Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Wind Power Demand High, But So Are Costs

September 10, 2023 — Gov. Maura Healey last week announced a new effort to procure up to 3,600 megawatts of offshore wind power – the largest call out to developers in the state’s history.

Together with three electric companies, the state is seeking projects to produce what amounts to about 25 per cent of Massachusetts’ annual electricity demand. The new request for proposals will likely be welcomed by offshore wind energy developers that have stalled under pre-pandemic agreements to supply power to the state’s main utility companies.

Two companies with plans to place wind turbines off Martha’s Vineyard have agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to get out of old contracts that they said made the projects economically unviable.

The procurement push from the state is for projects that already have a lease in the outer continental shelf area more than 10 miles south of the Island and signals a willingness to offer developers flexibility as the state strives for more renewable energy.

“With our top academic institutions, robust workforce training programs, innovative companies and support from every level of government – Massachusetts is all-in on offshore wind,” Ms. Healey said in a statement on August 30.

The day before the state’s announcement, SouthCoast Wind agreed to pay $60 million to get out of its contract with three utilities that it had promised to supply power to from the proposed farm 30 miles off the Island. Commonwealth Wind, another developer planning to build to the south of Martha’s Vineyard, agreed to pay $48 million earlier this year.

“Closing these contracts was never the plan but impacts of Covid-related supply chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine made them unfinanceable,” SouthCoast Wind spokesperson Martha Keeley said in a statement to the Gazette.

Read the full article at Vineyard Gazette

MASSACHUSETTS: Boston Seafood Festival takes over the historic Fish Pier this Sunday

September 10, 2023 — In a momentous celebration of Boston’s rich seafood heritage, the iconic Fish Pier in the Seaport will close to the public on Sunday, Sept. 10, to be used exclusively for the annual Boston Seafood Festival.

According to Chris Basile, president of the Boston Fisheries Foundation and founder/CEO of Seawitch Inc., the festival is a year-round labor of love. There will be food vendors, kid activities, an oyster shucking contest, fish cutting demonstrations and more.

“It’s to celebrate the seafood industry in Boston,” said Basile on Boston Public Radio. “As you know, Boston is the hub of the universe when it comes to seafood. More fish is shipped in and out of Boston than almost anywhere.”

One of the key players helping to keep Boston’s seafood industry alive — and located right on the pier — is Denarius Trading Co., founded by Paul Vincent Hagan III.

Read the full article at WGBH

MASSACHUSETTS: Blue Harvest shuts down fishing operations

September 6, 2023 — Blue Harvest Fisheries in New Bedford has closed down all its fishing operations.

The New Bedford Light is reporting the shutdown comes after the company spent the last five years selling off assets in an apparent effort to stay afloat.

But Blue Harvest, which was founded in 2015, also acquired assets during that period. In 2020, the company bought 12 vessels and 27 permits from the holdings of Carlos Rafael, the fishing mogul who was convicted of fraud and tax evasion.

Jared Auerbach, the CEO of the seafood distributor Red’s Best says Blue Harvest is huge — owning a quarter of the region’s groundfish fleet. Red’s Best was a customer of Blue Harvest.

Read the full article at CAI

MASSACHUSETTS: Healey launches offshore wind procurement at risky time

September 5, 2023 — GOV. MAURA HEALEY launched what she described as the region’s largest offshore wind procurement this week. “With our top academic institutions, robust workforce training programs, innovative companies, and support from every level of government – Massachusetts is all-in on offshore wind,” she said.

But what her press release failed to mention was that this procurement comes at a very risky time for offshore wind, with the industry battered by economic and supply chain challenges and developers responding by pushing for higher prices for the electricity being produced.

In July, Rhode Island’s largest utility opted not to move forward with a wind farm deal because the cost “was deemed too expensive for customers to bear.”

A new study released this week indicates the developers of four proposed New York wind farms are seeking revisions to previously approved power purchase agreements that would boost the price anywhere from 27 percent to 66 percent, with a weighted average increase across all four wind farms of 48 percent.

The study, by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), raises questions about some aspects of the wind developers’ proposed price increases, but overall it says the market conditions that have engulfed the industry are legitimate and real.

“These market conditions, driven in large part by increased demand for raw materials, an increased demand for large-scale renewable energy caused primarily by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, as well as supply chain constraints and bottlenecks, are unprecedented in recent history, outside of reasonable developer control, and were unforeseeable at the time of each bid,” the study says.

Read the full article at CommonWealth Magazine

Offshore wind is here, but who’s really getting the work?

September 2, 2023 — As a golden sunrise lights up New Bedford’s commercial fishing fleet, an unusual passenger ship is steaming out of the harbor toward Vineyard Wind.

The vessel is painted all over in a single color — battleship gray — though it’s not military or law enforcement.

Seated at the helm, Captain Fred Spaid says the look is deliberate.

“We were coming around Cape Hatteras this spring and came up on a catamaran sailboat. He calls us up on the radio, … and he said, ‘Are you guys with the Navy or the Coast Guard?’ I said, ‘Neither one,’” Spaid says, laughing. “But we do have that impression, and that is intentional, absolutely.”

Read the full article at CAI

MASSACHUSETTS: SouthCoast Wind Will Pay $60 Million To Terminate Power Purchase Agreements

September 2, 2023 — While Vineyard Wind’s turbines are rising in the waters off Nantucket, another offshore wind energy developer seeking to build an even larger wind farm south of the island is facing a major setback.

SouthCoast Wind, which hopes to construct 149 offshore wind turbines 20 nautical miles south of Nantucket, is attempting to back out of the power purchase agreements it had signed with three Massachusetts utility companies.

In a petition filed this week with the state Department of Public Utilities, SouthCoast Wind stated it would pay dearly to terminate those agreements. The offshore wind company – which is a joint venture of the petrochemical giant Shell and Ocean Winds North America – agreed to pay $60 million to rip up its deals with Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil.

Read the full article at South Coast Today

Blue Harvest Fisheries reportedly shutting down all operations

September 2, 2023 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Blue Harvest Fisheries is reportedly shutting down all of its fishing operations.

The company, which recently suspended its processing work and laid off workers in March 2023, told fishermen it will by ceasing operation on Friday, 1 September, the New Bedford Light reported. Luke deWildt, captain of the Teresa Marie IV – one of Blue Harvest’s fishing vessels – said his most recent fishing trip would be the last for the company.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US approves major Rhode Island offshore wind farm

August 23, 2023 — The U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday approved the construction of a 704 megawatt (MW) wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, the fourth offshore wind project the agency has greenlighted as the Biden administration targets bringing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power online by 2030.

The Revolution Wind project off Point Judith, Rhode Island, could power nearly 250,000 homes and create 1,200 local jobs during the construction phase, the Interior Department said.

Owned by wind energy developers Orsted (ORSTED.CO) and Eversource (ES.N), the project includes up to 79 possible locations for the installation of 65 wind turbines and two offshore substations.

Read the full story at Reuters

MASSACHUSETTS: Aquinnah reaches wind mitigation agreement

August 17, 2023 — Officials with the town of Aquinnah say they have reached an agreement over mitigation funding with the developer of the closest, and likely largest, offshore wind farm planned for nearby waters.

Orsted, the developer of Revolution Wind, is expected to provide the town with over a million dollars to fund the renovation of the Gay Head Lighthouse and other historic structures in the area.

The agreement, while not signed by either side yet, comes after several months of negotiations.

While the town is pleased to have gotten something from the developers, town officials say they didn’t get all they wanted.

“With any agreement, there is some give and take on both sides,” Aquinnah town administrator Jeffrey Madison said Wednesday. “It is what it is. We’re happy that there is some consideration being given to our community.”

Still, funding from Revolution, combined with funding from other offshore wind companies, will help make the Aquinnah Cliffs more accessible. But the majority of funding will also go toward needed repairs to the glass and steel framing of the lighthouse. Madison said that the project would be too big for the town to take on itself.

Read the full article at MV Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen Face Hypoxia in Outer Cape Waters

August 17, 2023 — Alex Iacono, a lobsterman who says he favors lobsters and ocean solitude over people, is worried about the future of his business. Iacono, who lives in Truro and fishes out of Provincetown on the F/V Storm Elizabeth, says his catch has significantly dwindled in recent years.

He’s not alone; other lobstermen working across Cape Cod Bay have noticed a downward trend. They believe that hypoxia — dangerously low levels of oxygen in the water — is to blame.

On Aug. 11, local lobster fishermen were advised by the Div. of Marine Fisheries (DMF) that low levels of dissolved oxygen had been recorded in two areas: at the southern end of Cape Cod Bay near Barnstable and here, in the waters between Provincetown and Wellfleet.

Hypoxia first came to fishermen’s attention in 2019 when it caused a catastrophic lobster die-off in the bay. After that, the DMF started affixing sensors to buoys and traps to monitor oxygen levels, and they have consistently observed mild hypoxia since then.

Tracy Pugh, leader of the Invertebrate Fisheries Project at DMF, pioneered a “stoplight” color-coded hypoxia mapping system: green indicates areas with over 6 mg. of dissolved oxygen per liter of water; water with under 6 mg/L is coded yellow on the DMF map; orange signals mildly hypoxic water with less than 4 mg/L; and red indicates severely hypoxic water, with less than 2 mg/L of dissolved oxygen.

Read the full article at the Provincetown Independent