Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Wind Farm Opponents Vow to “Stay in the Fight”

May 28, 2024 — Opponents of offshore wind energy farms warned during a rally Saturday in Ocean City that the legal battle is far from over in their efforts to prevent what they called the “industrialization of our ocean.”

Last year, the Danish energy company Orsted scrapped plans to build two wind farms off the South Jersey coast after concluding that the projects would not be worth the enormous development cost.

However, opponents stressed during the rally that Orsted still holds the leases giving it rights to build the wind farms and could either revive them or sell them to another company that would develop the projects.

“It’s not over. Stay in the fight,” said former Superior Court Judge Michael Donohue, who has headed Cape May County’s legal strategy to block the wind farms.

Read the full article at OCNJDaily

BOEM Releases Final Environmental Statement on First NJ Offshore Wind Farms

May 28, 2024 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is continuing its efforts to push forward with the review and approval of U.S. offshore wind projects. In the latest step, they are releasing the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for two New Jersey projects which are critical to the state’s efforts to jump-start its renewable wind energy efforts.

Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, a joint venture partnership between Shell New Energies US and EDF-RE Offshore Development, submitted a combined Construction and Operations Plan for two wind energy facilities and associated export cables on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore New Jersey. If approved, the two projects could generate about 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power almost one million homes.

“We are encouraged to see forward progress and getting another step closer to delivering New Jersey’s first offshore wind projects,” said Joris Veldhoven, chief executive officer of Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

NEW JERSEY: Wind Farm Opponents to Host Rally in Ocean City

May 22, 2024 — Opponents of offshore wind farms are holding a rally Saturday to continue their fight against what they believe could harm the environment, the tourism industry, commercial fishing operations and marine life.

The second annual “Stop Offshore Wind” rally will begin at 9:30 a.m. in Mark Soifer Park, across from City Hall in Ocean City. The rally will proceed with a march across the Route 52 causeway bridge connecting Ocean City and Somers Point.

Danish wind farm developer Orsted announced on Oct. 31 that it was halting its Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 projects. Representatives of the company maintained that it wouldn’t be financially feasible to do the projects.

The Ocean Wind 1 project was proposed 15 miles off the coast between Atlantic City and Stone Harbor, passing by Ocean City, Sea Isle City and other beach towns in the process.

In a rally flyer advertising Saturday’s event, opponents cautioned that they must continue to speak up against wind farms with the words, “The fight is not over,” despite Orsted withdrawing from the local project.

Read the full article at OCNJDaily

Big Pharma visit to Bayshore may help protect horseshoe crabs

May 22, 2024 — Officials from five major pharmaceutical companies met at a Delaware Bayshore house to hear how they can help save the horseshoe crab and to watch the annual spectacle of spawning horseshoe crabs and migrating shorebirds along a remote part of the New Jersey coastline.

The gathering on Tuesday, at Reeds Beach, Cape May County, was the first time that pharmaceutical industry officials trekked to the rural bayshore to discuss the arguments for dropping a testing method that uses the blood of horseshoe crabs, and to walk the beaches where the crabs spawn and thousands of birds feast on their eggs for a couple of weeks each spring.

Advocates for the protection of both horseshoe crabs and red knots hope that the combination of chemistry and conservation will persuade the officials to recommend the companies switch from the crab-based LAL reagent most use now to a synthetic substance called rFC when testing for endotoxins in medical products.

An industry-wide switch away from the crab-based reagent would end a significant source of demand for horseshoe crabs. That would give the ancient creatures a better chance of fully recovering from a drastic over-harvest in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when they were taken from bay beaches in huge numbers by the commercial fishing industry, which uses them for bait. The over-harvesting caused the population of red knot, a federally threatened shorebird that depends on the crab eggs, to crash, raising fears the bird would go extinct unless its favorite food source was also protected.

Read the full article at NJ Spotlight News

NEW JERSEY: Public Hearings Set For Wind Farm Off Atlantic County Coast

May 14, 2024 — Residents will have several chances to voice their opinions on a proposed offshore wind farm through virtual and in-person hearings.

Atlantic Shores South is proposing up to 200 wind turbines about 8.7 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. Also proposed are up to 10 offshore substations, a permanent meteorological tower, cables and more. An export cable would make landfall in Atlantic City and connect to a proposed onshore substation located on Fire Road in Egg Harbor Township.

Read the full article at the Patch 

Trump vows ‘day one’ executive order targeting offshore wind

May 13, 2024 — Donald Trump vowed to issue an executive order targeting offshore wind development if he wins a second term as president, making his most explicit threat yet toward the growing industry.

The presumptive Republican nominee derided offshore wind projects as lethal for birds and whales during his oceanfront rally Saturday in Wildwood, New Jersey, and committed to take action.

“We are going to make sure that that ends on day one,” he said. “I’m going to write it out in an executive order.”

While Trump has made no secret of his animus to wind power, he had adopted a mostly hands-off posture during his first term in the White House. The remarks in New Jersey suggest he may take a more aggressive stance if given a second.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Offshore Wind Opponents Sue NJDEP Over Planned Project

May 8, 2024 — A local grassroots organization opposed to the current offshore wind farm planned off the coast of Long Beach Island is among three groups to sue the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection over its approval of the Atlantic Shores project.

Save LBI is joined by Protect Our Coast New Jersey and Defend Brigantine Beach, said Bruce Afran, who is the attorney of record in the legal proceeding.

“DEP’s approval flies in the face of federal regulators’ environmental impact statement that says the Atlantic Shores project will damage marine habitat, compress and harden the seafloor, damage marine communities, compromise migration corridors for endangered species and cause commercial fishing stocks to decline,” he said.

Saying the current scope of the Atlantic Shores project would be fully visible from beaches;  crush and destroy the seabed; interfere with the mitigation of the endangered blue whale and right whale; result in the loss of native species and cause economic damage to the state’s prime fishing grounds and tourist regions, the groups filed suit in appellate court on April 26.

The blue whale is the largest animal on the planet, according to NOAA Fisheries. Blue whales, which are found in every ocean except the Arctic, are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act and are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Read the full article at The Sand Paper

Three groups are suing New Jersey to block an offshore wind farm

May 6, 2024 — Three anti-wind power groups are suing New Jersey to overturn a key environmental approval for a wind energy farm planned off the coast of Long Beach Island.

Save Long Beach Island, Defend Brigantine Beach and Protect Our Coast NJ filed suit in appellate court on April 26 challenging a determination by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection that the Atlantic Shores wind farm project meets the requirements of a federal coastal protection law.

Atlantic Shores is one of three proposed wind farms off New Jersey’s coast that have preliminary approval.

Bruce Afran, an attorney for the groups, said the state’s “approval flies in the face of the federal regulator’s environmental impact statement that says the Atlantic Shores project will damage marine habitat, compress and harden the seafloor, damage marine communities, compromise migration corridors for endangered species, and cause commercial fishing stocks to decline.”

Read the full story from AP News

NEW JERSEY: More offshore wind farms? New Jersey opens 4th round of bidding

May 1, 2024 — New Jersey officials pushed forward with plans to expand the state’s offshore wind power sector, despite recent slowdowns and setbacks in the industry.

The state Board of Public Utilities opened the fourth offshore wind power solicitation Tuesday, seeking proposals from companies for wind projects that could add 1.2 to 4 gigawatts of electricity production to the power grid.

New Jersey has already approved three offshore wind projects: Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, Attentive Energy Two and Leading Light Wind. Each of the projects remains in the permitting process. The companies have not yet broken ground for the turbine bases in the Atlantic Ocean.

Other offshore wind projects – including Ørsted’s two New Jersey projects and three offshore wind farm plans for New York – have been canceled or put on hold over the past 12 months. Companies say inflation, supply chain disruptions and high interest rates are contributing to the challenges facing the industry.

Read the full article at Asbury Park Press

The final journey of F/V Carrabassett

May 1, 2024 — The Axel Carlson Reef off the New Jersey shore now has a new artificial addition: the fishing vessel Carrabassett. The vessel was once part of Carlos Rafael, also known as the Codfather’s fleet, most recently owned by C&P Trawlers. The Carrabassett had quite the journey as a groundfish boat off New England’s coast but has now officially been laid to rest.

The Carrabassett, formerly known as the Cowboy under Rafael’s ownership, has a fascinating journey. After Rafael was forced to sell his entire fleet in 2017 due to his involvement in falsifying fish quotas, tax evasion, and conspiracy, the vessel found a new home with Blue Harvest Fisheries in 2020. It was then renamed and relaunched as the Carrabassett in August of the same year, only to face a new journey with Blue Harvest filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2023.

In 2021, the vessel ran aground under the Blue Harvest’s ownership and remained on Longnook Beach in Truro, Mass., for five days. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, no crew members were injured during the incident. Blue Harvest had obtained permits from government officials and private landowners to bring in equipment to help get the vessel off the beach. Eventually, a tug pulled it back into the water, and it fully floated.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman