Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind project creates renewed controversy at Jersey shore community

July 8, 2024 — More controversy is surrounding offshore wind projects along the Jersey shore after the feds approved a plan earlier this week and activists say it can’t happen.

Change is blowing in the wind down the shore and not everyone is happy about it.

This week the Biden administration gave the green light to what would be the first wind energy farm off the coast of the New Jersey.

The company, Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, wants to build up to 200 offshore turbines on more than 400 square miles about eight and a half miles off the coast of Atlantic City. The turbines would be visible from Long Beach Island south to Ocean City. The company says, when completed in the next decade, the project would be able to power more than a million New Jersey homes and businesses by wind alone. But not everyone is onboard.

“Everybody in town is against the windmills. I have not met anyone yet who is for the windmills,” says Nancy McGinnis of Ocean City.

McGinnis is fuming over the decision by the U.S. Department of Interior to approve the proposed wind farm.

Read the full article at Yahoo News!

NEW JERSEY: Department of Interior approves wind farm off New Jersey. Why some people oppose the project.

July 8, 2024 — The U.S. Department of the Interior has approved what would be New Jersey’s first off-shore wind farm project.

The proposed Atlantic Shores wind turbines would stand roughly nine miles off the shore of Long Beach Island, which many consider to be the jewel of the Jersey Shore.

The project has support, and opposition.

Supporters applaud the project

Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy applauded the plan on X, saying the Atlantic Shores project will “generate enough electricity to power nearly one million homes.”

Some environmental groups say it’s a win for the Garden State.

Read the full article at CBS News

NEW JERSEY: US gives key approval to Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm in New Jersey

July 8, 2024 — The U.S. Interior Department approved the proposed Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm in New Jersey on Tuesday, giving a major boost to a project that would be the state’s first.

The project still requires an additional federal approval of its construction and operations plan, along with two state-level permits, before construction can begin.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the department’s decision marked the ninth offshore wind project approved under the Biden administration, green-lighting 13 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power 5 million homes.

“The Biden-Harris administration is building momentum every day for our clean energy future, and today’s milestone is yet another step toward our ambitious goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore energy by 2030,” she said in a statement. “Our clean energy future is now a reality. We are addressing climate change, fostering job growth, and promoting equitable economic opportunities for all communities.”

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

Supreme Court rules for fishermen in landmark ‘Chevron deference’ case

July 1, 2024 — Herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who objected to paying fees for fishery observers scored a victory in the U.S Supreme Court Friday that could upend 40 years of federal rulemaking.

The court’s 6-3 decision in the twin cases will have profound effects across U.S. government and industry, setting new limits on how executive branch agencies regulate energy, transportation, food and drugs and other health, safety and environmental rules.

Lawyers with conservative legal activist groups brought the cases, Loper Bright v. Department of Commerce and Relentless v. Department of Commerce, on behalf of fishermen who challenged a National Marine Fisheries Service rule that required them to carry onboard observers to monitor fishing, and pay costs for the observers contracted by NMFS, at up to $700 a day.

The cases hinged on the so-called “Chevron deference,” a landmark ruling in federal administrative law dating back to a 1984 dispute between the oil giant and environmental activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council. In that earlier Supreme Court decision, justices ruled that the courts should “defer” to executive agencies’ reasonable interpretations of federal statutes.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

US Supreme Court overturns Chevron in blow to NOAA’s regulatory authority

June 28, 2024 — A lawsuit filed by New Jersey herring fishermen has struck a massive blow to the authority of U.S. regulators.

On 28 June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff fishermen in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, overturning the long-standing Chevron deference – a legal precedent that gave federal agencies wide latitude in interpreting congressional statutes – and limiting the authority of NOAA Fisheries to implement regulations without clear guidance from lawmakers.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision

June 28, 2024 — The Supreme Court on Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.

The court’s six conservative justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives who have been motivated as much by weakening the regulatory state as social issues including abortion. The liberal justices were in dissent.

The case was the conservative-dominated court’s clearest and boldest repudiation yet of what critics of regulation call the administrative state.

Bill Bright, a Cape May, New Jersey-based fisherman who was part of the lawsuit, said the decision to overturn Chevron would help fishing businesses make a living. “Nothing is more important than protecting the livelihoods of our families and crews,” Bright said in a statement.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Captain blamed for fatal capsizing of F/V Mary B II

June 20, 2024 — The United States Coast Guard completed their investigation into the loss of the commercial fishing vessel Mary B II on the Yaquina Bay Bar near Newport, Oregon, on January 8, 2019. After convening with the Board of Investigation, the Coast Guard announced that the capsizing was primarily the owner/ operator’s fault.

Captain Stephan Biernacki, 50, was from Barnegat Township, N.J., and was crossing the Bay Bar when the vessel capsized, causing the loss of the boat and its entire crew. He had fished on the east coast off from New Jersey but was new to Dungeness fishing in Oregon. The Coast Guard had reported that the Mary B II had faced seas of 14 to 16 feet, with some waves breaking as tall as 20 feet. They had tried to direct the crew as they noticed them approaching the bar, but it had been too late, and the conditions were not forgiving.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: Offshore Wind Proponents, Opponents Disconnected on Plans

June 6, 2024 — State officials announced they are ramping up the fifth offshore wind solicitation schedule by 15 months, even as a local grassroots organization continues to battle the industrialization of the Atlantic Ocean off Long Beach Island.

Save LBI issued its latest call to action June 2, saying, “Our federal and state agencies are on the brink of approving the first phase of the Atlantic Shores project, the closest, most visible and intrusive offshore wind project in the world, and in the migration path of critically endangered whales.”

For its part, the group said it expects to file a petition to designate the project and adjacent area as a critical migration habit for whales; take on multiple litigation fronts to protect marine mammals, preserve the Jersey Shore experience, prevent electric bill increases and sidestep property value losses, which they estimate at a $1.3 billion loss; and build a coalition with other groups, including municipal officials, to block misrepresentation of the project’s benefits and costs.

“If those entities have their way, this will be your last chance to experience a magnificent pristine seashore, save your shore house and business, protect marine life and keep your electric bills from soaring,” the group said earlier this week. “Once these turbines are placed, they are not coming out. It is not feasible to do so. We will be leaving this blight for generations, a legacy we cannot accept.”

Read the full article at The Sand Paper

The Mayday Call: How One Death at Sea Transformed a Fishing Fleet

June 4, 2024 — The call from the Atlantic Ocean sounded over VHF radio on a midsummer afternoon. » “Mayday, mayday, mayday,” the transmission began, then addressed the nearest U.S. Coast Guard command center. “Sector Delaware Bay, this is the vessel Jersey Pride. Come in.”

About 40 miles east-southeast of Barnegat Light, N.J., the Jersey Pride, a 116-foot fishing vessel with a distinctive royal blue hull, was towing a harvesting dredge through clam beds 20 fathoms down when its crew found a deckhand unresponsive in a bunk. The captain suspected an overdose. After trying to revive the man, he rushed to the radio. • “Yes, Coast Guard, uh, I just tried to wake a guy up and he’s got black blood in his nose, he said, sounding short of breath on Channel 16, the international hailing and distress frequency for vessels at sea. “I got guys working on him. Come in.”

The seas were gentle, the air hot. In cramped crew quarters in the forepeak, the deckhand, Brian Murphy, was warm but not breathing in a black tee and jeans. He had no discernible pulse.

Dark fluid stained his nostrils. A marine welder and father of four, Murphy, 40, had been mostly unemployed for months, spending time caring for his children while his wife worked nights. A few days earlier, while he was on a brief welding gig to repair the Jersey Pride at its dock, the captain groused about being short-handed. Murphy agreed to fill in. Now it was July 20, 2021, the third day of the first commercial fishing trip of his life. Another somber sequence in the opioid epidemic was nearing its end.

Read the full article at the New York Times

 

NEW JERSEY: Danish firm pays New Jersey $125M over wind farm withdrawal

June 3, 2024 — New Jersey will receive $125 million as part of a settlement over Ørsted’s withdrawal from two offshore wind farms last year, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Tuesday, an amount that is less than half of what Murphy once said the company was required to pay the state.

The settlement funds paid by the Danish wind giant over its pullout from Ocean Wind 1 and 2, two 1,100 megawatt wind farms off New Jersey’s Coast, will be used to fund wind development and other renewable energy programs, the governor’s office said. But at least one Democratic lawmaker said the money should be sent back to New Jersey ratepayers as a matter of policy.

“The [Board of Public Utilities] ought to be looking for New Jersey ratepayers first, and these moneys should be reserved to reduce ratepayers’ bills when these projects come on board, and it should be a BPU policy,” said Sen. Joe Cryan (D-Union)

Last July, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that would have allowed Ørsted to retain federal tax credits that would otherwise go to offset consumers’ power bills by roughly $2.40 per ratepayer per year. In return for those subsidies, the wind firm was required to post a $100 million performance security and place $200 million for wind project investments into an escrow account.

Read the full article at the New Jersey Monitor