February 9, 2023 — FOX Business’ Madison Alworth reports from Islip, New York, where fishermen are worried rising fuel prices and wind turbine farm plans put jobs and profits at risk.
VIRGINIA: Dominion ‘on track’ with $9.8 bln Virginia offshore wind farm
February 9, 2023 — Dominion Energy Inc (D.N) executives said on Wednesday that the electric utility’s $9.8 billion offshore Virginia wind farm is on track and on budget, having recently entered a critical phase of the environmental review process.
The roughly month-long crucial public comment period on the environmental impact study of the 2.6 gigawatt project will end in February, Dominion Chief Executive Officer Robert Blue said on the Richmond, Virginia-based company’s quarterly earnings call.
“As it relates to the project’s execution, it’s very much on track and on budget,” Blue said, adding that Dominion is working with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and other overseers of U.S. offshore wind development.
VIRGINIA: Senate advances Dominion bill with amendment underscoring tie to wind project
February 7, 2023 — After the House Commerce and Energy Committee last week gutted Dominion Energy’s sweeping proposal for changing the way it is regulated, the state Senate on Monday trimmed a key section of the same measure.
The issue is the profit rate the electric monopoly is allowed to earn — an important element when the State Corporation Commission reviews its rates.
But in the background, as the Senate action made clear, is Dominion’s concern about financing its $9 billion offshore wind farm.
The clue comes in an amendment to the Dominion bill proposed by Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City: a time limit on the bill’s directive that the SCC must use the average profit rate of large southeastern utilities as the profit rate it allows for Dominion.
NEW JERSEY: Recreational fishermen will hate this: Regulators want more spiny dogfish in the water
February 7, 2023 — Federal fishery regulators slashed the coastwide commercial quota for spiny dogfish by nearly 60%, from just over 29 million pounds to 12 million pounds.
The Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission’s spiny dogfish management board based its decision on declining trends in several indicators including survey abundance, catch per unit of effort, pup production and dogfish growth. New Jersey’s share of the quota fell from 2.2 million pounds, to just over 900,000 pounds.
While recreational fishermen have little palate for spiny dogfish ,which is viewed by this sector as more of nuisance fish that voraciously feeds on juvenile sea bass and fluke, and tangles up fishing line, gillnetters did establish a market for the spiny dogfish.
An unusually high number of whales are washing up on U.S. beaches
February 6, 2023 — Researchers are trying to figure out a mystery: Why are so many humpback whales, right whales, and other large mammals dying along the U.S. East Coast? One possible explanation is a shift in food habits. And while theories are circulating that blame the growing offshore wind industry, scientists say there’s no proof to support that idea.
Since Dec. 1, at least 18 reports have come in about large whales being washed ashore along the Atlantic Coast, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Network. The losses are hitting populations that were already under watch, due to ongoing rises in unexpected deaths.
“Unfortunately, it’s been a period of several years where we have had elevated strandings of large whales, but we are still concerned about this pulse” in deaths that’s now been going on for weeks, as Sarah Wilkin, the coordinator for the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, said on a recent call with journalists.
NEW JERSEY: 12 Jersey Shore mayors call for moratorium on offshore wind following whale deaths
January 31, 2023 — A group of Jersey Shore mayors are calling for an “immediate moratorium” on offshore wind energy development until federal and state scientists can assure the public that ocean noise related to underwater seabed mapping, soil borings and other turbine construction activities poses no threat to whales.
The announcement followed news that another humpback whale had died off of the coasts of New Jersey and New York and washed ashore in Lido Beach, Nassau County, New York, according to numerous reports.
“While we are not opposed to clean energy, we are concerned about the impacts these (offshore wind) projects may already be having on our environment,” the 12 New Jersey mayors wrote in a joint letter to Washington officials.
The mayors include six from Ocean and Monmouth counties: Joseph Mancini of Long Beach Township, Samuel Cohen of Deal, Paul M. Kanitra of Point Pleasant Beach, William W. Curtis of Bay Head, Lance White of Mantoloking, and Jennifer Naughton of Spring Lake.
Whale deaths no match for pursuit of East Coast offshore wind farms
January 30, 2023 — A spate of whales washing up along East Coast beaches has exposed a deep rift in the environmental movement between conservationists seeking to stop the construction of massive offshore wind farms and advocates who say renewable energy projects will save the planet from climate change.
A group of environmentalists is calling on New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to halt work on ocean wind projects after a sudden increase in whale strandings on the region’s seashores.
In a little more than a month, seven dead whales, most of them humpbacks, have washed up on New Jersey and New York beaches. That is a record in a region that typically has a similar number of beached whales in an entire year.
Orsted, Eversource Propose New York Offshore Wind Project
January 27, 2023 — Ørsted and Eversource have submitted a joint proposal in response to New York State’s third round of offshore wind solicitations. Together, Ørsted and Eversource are building South Fork Wind, New York’s first offshore wind farm, which broke ground early last year and will be operational with 130 MW in 2023, and Sunrise Wind, a 924 MW project that will deliver clean energy to New York in late 2025.
In July 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced New York’s third competitive offshore wind solicitation for a minimum of 2,000 MW of offshore wind, which will power at least 1.5 million additional New York homes with clean, affordable energy. This third solicitation marks additional progress toward achieving New York State’s Climate Act mandate to secure 70% of the State’s electricity from renewable energy by 2030 and at least 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035.
Dead whales and tough economics bedevil Biden’s massive wind energy push
January 26, 2023 — The school-bus-size humpback whale that washed ashore on a narrow beach in Brigantine, N.J., this month weighed in at 12 tons and took a heavy emotional toll on coastal towns helplessly witnessing a spate of such deaths.
The humpback was one of nine large whales to get stranded over six weeks on or near beaches in the Northeast, not far from where developers of hundreds of offshore wind turbines are engaged in a flurry of preconstruction activity. The deaths have prompted pushback against the projects even though government scientists say they are unrelated.
It’s the latest in a string of threats to a fledgling offshore wind industry that climate advocates say is central to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Surging costs from inflation and labor shortages have developers saying their projects may not be profitable. A raft of lawsuits and pending federal restrictions to protect sensitive wildlife could further add to costs. The uncertainty has clouded bright expectations for massive growth in U.S. offshore wind, which the Biden administration and several state governments have bet big on in their climate plans.
Proposed menhaden ban blocked in Virginia legislature
January 25, 2023 — Virginia state House Bill 1383, recently introduced by Delegate Tim Anderson of Virginia Beach to shut down Virginia’s menhaden reduction fishery in all of the state’s territorial ocean waters and inland Bay waters for two years, was unanimously tabled Jan. 18 by the Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee.
The vote was 22-0 to table and “pass by indefinitely.” The bill has a delayed effective date of Nov. 18, 2023 and a sunset date of Nov. 22, 2025.
“Normally when they vote PBI it means the bill dies forever unless someone brings it back next year,” said Montgomery Deihl, vice president of operations for Omega Protein in Reedville, Va. “But the fact that it was a unanimous vote sends a strong signal that there’s no support for it.”
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