Saving Seafood

As turbines rise, small-scale fishermen have the most to lose

October 14, 2021 — Offshore wind is a critical component of President Biden’s climate strategy, but it has met fierce resistance from fishermen like Aripotch. They fear installing thousands of massive turbines in the ocean could displace them from their fishing grounds and sink their industry.

The conflict is a vivid illustration of the tradeoffs involved in confronting climate change.

Biden and other supporters say offshore wind can deliver a surge of clean electricity and slash greenhouse gas emissions. But many fishing captains worry the turbines could alter the ocean in unexpected and irreparable ways. Last month, a commercial fishing group filed a lawsuit challenging the federal permit issued to Vineyard Wind I, the country’s first planned development.

Efforts are being made to address those concerns. In New York, one company sat down with local fishermen to discuss turbine placement. Developers working off New England will space their turbines one nautical mile apart to ease navigation. In fact, federal regulators selected many wind development areas specifically because they were less popular with fishermen.

But fishermen say those concessions fall short. U.S. regulators plan to allow fishing inside wind developments, but many captains worry it’s only a matter of time before a boat wrecks on a turbine and they’re banned from wind areas. They also contend the government has underestimated the value of fishing grounds and plowed ahead with new projects.

The truth may lie somewhere in between.

“Many fishermen will not see a big impact, but fishermen who do may see a very large impact,” says Chris McGuire, director of the marine program of the Nature Conservancy’s Massachusetts chapter. “That’s a hard part about this. You hear disparate opinions. And I think this is one of those situations where they’re all true depending on where you sit.”

Read the full story at WBUR

Local Fishing Industry Upset Over Biden Restoring Marine National Monument

October 12, 2021 — President Biden re-established an area off of the coast of Cape Cod as a marine national monument Friday, a move that has the local fishing industry angry.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was originally created during the Obama administration to preserve the sea life in that region. During the Trump administration, restrictions in the area were scaled back, which allowed for commercial fishing.

Under the new executive action from President Biden, commercial fishing in the area is banned but recreational fishing is allowed. The monument is more than 100 miles southeast off the shore of Cape Cod.

Bob Vanasse of Saving Seafood told WBZ’s Karyn Regal (@karynregal) the trip to the area is one only a chartered fishing boat or mega yacht could make.

“The privileged few are going to allowed to go out and spearfish on the same species that working families in the swordfish and tuna industry will not be able to do,” Vanasse said.

Read the full story at WBZ News

 

Slow Zones South of Nantucket, MA and South of Atlantic City, NJ

October 8, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries announces an extension of a voluntary right whale Slow Zone. On October 7, 2021, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s vessel survey team observed the presence of right whales 20 nm South of Nantucket, MA. The right whale Slow Zone is in effect immediately and expires on October 22, 2021.

Also, on September 29, 2021 a voluntary vessel speed restriction zone under the Right Whale Slow Zone program was triggered and is currently in effect 65 nm South of Atlantic City, NJ to protect an aggregation of right whales. This Right Whale Slow Zone is in effect immediately through October 14, 2021.

VOLUNTARY Right whale “SLOW Zone”

Mariners are requested to avoid or transit at 10 knots or less inside the following areas where persistent aggregations of right whales have been detected. Please visit www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/shipstrike for more information.

Slow Zone Coordinates:

South of Nantucket, MA — in effect through October 22, 2021

NORTHERN BOUNDARY: 38° 38′ N

SOUTHERN BOUNDARY: 37°58′ N

EASTERN BOUNDARY: 74°13′ W

WESTERN BOUNDARY: 75°04′ W

South of Atlantic City, NJ — in effect through October 14, 2021

NORTHERN BOUNDARY:41°20′ N

SOUTHERN BOUNDARY: 40°35′ N

EASTERN BOUNDARY: 69°32′ W

WESTERN BOUNDARY: 70°32′ W

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Oyster Buyback Spawns New Ecology Program in Edgartown

October 1, 2021 — Prior to the pandemic, Ryan Smith, whose Signature Oyster Farm operates out of Katama Bay, sold about 30,000 oysters per week — nearly all of which went to restaurants and raw bars across the Northeast.

By March of 2020, with in-person dining all but completely shuttered, the number dropped to about 300.

“Everything just halted,” the veteran waterman recalled. “I was selling door to door . . . it was terrible. You didn’t know how long it was going to last. But obviously, it lasted a lot longer than anybody could have anticipated.”

And as demand dwindled, the oysters themselves did the opposite, growing too large and gnarled for ritzy raw bars. Farmers like Mr. Smith were left with a fisherman’s catch-22, unable to sell the properly-sized oysters when restaurants closed, and unable to sell the oversized oysters once they reopened.

“I’ve got some that are the size of my boot,” Mr. Smith said. “I’m a size 12.”

Now more than 18 months later, an innovative partnership between The Nature Conservancy and the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group has found a solution, providing a new home for 200,000 overgrown oysters by buying them from Mr. Smith and fellow Katama Bay oysterman Scott Castro at a discounted price and re-seeding them in the Slough Cove section of the Edgartown Great Pond.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

U.S. Fishermen Are Making Their Last Stand Against Offshore Wind

September 30, 2021 — A few hundred yards south of the fishing boat docks at the Port of New Bedford in southeastern Massachusetts, workers will soon start offloading gigantic turbine components onto a wide expanse of gravel. Local trawlers and lobster boats will find themselves sharing their waterways with huge vessels hefting cranes and massive hydraulic jacks. And on an approximately 100-square mile patch of open sea that fishermen once traversed with ease, 62 of the world’s largest wind turbines will rise one by one over the ocean waves.

Known as Vineyard Wind, the project is set to be the first-ever commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, generating 800 megawatts of power, or enough to power about 400,000 homes. Dozens of other offshore wind projects are in development up and down America’s east coast. But some in the fishing industry, including many New Bedford fishermen, are concerned that the turbines will upend their way of life.

Earlier this month, a coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing outfits, including 50 New Bedford fishing boats, filed a lawsuit against several U.S. agencies, including the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which approved Vineyard Wind in May, alleging that they violated federal law in allowing the project to go forward. The fishing groups frame that fight as a matter of survival, a last ditch effort to slow down a coalition of banks, technocrats and global energy companies set on erecting multi-billion dollar projects that they worry could devastate their livelihoods.

Money is certainly a big issue for many of those behind Vineyard Wind—backers like Bank of America and J.P. Morgan have pledged about $2.3 billion in funding for the project, and they’re looking for returns on that investment. But there’s also a societal imperative to push ahead with such projects, with many green energy proponents saying there is little choice but to get offshore turbines built as soon as possible if the U.S. is to have any chance of meeting its obligations under the Paris Agreement and averting the worst effects of climate change. The Biden Administration is counting on such turbines to produce about 10% of U.S. electricity by 2050, and in coastal, population dense states like Massachusetts and New York, leaders view sea-bound wind farms as a lynchpin of their net zero ambitions.

Read the full story at TIME

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Biggest offshore wind procurement draws just 2 bids

September 27, 2021 — The two companies already chosen to develop offshore wind projects for Massachusetts were the only two to submit proposals for the state’s third offshore wind solicitation, each offering up to 1,200 megawatts of power generation and various economic development-related sweeteners.

The state’s third competitive solicitation attracted bids from just Vineyard Wind and Mayflower Wind, a smaller pool of bids than House Speaker Ron Mariano and others were hoping for. Both developers submitted bids that maxed out at 1,200 MW of capacity, 25 percent short of the 1,600 MW upper limit that the state’s solicitation sought but still 50 percent more than either project currently under development.

Though key details like the price of the cleaner power and the number of turbines planned remain under wraps until later stages of the selection process, the two developers vying for the work outlined Thursday what they think are the benefits of their bids.

If one of its multiple proposals is chosen, Mayflower Wind said it would set up an operations and maintenance port in Fall River and spend up to $81 million for supply chain support, training and education, port investments, and diversity and inclusion programs on the South Coast.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

New tool maps birds, fish in offshore wind areas

September 23, 2021 — While federal and state officials eagerly pursue a rapid and significant deployment of offshore wind turbines to generate cleaner power along the East Coast, scientists and advocates on Wednesday unveiled a new mapping tool designed to give developers, regulators and the public a better sense of the natural resources below the surface in the neighborhood of proposed wind projects.

Last year, the U.S. offshore wind pipeline grew by 24 percent with more than 35,000 megawatts now in various stages of development, the U.S. Department of Energy said in its latest offshore wind market report. Massachusetts has authorized up to 5,600 MW and so far has contracted for about 1,600 MW of offshore wind power. But even before the first turbine is installed, the industry is facing headwinds from two federal lawsuits that focus on the protection of endangered species like the North Atlantic right whale and commercial fishing interests.

The marine mapping tool rolled out Wednesday by The Nature Conservancy covers the coast from Maine through North Carolina and includes information about the makeup of the seafloor, the fish and invertebrates that live near the bottom of the ocean in a given area, the marine mammals that frequent a chosen swath of ocean, the bird species that are known to be in the area and more. The tool allows a user to compare data from different times of the year and incorporates historical data as well.

Read the full story at WWLP

 

What’s behind one lawsuit against Vineyard Wind

September 21, 2021 — Annie Hawkins has a message you don’t hear very often in Massachusetts these days.

The executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a national group of fishing interests, Hawkins is questioning the rush to develop offshore wind. Her organization is suing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, alleging the agency is failing to protect the fishing industry as it races to develop the nation’s offshore wind potential to help address climate change.

“In taking action to address climate change, we have to acknowledge that these new uses [of the ocean] have a lot of environmental uncertainty. They have a lot of impacts of their own,” Hawkins said on The Codcast. “They can be better understood and minimized before we go whole hog on this 30 gigawatts tomorrow. A lot more upfront due diligence needs to be done.”

The 30 gigawatts reference refers to President Biden’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. It’s a goal that meshes with Gov. Charlie Baker’s push to develop 3.2 gigawatts by 2030. The Baker administration has already procured 1.6 gigawatts and is in the midst of reviewing proposals that would double that amount.

Read the full story at CommonWealth Magazine

 

New Bedford’s $2.3 Billion Vineyard Wind Project Fully Funded

September 16, 2021 — The $2.3 billion Vineyard Wind project off the Nantucket coast can officially begin, as the company announced the project’s financial close today.

Vineyard Wind 1 is slated to be the first commercial scale offshore wind farm in the U.S.

The project has hit some headwinds, after a coalition of fishing industry professionals filed a federal lawsuit Monday asking for a court review of the project’s approval by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management earlier this year.

But according to a release from the company, now that the project is fully funded, Vineyard Wind is able to give its contractors a notice to proceed.

This allows suppliers to start hiring, training and mobilizing people to prepare for both on and offshore construction.

Onshore work is set to begin this fall in Barnstable, with offshore work starting in 2022, the release stated.

The first power from Vineyard Wind 1 will be delivered to the grid in 2023.

Read the full story at WBSM

 

New Bedford Fishermen Among Those Suing Over Vineyard Wind

September 15, 2021 — Local fishermen are among those in a coalition of commercial fisheries suing the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management over its approval of the Vineyard Wind project.

More than 50 fishing vessels based in New Bedford and Fairhaven are listed as members of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, along with 13 Massachusetts-based businesses and associations.

The group filed a petition in federal court on Monday to review the agency’s approval of Vineyard Wind, a project slated to become the country’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm off the coast of Nantucket.

According to a statement from the coalition, fisheries professionals had been participating in the planning process for the 62-turbine project — but, the group said, their input was “summarily ignored by decision-makers.”

Read the full story at WBSM