Saving Seafood

Nantucket Residents Appeal Vineyard Wind Decision

September 27, 2023 — A group of Nantucketers is challenging key environmental approvals for Vineyard Wind, the offshore wind energy farm under construction south of Martha’s Vineyard.

Nantucket Residents Against Turbines filed an appeal with the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Saturday, calling on the court to overrule a district court’s decision to dismiss the group’s prior lawsuit. The residents previously alleged the federal agencies involved in permitting Vineyard Wind failed to consider the impacts of the project’s 62 turbines on the critically endangered right whale, which is known to swim through the Cape and Islands’ waters.

The lawsuit is one of several courtroom battles that have been waged in an attempt to stop Vineyard Wind. The project is expected to be the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the country and could start producing energy this fall. Construction started earlier this year, and the farm has come out victorious in other legal cases.

The Nantucket residents initially sued the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2021. In May, a federal court judge in Boston dismissed the case.

But the group contends the case needs reconsideration.

“Absent an order from this Court reversing the District Court summary judgment denial, the project, which is now in the inchoate stages of construction, will be permitted to continue, sending the already highly endangered [North Atlantic right whale] careening further down the road toward extinction,” the group wrote in its appeal.

Read the full article at the Vineyard Gazette

“Road Toward Extinction” – Nantucket Group Appeals Vineyard Wind Decision

September 25, 2023 — A group of Nantucket residents has appealed the dismissal of a lawsuit aimed at stopping the Vineyard Wind offshore wind energy project, which is currently under construction in the waters southwest of the island.

The group ACK For Whales – formerly known as Nantucket Residents Against Turbines – filed the appeal Saturday with the First Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals and is seeking to overturn the May 2023 decision of U.S. District Court judge Indira Talwani, who dismissed the original complaint.

ACK For Whales believes that the federal agencies involved in permitting the Vineyard Wind project – including the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Marine Fisheries Service – failed to properly consider the impacts Vineyard Wind could have on endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Those agencies “failed to utilize the best scientific and commercial data available, and failed to adequately consider a number of important, significant risks to the North Atlantic Right Whales induced by the Project, and incorrectly found that the suite of mitigation measures would adequately obviate North Atlantic Right Whale injury and death,” the group said in its appellant brief.

The failure, ACK For Whales asserted, constitutes a violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.

Vineyard Wind did not immediately return a request for comment on Sunday. The company, owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables (a subsidiary of the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola), stated earlier this year when the original complaint was dismissed that the review by the federal agencies had been “rigorous and thorough.”

Read the full article at the Nantucket Current

These whales are on the brink. Now comes climate change — and wind power.

April 22, 2022 — About 17 nautical miles south of Nantucket, a half-dozen New England Aquarium researchers scrambled across this vessel’s icy deck. Clutching binoculars, clipboards and cameras, they strained to catch a glimpse and scribble notes about a pair of creatures they fear are disappearing from this world.

After nine hours on the water, Amy Warren’s team had found two animals it knew by name. As the pair arched their heads above the water, the research scientist urged her colleagues with cameras to capture them.

“Get it, get it, get it, get it!”

With only about 300 left, the North Atlantic right whale ranks as one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals. Nearly annihilated centuries ago by whalers, the slow-swimming species is said to have earned its name because it was the “right” whale to hunt.

Old-fashioned harpoons have yielded to other threats. Humans are still killing right whales at startlingly high numbers — but by accident. Waters free from whalers now brim with ships that strike them, and ropes that entangle them.

The latest challenges come in a changing climate. Rising temperatures are driving them to new seas. And soon, dozens of offshore wind turbines — part of President Biden’s clean energy agenda — will encroach their habitat as the administration tries to balance tackling global warming with protecting wildlife.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

North Atlantic right whale researchers spot 21 right whales south of Nantucket during winter field work

March 10, 2022 — North Atlantic right whale researchers recently spotted more than 20 right whales while exploring southern New England waters during winter field work.

For the very first time, the New England Aquarium scientists are surveying this region by boat as they try to better understand climate change impacts on this critically endangered species.

The researchers went out on the water for four days from mid-January to early March, looking for right whales about 70 miles south of Nantucket. The scientists spotted 17 individual right whales by boat, or about 5% of the population, which is estimated to be less than 350.

Aquarium scientists worked in tandem with the New England Aquarium aerial survey team, as well as with teams from the Center for Coastal Studies and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, which helped navigate the boat to whale sightings. In total, the aquarium teams identified 21 unique right whales from either the air or the water.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

Wind project beginning lengthy environmental review

October 29, 2021 — The federal environmental review process for Mayflower Wind will officially get underway next week, kicking off a two-year period in which regulators and others will scrutinize the plan for up to 147 turbines in a lease area capable of supporting multiple projects.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Thursday that it will publish a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) in the Federal Register on Nov. 1, and will hold public comment meetings on Nov. 10, 15 and 18 to accept input on what BOEM should focus on when reviewing Mayflower’s construction and operations plan.

That comment period will end Dec. 1. Mayflower Wind, the Shell and Ocean Winds North America joint venture, was selected unanimously by Massachusetts utility executives in 2019 to build and operate an 804-megawatt wind farm about 20 nautical miles south of the western end of Nantucket.

Read the full story at WHDH 7 News Boston

 

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

 

Fishing Industry Group Files Legal Challenge to Wind Farm

September 14, 2021 — A coalition of commercial fishing groups on Monday sued the federal agency that approved construction of a 62-turbine wind energy farm off the coast of the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, saying it did not adequately take into account the project’s potential impact on the industry.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance’s petition for review of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the Vineyard Wind 1 project was filed with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

“The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s hasty approval of this project, which could be the nation’s first commercial scale offshore wind installation, adds unacceptable risk to this sustainable industry without any effort to minimize unreasonable interference with traditional and well-managed seafood production and navigation,” the organization said in a statement.

The federal agency, in an emailed statement, said it had no comment.

A spokesperson for Vineyard Wind, a joint project of a Danish company and a U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish energy giant, Iberdrola, said the company dies not comment on pending litigation.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at US News and World Report

 

Nantucket Group Sues To Stop Massive Wind Farm, Claiming Threat To Endangered Right Whales

August 27, 2021 — A federal lawsuit is aiming to stop the construction of thousands of wind turbines off the Massachusetts coast.

The “ACK Residents Against Turbines” who filed the lawsuit said the proposed Vineyard Wind project poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

“The whales belong to all of us and with fewer than 400, of which there are fewer than 100 breeding females left, each one is worth protecting. The people of Nantucket have a long history with these whales and we have done so much recently to protect this species,” said group co-founder Mary Chalke in a statement. “It would be a tragedy to see all of them lost in order to build an industrial offshore development.”

The project is set to be the first utility-scale wind power development in federal waters.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which are named in the suit, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. Vineyard Wind, a joint project of a Danish company and a U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish energy giant, Iberdrola, also declined to comment.

But the American Clean Power Association, a group that represents renewable energy companies, stressed the project has undergone a lengthy environmental review, permitting and public comment process.

Read the full story at CBS Boston

Slow Zone Extended South of Nantucket to Protect Right Whales

August 26, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries announces an extension to a voluntary right whale Slow Zone South of Nantucket. On August 25, 2021, the New England Aquarium aerial survey team sighted the presence of right whales south of Nantucket, MA. The Slow Zone is extended immediately through September 9, 2021. Reminder there is another Slow Zone in effect Southeast of Nantucket through August 31. Please visit www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/shipstrike for coordinates of all current Slow Zones.

Extension of VOLUNTARY Right whale “SLOW Zone”  

Mariners are requested to continue to avoid or transit at 10 knots or less inside the following areas where persistent aggregations of right whales have been detected.

Slow Zone Coordinates

South of Nantucket Island, MA (EXTENSION)

41 24 N

40 40 N

069 32 W

070 30 W

Southeast of Nantucket Island, MA

41 05 N

40 26 N

069 11 W

070 04 W

Read the full release here

Coast Guard Suspends Search For Man Who Fell Overboard Off Nantucket

August 17, 2021 — The Coast Guard said Tuesday it has suspended the search for a man who fell off a fishing vessel southeast of Nantucket late Sunday night.

The search was suspended after combing 1,444 square nautical miles, the Coast Guard said in a tweet.

The fishing vessel Blue Wave out of New Bedford contacted the Coast Guard late Sunday night when the 36-year-old man failed to report for his night watch and could not be found on the boat, Petty Officer Ryan Noel said.

The man was not believed to be wearing a life jacket. His name has not been made public.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WBUR