  Public sentiment on offshore wind developments in southerly waters off Martha’s Vineyard is shifting, with challenges mounting against the industry and controversy hitting home for Islanders.

The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) have been outspoken critics of the offshore wind industry, and amplified those calls last week by supporting a lawsuit against Revolution Wind brought by a Rhode Island group.

Nantucket officials over the past several months have been dealing with the aftermath of a turbine blade fracturing and washing debris onto their shores, and town leaders have considered legal action against Vineyard Wind.

The latest to raise a concern: Martha’s Vineyard Commission Executive Director Adam Turner is calling on the state’s highest elected official to help the Island shoulder the burden from offshore wind developments, noting both visual and environmental impacts.

“There are approximately 1,000 turbines permitted currently,” reads a letter written by Turner on Dec. 12 to Gov. Maura Healey. “The vast majority are proposed to be located directly off the southern and western shores of our Island. Already, with only a small fraction constructed, they have affected the visual quality of our shores. Already we have absorbed environmental impacts.”

Turner voices a solid consensus on the Island that pursuing alternative energy sources is essential for fighting climate change, but he also told The Times in a follow-up interview he strongly felt Martha’s Vineyard should be better compensated for having to deal with projects that will power not only the rest of Massachusetts, but other states, including Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Read the full article at MV Times

Vineyard Wind resumes work to install turbine blades to towers off Nantucket

December 19, 2024 — Construction crews have resumed attaching blades to Vineyard Wind’s turbines off the coast of Nantucket.

The work comes months after a blade broke off and sent debris and fiberglass into the water and onto beaches along the Cape and Islands.

The federal agency overseeing the safety of the offshore wind farm said it’s allowing turbine manufacturer GE Vernova and Vineyard Wind to install three more blades.

Read the full article at WCVB

MASSACHUSETTS: Opposition stalls plans for waterfront energy center

December 19, 2024 — Three months after a state agency and New Bedford’s mayor endorsed a waterfront spot for an energy research and development center, the project is in limbo in face of City Council opposition.

A city-owned parking lot between Merrill’s on the Waterfront and the Fairfield Inn & Suites will stay as it is for the time being; the state has suspended pursuit of that location. But the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (CEC) is still pursuing the project.

Although it’s not clear exactly where in the city, the agency is focused on  New Bedford as the site of the Ocean Renewable Energy Innovation Center, devoted to research and business development for new, ocean-based alternative energy technology, including wind power.

“It’s certainly not dead,” public information officer Jonathan Darling said in mid-December, weeks after the state agency halted its effort to win City Council approval of a proposed lease for that parking lot and a portion of the historic stone-block Bourne Counting House next to it. Mayor Jon Mitchell supported that location.

The agency planned to use a part of the counting house on MacArthur Drive for offices and meeting space. It also aimed to put up a building to accommodate startup companies and a space for building prototypes for ocean-related energy gear — chiefly, but not exclusively, wind power.

Two council members and one property owner have objected to the location, saying they feel the project is out of place on the waterfront and would interfere with existing businesses. One council member questioned whether the proposed 15-year lease is the best possible deal for that property.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Vineyard Resumes Blade Installation Five Months After Fracture

December 19, 2024 — The Vineyard Wind offshore wind farm being developed by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners resumed blade installation last weekend five months after it was forced to suspend operations due to one blade fracturing. The project which is working with GE Vernova received permission from federal regulators for the work to proceed on a “case-by-case” basis and notified Nantucket’s elected official of the plans to resume blade installation.

A spokesperson for the wind farm developer confirmed to the local media in Massachusetts that it had received initial permission from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement which is responsible for oversight of the construction and operation of offshore wind farms. Previously, the regulators were only permitting cabling work, and then in late October permission was received to resume installing the additional monopile foundations with the DEME’s vessel Orion expected to resume work on or about October 28.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive