Saving Seafood

News for the New England Region

MAINE: Maine lobstermen signal opposition to participating in ropeless testing program

November 29, 2023 — Maine lobstermen are signaling their hesitation to participate in a multimillion-dollar program the state is launching to test new ropeless technology that the federal government soon may require to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been awarded $5.1 million from the federal government and a national nonprofit to research alternatives to the traditional trap-and-buoy lobster gear that requires vertical lines that can entangle the whales. But amid criticism and cynicism from many in the lobster industry, the department and its partnering organizations may face challenges recruiting lobstermen to play a key role in the evaluations.

“There’s no sense of wasting a lot of time and effort on our part into something that is not going to work,” said Colin Grierson, a longtime lobsterman in Midcoast Maine, “It’s going to take time away from when you’re normally fishing in a more traditional method when the end (conclusion) is not going to be ‘this is going to work great.’ It’s not.”

The $5.1 million award comes from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the nonprofit National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which are facilitating an $18.3 million grant program across New England. The 18 awards are intended to advance the development of “innovative fishing gear” as an alternative to vertical fishing lines, or ropes dangling in the ocean, that federal regulators contend are severely harming the right whale populations.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

Newport Mansion Owner Sues Federal Government Over Wind Farm It Says Will Block Ocean Views

November 29, 2023 — Two Rhode Island preservation groups have filed lawsuits against the federal government claiming it conducted “sham regulatory reviews” when granting the permits of two offshore wind farm projects they say would block the ocean views of the historic Newport mansions.

Several groups in support of offshore wind signed a letter Monday in response to the lawsuit saying the environmental benefits of clean wind energy outweigh the visual impacts, the Providence Journal reported. Groups like the Green Energy Consumers Alliance and Climate Action Rhode Island accused the plaintiffs of exercising “energy privilege” by valuing views “over the civilization-level threat faced by our region and world from the climate crisis.”

Read the full article at Forbes

 

RI organizations file lawsuits against CT offshore wind projects

November 28, 2023 — Two Rhode Island heritage organizations have filed lawsuits over two offshore wind projects they say will spoil their “viewsheds.”

The Preservation Society of Newport and The Southeast Lighthouse Foundation say the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) ignored the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Greg Werkheiser is a partner with the law firm Cultural Heritage Partners. He said they are not against clean energy, just the way it’s being done.

Read the full article at WSHU

RHODE ISLAND: Block Island and Newport preservationists fight to protect Rhode Island from massive wind farms

November 28, 2023 — A month ago, after Cape May County, New Jersey, filed a federal lawsuit to stop two immense Ørsted wind farms, the company responded by announcing they were canceling their plans, leaving unfinished construction, citing their inability to predict financial pressures on the project, not widespread community opposition. Two senior staff have left the company, and management is being shifted as one project after another face an insecure future.

Yesterday, Rhode Island took a double-barreled action with federal appeals being filed for both Block Island and Newport to stop two massive offshore wind farms by Ørsted, saying they would “despoil the viewsheds for at least the next 30 years”.

Without intervention, Block Island’s “quaint” set of five wind turbines, the first offshore windfarm in America, could grow to as many as 599 turbines, and of massively increased height – 800 feet tall – taller than an 80-story skyscraper.

In Newport, the group of massive turbines could be built as close as 12 miles from Newport’s coast, visible from the shore.

The Rhode Island actions are being managed by Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm specializing in historic preservation and cultural heritage law.

Block Island Historic Presesrvation Group’s actions

The Southeast Lighthouse Foundation (SELF), which owns and manages Block Island’s most iconic historic structure and New England’s highest lighthouse, appealed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)’s permitting decisions for two of the massive offshore wind farms planned by Danish-owned energy behemoth Ørsted on November 22, 2023.

Block Island is awakening to the reality that the number of visible turbines off its coast will soon grow from five to as many as 599 and despoil the Island’s treasured views for the next thirty years. The historic Southeast Lighthouse is a National Historic Landmark–honored by the Nation’s highest designation of historic importance reserved for the likes of the Lincoln Memorial and the Golden Gate Bridge. A world-renowned symbol of Block Island’s rich cultural heritage, the Southeast Light is among numerous historic resources that the government has failed to protect from what BOEM itself concedes are significant negative impacts of the industrialization of the seascape.

Read the full article at

Maine gets $5M to support testing of alternative lobster fishing gear to reduce whale entanglement

November 28, 2023 — Maine has received more than $5 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to expand the testing of alternative lobster fishing gear.

State officials see the work as a way to get more Maine feedback into the hands of federal regulators, who are looking for ways to further reduce the risk of entanglement and injury to critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources said the funds will support the research and testing of two kinds of emerging technology — gear that retrieves lobster traps from the ocean floor without the use of vertical lines and acoustic geolocation devices that identify traps without surface buoys.

The federal government may eventually require the use of this gear as it drafts new right whale management regulations over the next five years.

Much of the $5 million will directly cover a training and outreach program with a variety of coastal organizations, which include the Maine Sea Grant, the Island Institute Institute and the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, among others.

Read the full article at wbur

CT study will examine relationship of new offshore wind farm on marine ecosystems

November 27, 2023 — New local fisheries research will look into the impacts of Connecticut’s first offshore wind farm on marine ecosystems in southern New England waters.

Scientists with UConn Avery Point will spend the next two years examining how Revolution Wind, located about 30 miles from Connecticut’s coast, would affect marine habitats and food chains.

On Nov. 20, project developers – Eversource and Ørsted – got final approval for construction of the wind farm, which is expected to power up more than 300,000 homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island in 2025.

The UConn team is in early stages of the study, and will begin site research in spring 2024. The team’s focus is the potential effects on marine habitats, food webs and shifts in commercially important species.

Read the full article at WSHU

Ropeless Buoy Technology Tested in New England

November 25, 2023 — A federal program testing the viability of “fishing on demand” technology – also known as ropeless buoys – is seeing growing interest and success off the waters of Massachusetts.

But even though the program is experimental, free, and voluntary – and allows fishermen to trap in seasonally closed waters and keep what they catch – many of the state’s lobstermen don’t like it.

The project was started by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2018, in response to federal court rulings and NOAA regulations that seasonally closes thousands of square miles of fishing grounds to protect critically endangered right whales from the risk of entanglement in fishing gear.

Research shows there are fewer than 350 right whales left in the world, a population that has fewer than 70 reproductive females living off the U.S. East Coast and Atlantic Canada. Their biggest threats are entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes. The legal and regulatory action to protect the whales through seasonal fishing and speed restrictions in critical areas stems from lawsuits brought by environmental groups and subsequent court rulings to enforce provisions in the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.

The seasonal closures prohibit lobster and Jonah crab fishing with traps and vertical lines in high-risk areas, covering almost 13,000 square miles in several restricted blocks off Massachusetts, with additional closures off New Hampshire and Maine. Fishermen who agree to participate in NOAA’s program and test the gear can access those areas under a special permit, using various ropeless buoy technologies being developed by NOAA, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, other non-governmental organizations and several marine technology companies.

“We acknowledge the tremendous impact these closures have on fishing communities and are looking for solutions that would allow fishing without increasing entanglement risk” when vertical line restrictions are in effect, said Henry Milliken, head of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Protected Species Gear Research Program.

“We are just trying to provide opportunities for fishermen who want access to those [restricted] areas. Nobody wants to close down the lobster fishery, especially in Maine and Massachusetts,” said Milliken.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Offshore wind project receives final approval from federal agency

November 23, 2023 — Revolution Wind announced on Monday that it has received the final approval from a federal agency, which will allow the project to start offshore wind construction.

Revolution Wind, a utility-scale wind farm that serves Rhode Island and Connecticut, received approval of the project’s construction and operations plan from the U.S. Department of interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The wind farm agency said it plans to deliver 400 megawatts of clean wind to Rhode Island and help the state reach its climate goals.

“This is a significant win for Rhode Island, marking an important milestone in our efforts to advance the state’s clean energy future and grow our already thriving blue economy,” Gov. Dan McKee said. “Revolution Wind will be essential to advancing the state’s 100% renewable energy standard by 2033 and achieving our Act on Climate objectives.”

Read the full article at WJAR

Lawyers for Rhode Island fishermen file Supreme Court brief

November 23, 2023 — A conservative legal foundation filed its opening papers in a U.S. Supreme Court case on behalf of Rhode Island fishermen, challenging a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rule requiring herring fishermen to pay for at-sea government monitors on their fishing boats.

Lawyers with the New Civil Liberties Alliance worked with Point Judith, R.I., fishermen who operate companies Relentless, Inc., Huntress, Inc., and Seafreeze Fleet, LLC to develop the case, now dubbed Relentless v. Department of Commerce. The high court is scheduled to hearing oral arguments Jan. 17.

The Relentless case is proceeding in tandem with a similar case that another activist group, the Cause for Action Institute, is bringing to the Supreme Court on behalf of Loper Bright Enterprises and other Cape May, N.J. herring fishermen.

The cases challenge a 2020 rule imposed by NOAA that required vessel operators to pay for observers on their vessels at sea, at a cost that owners say can exceed $700 daily and sometimes exceed the money they make from landing low-priced herring.

NOAA waived the rule earlier this year as it ran short of money to administer the program. But fishermen want to make sure the observer requirement is not renewed, and conservative advocacy groups see their cause as a chance to overturn a long-standing precedent called the “Chevron deference.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman