Saving Seafood

Wind farms blew jobs to the heartland. Will offshore wind do the same in Massachusetts?

October 21, 2021 — Before he worked for American Clean Power, Jeff Danielson was an Iowa state senator for 15 years, representing Black Hawk County, the state’s fourth most populous region, and a Democratic stronghold. But most of Iowa is rural and Republican. In 2020 residents voted wholesale for former President Donald Trump, an outspoken opponent of clean energy.

So it was a surprise, Danielson said, that in a 2017 vote on a redesign of the state license plate, the public chose to include an increasingly familiar feature on Iowa’s rural landscape.

“The license plate that won was a landscaped picture with silos, smokestacks — traditional manufacturing strength and farming — right alongside a wind turbine,” Danielson said. “If you drive around Iowa today, that is the license plate you see.”

What was once controversial has now become an accepted feature in the heartland. In 2019, wind energy generated more electricity than coal-fired plants for the first time in Iowa state history and now accounts for 57% of the state’s electric power generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

It is the highest percentage of electrical production by wind power of any state and it happened fast. Five years ago coal-fired plants generated 53% of the state’s electricity, according to EIA, but as of 2020 only accounted for 24%.

It’s a matter of economics, wind power advocates say, not politics.

The U.S. is second only to China in terms of installed wind power. China has 288 gigawatts compared to the U.S., which has 122. But China is way ahead of the U.S. when it comes to offshore wind installations. This year, China displaced the U.K. as the top offshore wind country with 11.1 gigawatts of power installed. The U.S. has only one, a 55-megawatt, five-turbine offshore wind installation off Block Island, Rhode Island. 

Last year, the Biden administration set a goal of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore power along the East Coast by 2030 as part of its strategy to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector. Massachusetts’ recent update of its climate change plan set a goal of 5.6 gigawatts of offshore wind as an integral part of its plan to achieve a 50% emissions reduction target by 2030, and net-zero emissions from the energy sector by 2050.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

Big Oil wants to be Big Wind. Can fossil fuel companies be trusted?

October 18, 2021 — Danielle Jensen spent two years working on Mars — not the planet, the offshore oil rig.

Her job was to keep the crude flowing for Royal Dutch Shell. She operated the platform’s pumps and compressors, clocking two-week shifts with a mostly male crew.

Workdays were long, and walking around in a flame-retardant suit all summer in the Gulf of Mexico was brutal. But she felt good about providing energy to the world — modern society was built on fossil fuels, after all.

Times are changing, though, and Jensen wants to be part of the future. When Shell posted a job for planning an offshore wind farm off Massachusetts, she leapt at the opportunity. She now lives in Boston and works for Mayflower Wind, a joint venture of Shell and two European utilities.

“Once we get a few of these big projects installed and powering people’s homes, I think it’ll be unstoppable,” she says.

Jensen is the rare energy worker who has stepped from a carbon-intensive industry into one with almost no emissions at all. Her move mirrors a wider energy transition. Shell is among a handful of large oil companies racing to enter the offshore wind market, banking that their experience with ocean drilling can turn them into clean energy giants.

Read the full story at WBUR

MASSACHUSETTS: Gov. Baker breathes new life into offshore wind energy incentives

October 14, 2021 — In his keynote address to the American Clean Power Association’s Offshore Wind Conference, Gov. Charlie Baker announced significant changes to the state’s next round of energy contract bids.

“We’re ensuring that Massachusetts retains its leading edge position in the offshore wind policy debate in the US by proposing to, among other things, remove the price cap on project proposals to ensure that projects have the flexibility to incorporate storage, improve reliability, and offer greater economic development is part of their bids,” Baker told the hundreds of offshore wind energy advocates and industry people gathered in the Omni Seaport Hotel ballroom Wednesday afternoon.

Baker’s message was a response to criticism that his administration had, in the first three rounds of solicitations for state energy contracts, given disproportionate weight to bids offering a low price for electrical generation. Critics said the bids should have incorporated more incentive for wind farm developers to invest in local businesses and encourage manufacturing to be located in the state.

Massachusetts has historically had some of the highest electric rates in the country, and that resulted in the Baker administration’s emphasis on price. But technological leaps in wind turbine efficiency resulted in bid prices that were much lower than anticipated and many in the state Legislature — mayors like Jon Mitchell of New Bedford — and port city businesses complained to Baker that the state needed to factor in infrastructure.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Monument fishing ban will hurt New Bedford businesses

October 13, 2021 — Just over 30 days ago, the fishing vessel Eagle Eye left federal waters more than 130 miles southeast of Massachusetts to make the 15- to 20-hour trip home to New Bedford Harbor. Its sister vessel, Eagle Eye 2, returned even more recently, with each carrying thousands of pounds of fresh tuna and a bit of swordfish.

John Cafiero, captain of one of the Fairhaven-based vessels, said he and his crew sometimes take multiple trips in the summer to fish in waters that in 2016 were established as a national marine monument. Tuna and swordfish are highly migratory species so sometimes “you don’t want to be in there,” he said, but for the past few years, it has been “really good.”

Cafiero said he didn’t know it then, but that trip might have been his last in the area.

On Oct. 8, President Joe Biden issued a presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act of 1906 prohibiting commercial fishing in an area of water the size of Connecticut.

The administration cited conservation efforts needed to preserve the “vulnerable” deep marine ecosystems and endangered marine species that inhabit or migrate through the waters. The proclamation restores the commercial fishing restrictions first established by former President Barack Obama in 2016, when he declared two areas of water from surface to seabed as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

Environmental groups lauded the decision. But local fishermen, business owners and industry advocates said the closure deals yet another blow to a highly regulated industry and is unfair as recreational fishing in the monument may continue.

“These boats are more like your uncle’s pizza shop or your dad’s gas station,” said Mike Machado, lead buyer at Boston Sword & Tuna and a former New Bedford fisherman. “They’re small individual companies. They’re not like this big, evil fishing juggernaut.”

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light

 

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