Saving Seafood

Nantucket wind lawsuit on hold as feds take 2nd look at SouthCoast permit

September 8, 2025 — In a move that could reshape the future of SouthCoast Wind — and signal deeper uncertainty for offshore wind — the U.S. Department of the Interior is reviewing its approval of the planned offshore wind farm off Nantucket. At the same time, federal attorneys want to pause the town of Nantucket’s related lawsuit while regulators revisit the permit — a shift Nantucket supports.

On Aug. 29, the U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. District Court for a temporary hold on Nantucket’s appeal filed over the permit. In a Sept. 2 statement, town leaders said they hope the pause leads to broader changes in how offshore wind projects are approved.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

Federal judge skeptical of Massachusetts’ offshore wind lawsuit against Trump

September 8, 2025 — Massachusetts, and the wind projects that have invested millions to build off its coast, will have to wait a bit longer to see if a federal judge will provide any relief from President Donald Trump’s wind memorandum that has frozen offshore wind permitting for the last eight months.

Judge William G. Young, during a hearing on Thursday, again expressed some skepticism about the multistate lawsuit. In opening remarks, and during questioning to both parties, Young said that Trump has made his position against offshore wind very clear. So, if he were to rule in favor of the states (and against the memo), he asked what change it would make for the projects that have been stuck in permitting limbo.

“[Trump’s] view of the presidency is, those people who are subordinate to me are going to follow my instructions. That’s the presidency as we know it today,” Young said. “Given the president’s view, where does that get you? … He’ll tell [agencies] to deny [permits] and they will, because they have to follow orders.”

Massachusetts Deputy Attorney General Turner Smith in response said that although that may be true, the states will address it case by case and permit by permit, if necessary.

“They may decide to issue or deny a permit,” Smith said. “Our hope is that the agencies would take to heart that they are required to follow applicable law in processing and issuing these permits.”

U.S. Department of Justice attorney Michael Robertson, on behalf of the federal government, argued the states have not sufficiently proven violations of cited laws, and that if the judge were to rule in their favor, it should be on a permit by permit and project by project level.

Revolution Wind featured briefly in the hearing arguments. Late last month, the federal government issued a stop-work order on the under-construction project, citing Trump’s wind memo.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

US plans to revoke approval of another Massachusetts offshore wind farm

September 4, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s administration plans to revoke federal approval of Avangrid’s planned New England Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, according to a court filing on Wednesday.

The legal maneuver is the latest move by U.S. authorities to stymie development of offshore wind energy, which Trump has called ugly, expensive, and unreliable. Last week, the administration also said it was reconsidering approval of SouthCoast Wind, another planned Massachusetts project.

In recent weeks, Trump has deployed a range of tactics to stop offshore wind expansion, which was a cornerstone of former President Joe Biden’s efforts to combat climate change but has struggled with soaring costs and supply chain snags. Most notably, Trump’s Interior Department late last month issued a stop-work order on the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island, which is 80% complete.

In Wednesday’s court filing, attorneys for the Department of Justice said they would move by October 10 to vacate the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the New England Wind construction and operations plan.

Read the full article at Reuters

Trump administration to reconsider SouthCoast Wind permit, legal filing says

September 3, 2025 —  The Trump administration will reconsider the permit for SouthCoast Wind, a Massachusetts offshore wind farm approved by the government of former U.S. President Joe Biden last year, according to a federal court filing seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

In a motion filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, attorneys for the Department of Justice said the Interior Department intended to reconsider the approval of SouthCoast Wind’s construction and operations plan.

The legal maneuver is the latest move by President Donald Trump’s administration to stymie development of offshore wind energy, which he says is ugly, expensive and unreliable.

Read the full article at Reuters

MASSACHUSETTS: Trump administration may be killing SouthCoast Wind. What does this mean for Somerset?

September 3, 2025 — The future looks dim for SouthCoast Wind, an offshore wind project that was due to make landfall at Brayton Point in Somerset.

According to court filings from the District of Columbia District Court, the federal Department of the Interior “intends to reconsider” approval of the SouthCoast Wind project.

Under the Biden administration, the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved a massive lease area about 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard to SouthCoast Wind. The company has intended to connect that power in Somerset, building a substation at the Brayton Point Commerce Center.

Read the full article at the Cape Cod Times

Feds move to vacate New England Wind permit as offshore wind rollback continues under Trump

September 3, 2025 — The federal government is now taking aim at New England Wind, asking a federal court to pause a lawsuit brought by island nonprofit ACK For Whales, saying it intends to seek remand and vacatur of the federal approval of the offshore wind project. It’s a move that, if granted, would effectively send the project back to square one and could make the case moot.

The announcement comes a week after the U.S. Department of Justice made a similar filing in the Town of Nantucket’s case against SouthCoast Wind. In that case, the DOJ asked the court to pause the suit while it reviewed SouthCoast’s permit.

Read the full article at The Inquirer and Mirror

MASSACHUSETTS: Dredging clears way for cleaner, bigger harbor

September 2, 2025 — Just north of Pope’s Island in the New Bedford Harbor, a giant, 12-acre pit sits at the bottom of the ocean, covered by layers of sand and rock. Filled with contaminated soil, the pit is meant to exist indefinitely, gradually collecting more sediment until it grows into a pronounced lump on the ocean floor.

The pit contains soil contaminated with PCBs, the manufacturing byproduct that has leaked into New Bedford’s seafood and prompted a decades-long federal cleanup effort.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Murphy, other Democratic governors call on Trump to uphold wind permits

September 2, 2025 — Democratic governors are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s plans to halt offshore wind developments.

“We are looking for the Trump Administration to uphold all offshore wind permits already granted and allow these projects to be constructed,” said a statement issued Monday by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

Trump has a deep, long-running dislike of wind farms he’s derided as ugly, bird-killing monstrosities. But his administration has moved more aggressively in recent weeks to restrict their construction, including by blocking projects from obtaining rural development business loans, halting construction of a nearly completed Ørsted A/S venture near Rhode Island and moving to invalidate the permit for another planned project off the Maryland coast.

Read the full article at Bloomberg News

New Study Reveals Dusky Sharks Preying On Seals For First Time Off Nantucket

August 29, 2025 — A new study confirms what scientists have known for years: dusky sharks are eating seals off the coast of Nantucket.

There are few known predators of seals in the Atlantic Ocean, but scientists can add one more to the list after a team of researchers captured what is believed to be the first aerial video showing a dusky shark killing and eating a grey seal near Nantucket.

“It’s one of the most exciting things I’ve been involved with as a shark scientist because it really changes the way we see this species,” said Megan Winton, a senior scientist at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and the lead author of the study.

Two years ago, in July of 2023, boaters and beachgoers took photos and videos of sharks preying on seals off Great Point, and scientists later confirmed that the sharks in question were dusky sharks, not white sharks, as initially thought. This was notable because, until then, there was no evidence that dusky sharks ate seals.

One study from South Africa had found a seal in the stomach of a dusky shark, but at the time, scientists thought it was the result of a scavenging event, rather than part of the shark’s usual diet.

Read the full article at the Nantucket Current

When the Blade Breaks

August 26, 2025 — A charter boat fisherman was among the first to discover the wreckage — a “mess,” he called it, deep off the coast of Massachusetts. From behind a veil of pea soup-thick fog emerged hundreds of white and green fiberglass and Styrofoam pieces, some as small as a fingernail, some as large as a truck hood. By the following morning, the tide had carried the debris about 12 nautical miles and scattered it across Nantucket Island’s beaches. Residents woke to a shoreline covered in trash, fiberglass shards mixed in with seaweed and shells, waves thrusting flotsam onto the sand.

It did not take long to follow the breadcrumb trail to its source: Vineyard Wind, an offshore wind farm located south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. On Saturday, July 13th, 2024, a nearly 115,000-pound blade broke from one of the turbines, shattered, and littered at least six truckloads’ worth of waste into the ocean.

The stakes for renewable energy advocates could not have been higher. Scientists, environmental groups, offshore wind developers, investors, and stakeholders from across the world had all been closely monitoring Vineyard Wind, which, with a planned 62 turbines, was on track to be the first large-scale commercial offshore wind farm in the United States. Dozens of other projects with contracts pending construction had hoped to glean insight from Vineyard Wind as a leading example. A disaster like this would put the nascent offshore wind industry under intense scrutiny and had the potential to throw future projects into jeopardy.

Read the full article at The Verge