Saving Seafood

Offshore wind labor force hoping for work that might not continue

September 26, 2025 — On a warm September day, Sonia Brito stood on a platform more than 200 feet high, securing a “gripper” atop a wind turbine tower with the help of a few of her millwright and ironworker brothers. It’s something they’ve done dozens of times to ready the towers to be grabbed by a crane, placed onto barges and shipped to sea.

The staging terminal, previously packed with blades, nacelles and towers for Vineyard Wind, has grown sparse, a result of a steady workflow during summer’s prime seafaring conditions — and a slowdown, workers say, of international shipments amid the Trump administration’s tariffs.

A Portuguese immigrant who grew up in New Bedford, Brito, 22, says she feels lucky to have happened upon an opportunity like Vineyard Wind. It has allowed her to work in her hometown and build a project that she thinks will have positive impacts for her city and the country’s climate future.

But since the federal government abruptly halted construction at Empire Wind for one month in the spring, and then Revolution Wind in August, workers supporting the buildout of offshore wind in New England have grown worried about the industry’s future — and theirs.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

A new trend has surfaced among sharks in Cape Cod waters. Here’s what one expert says

September 26, 2025 — Researchers have been studying white sharks on Cape Cod for nearly two decades, and they’ve been noticing some changing habits over the last couple of years following what seems like an explosion of sightings.

Greg Skomal and his team of researchers at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife are in the thick of white shark research — on the water, studying and tagging several days a week — but they’ve been noticing a trend.

“The number of sharks would increase fairly dramatically through the month of July. And we have noticed that is not happening anymore. Our big months now, it starts in late August, but it’s September, October,” Skomal, of MassWildlife, said. “These animals are migrating past us and getting up to Canada, getting up into the Gulf of Maine a lot faster than they used to.”

Read the full article at NBC Boston

Revolution Wind can restart construction off Martha’s Vineyard, judge rules

September 25, 2025 — Construction on the 65-turbine Revolution Wind project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard can resume after a federal district court judge granted the developers reprieve from a stop work order issued by the Trump administration.

In a ruling on Monday, D.C. district court Judge Royce Lamberth granted Revolution Wind a preliminary injunction, halting the enforcement of an Aug. 22 order from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM.

“Revolution Wind has demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of its underlying claims, it is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction, the balance of the equities is in its favor, and maintaining the status quo by granting the injunction is in the public interest,” the judge wrote in his two-page opinion.

Read the full article at Mass Live

Trump administration seeks to revoke SouthCoast Wind approval

September 23, 2025 — The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion in federal court to revoke federal approval for the SouthCoast Wind project off Massachusetts. Striking at the planned array of 141 turbines is the latest move by the Trump administration to stamp out surviving renewable energy projects approved during the Biden presidency.

The project with a planned 2.4 gigawatt nameplate rating took four years to complete the permitting process and “could now arbitrarily lose approval for its construction and operations plan,” advocates with the BlueGreen Alliance said. “This is the last major federal permit wind projects need before putting turbines into the water and was awarded to SouthCoast Wind after years of careful review.”

The Sept. 18 court maneuver targeting SouthCoast Wind came on the heels of the Trump administration seeking to revoke permits for the US Wind project off Ocean City, Md. SouthCoast was one of the last acts in the Biden administration’s push to move offshore wind projects forward. Its final permit was issued Jan. 17, three days before Trump’s inauguration and his directive that same day to suspended further action on wind power projects.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Trump administration moves to revoke permit for Massachusetts offshore wind project

September 22, 2025 — The Trump administration has moved to block a Massachusetts offshore wind farm, its latest effort to hobble an industry and technology that President Donald Trump has attacked as “ugly” and unreliable compared to fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, filed a motion in federal court Thursday seeking to take back its approval of the SouthCoast Wind project’s “construction and operations plan.’’ The plan is the last major federal permit the project needs before it can start putting turbines in the water.

SouthCoast Wind, to be built in federal waters about 23 miles south of Nantucket, is expected to construct as many as 141 turbines to power about 840,000 homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The Interior Department action is the latest by the Trump administration in what critics call an “all-out assault” on the wind energy industry.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

In latest anti-wind action, Trump administration moves to revoke SouthCoast Wind permit

September 22, 2025 — In another attack on offshore wind, the Trump administration is looking to reconsider a key permit for SouthCoast Wind, a planned 141-turbine project off the Massachusetts coast.

The move comes a week after it revoked the same permit for a proposed wind farm near Maryland, and represents the latest escalation in the administration’s attempt to kneecap the offshore wind industry. Already, the multi-agency effort has resulted in frozen federal permits, restrictions on where wind farms can be built, and new reviews of existing regulations to make sure they they “align with America’s energy priorities under President Donald J. Trump.”

On Thursday, the government filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. to take back its approval of the SouthCoast Wind project’s “construction and operations plan,” or COP. The COP is the last major federal permit an offshore wind project needs before it can start putting turbines in the water.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had approved SouthCoast’s COP on Jan. 17, 2025, three days before President Trump’s second term began.

“Based on its review to date, BOEM has determined that the COP approval may not have fully complied with the law regulating the use of federal waters over the outer continental shelf,” the government wrote. “That is reason enough to grant a remand.”

In a statement, SouthCoast Wind said the company “intends to vigorously defend our permits in federal court.”

Read the full article at Rhode Island PBS

MASSACHSUETTS: No more feeling blue- lobster comes to live at UMass Dartmouth

September 16, 2025 — Only about one in two million lobsters are born blue and only 10 to 20 blue lobsters are found a year, including one recently acquired by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology.

Lobsters can have an excess of a protein that causes some blue spots, but almost all lobsters have some red, according to UMass Dartmouth sea-water lab manager Forrest Kennedy. The all blue mutation is caused by the blue protein binding to the red protein.

The lobster was caught by a fisherman on the “Michael and Erin” in Beverly in early to mid June, who called the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries with the condition that the lobster not be eaten. As UMass Dartmouth shares a building with Marine Fisheries, the university is now housing the lobster.

“We can offer him a good home here,” Kennedy.

The lobster is male based on his large claw size and fins. He is estimated to be about seven to nine years old, and weighs 1.25 pounds. Lobsters are estimated to live up to 100 years, so UMass could have him for a long time.

Read the full article at The Week Today

How New England is handling Trump’s offshore wind assault

September 10, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s war on offshore wind power is clobbering New England, and officials there are warning of future grid reliability problems. In this new energy reality, though, many states in the region say they will try their best to muddle through.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has stunned states and industry alike with a whirlwind of actions, highlighted by halting a nearly complete project off Rhode Island’s coast — Revolution Wind — and seeking to revoke a permit for a Massachusetts project. Other crucial projects in the region have been caught up in a temporary pause on leases.

In a recent Cabinet meeting, Trump reiterated his hatred of wind. “We’re not allowing any windmills to go up,” he said. “They’re ruining our country.”

Read the full article at E&E News

Ørsted and Iberdrola Are Trying to Save U.S. Offshore Wind Investments

September 9, 2025 — Two major offshore wind developers,  Ørsted and Iberdrola, have efforts underway to save their offshore wind projects in the United States. The companies are reportedly trying to win over the Trump administration, which opposes offshore wind energy, by emphasizing the larger investments in the United States.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Bloomberg reports, confirmed that the administration is “actively engaged in discussions” with Ørsted over the future of the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. According to the reports, Wright, during a presentation at the Council of Foreign Relations, confirmed that there is “a very active dialogue,” saying the issues of the wind farm were being “worked and discussed.”

Last month, the Trump administration issued a stop work order for the project, which Ørsted said is 80 percent installed. The company highlighted its large investment, saying that all of the foundations for the 704 MW wind farm are installed and that 45 out of the 65 wind turbines have also been installed. The export cabling and the onshore power substation are nearly complete.

Ørsted filed a lawsuit challenging the legal authority to suspend the project, calling it a necessary step. The company, however, also said it was continuing to seek a resolution with the administration.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Scallopers press for reopening Northern Edge

September 8, 2025 — The New Bedford scallop fleet and supporters continue to push for a reopening of the Northern Edge scallop access area, a year after the New England Fishery Management Council decided to continue the 30-year closure.

The Northern Edge of Georges Bank is seen by the council as a critical area for juvenile cod, lobster and herring, and the closure has been touted as habitat protection for those species and the scallop biomass.

In April 2025 the Fisheries Survival Fund, representing East Coast scallop fishermen, filed a petition urging U.S Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to reopen the Northern Edge. Their pitch echoed arguments the Fisheries Survival Fund made, unsuccessfully, to the New England council in June 2024.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman