Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind isn’t a partisan issue. This is how real NJ people will be impacted

August 4, 2023 — Much has been written and reported about the plans to build offshore wind turbine developments off the East Coast of the United States. Proponents argue that clean energy is better for the environment, more affordable, that in areas where these systems will operate they will generate jobs and that other countries have already installed offshore wind turbines. Opponents argue that the turbine developments will affect the economy of shore communities, commercial and recreational fishing, marine mammals and birds, public safety and national security. Some proponents have even gone so far as to mislabel and attack the opponents of offshore wind as partisan and backed by oil companies, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, the rush to set up offshore wind has been advanced only by partisan politics and internationally backed lobbying efforts without studying the impact these turbines will have in their current planned placement in many cases less than 15 miles from our shores.

Our legislators must take the time to understand the implications of what thousands of turbines will do to our oceans, marine mammals, national security, navigation commercial and recreational fishing and coastal economies before moving forward.

The thousands of turbines planned for the shores of Massachusetts and New Jersey should not be the case studies to learn the good, the bad and the ugly of offshore wind. Those who live in coastal communities who have taken the time to learn the facts about offshore wind do not want these turbines built in the oceans. In fact, in February, 50 coastal mayors signed onto a letter calling for a moratorium on these developments.

Current plans for the next decade alone include building 3,411 turbines and 9,874 miles of cable directly in the migration path of the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, a species on the brink of extinction with only an estimated 350 left in the world. If the NARW does survive the multi-year construction of the turbines, will they be able to survive the noise these thousands of turbines will generate while in operation?

The currently slated turbines and cables are planned to be built across 2,400,000 acres of federally managed ocean and there are other plans to then lease an additional 1,700,000 acres, according to a recent Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management “Vineyard Wind” Offshore Wind Energy Project draft environmental impact statement. One planned wind energy area off the coast of Rhode Island is larger than the state itself.

Read the full article at northjersey.com

Food Fight: Offshore Wind a Risk to Cultural Fabric, Fishing Industry of LBI

August 2, 2023 — Discussions about the impact of wind farms planned off the coast of New Jersey have been in the broad sense recently, but last week two commercial fishermen brought it home to Long Beach Island.

“Our lives are on the line. We wonder whether we are going to pay our bills,” said Kirk O. Larson, who has spent more than five decades on the water as a commercial fisherman, while serving as Barnegat Light mayor for more than 30 years. “It’s not for lack of product. It’s for the brashness of these people from Europe to just come in and push us around, buy up all our fishery services people, who are quitting their jobs to go work for offshore wind companies. They are taking the best of the best.”

Larson spoke as a member of the public at the July 26 standing-room-only Save LBI forum on the promises and realities of offshore wind at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences in Loveladies.

The Atlantic Shores offshore wind project is comprised of three phases, with the first phase expected to be approved later this year. It includes 120 turbines to be placed in the Atlantic Ocean with phase two calling for the placement of 80 turbines; phase three has 157 turbines, according to a presentation by Bob Stern, president of Save LBI.

As proposed, the wind farm would see 1,000-foot-high turbines between 9½ and 13½ miles offshore the entire length of LBI, extending farther eastward into the Atlantic Ocean. While offshore construction is expected to begin later in the decade, an exact date has not yet been set.

The project is a 50-50 partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America. It was formed in December 2018 to co-develop nearly 183,353 acres of leased sea area on the Outer Continental Shelf, located within the New Jersey Wind Energy Area.

“Everything is being affected. The only thing you see are the big things washing ashore on the beach,” Larson said, referencing humpback whales and dolphins that washed up on Jersey Shore beaches earlier this year. “I’ve heard they have tugboats now pulling whales offshore, so we don’t see any of them this summer. I mean this has happened. These people have money; they have clout. They have the government on their side – the federal government, the state government.

Read the full article at The Sand Paper

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey faces lawsuit over offshore wind farm tax break

August 1, 2023 — Opponents of offshore wind projects are suing New Jersey and the Danish wind energy developer Orsted over a lucrative tax break the state approved for the company, saying it is illegal because the law was written to benefit only one entity.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday by two residents’ groups that are opposed to offshore wind projects and three electricity customers from Ocean City who seek to overturn the law. They say it gives Orsted about $1 billion in tax relief for one of the two windmill projects it plans to build off the state’s southern coast.

The state Legislature passed a bill allowing Orsted to keep federal tax credits that it was obligated to pass along to ratepayers. In applying for permission to build the project, called Ocean Wind I, Orsted had promised to return such credits to customers.

Lawmakers who narrowly approved the bill said the aid was needed to help Orsted deal with inflation and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full article at CBS News

New Jersey residents challenge Orsted offshore wind farm’s $1 billion subsidy

July 31, 2023 — New Jersey residents have sued Danish renewable energy developer Orsted and the state over a tax break the company received to build a major offshore wind farm in the Atlantic, claiming the estimated $1 billion subsidy violates the state constitution.

New Jersey groups Defend Brigantine Beach and Protect our Coast NJ filed their lawsuit on Thursday in state court in Trenton. They claimed the law authorizing the tax break, signed earlier this month by Governor Phil Murphy, violates a provision of the state constitution that generally prohibits legislation that specifically favors a single, private entity.

The groups asked the court to invalidate the law, which they said created the tax break “for the singular purpose of protecting Orsted from commercial risk it voluntarily assumed” when it submitted bids to develop the project, known as Ocean Wind.

Orsted said on Friday it does not comment on pending litigation. The New Jersey attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the full article at Reuters

How NJ herring fishermen could upend federal laws, push power from White House to Congress

July 26, 2023 — Several New Jersey commercial herring fishermen say they don’t think it’s fair that a federal rule forces them to pay over 20% of their earnings to cover the salary of the government’s at-sea monitors who ride on their boats. And their case, now going before the U.S. Supreme Court, has a chance of upending the way federal laws are made and shifting power from the White House back to Congress.

The at-sea monitors collect scientific, management and regulatory compliance and economic data and report back to the government. They also focus on the discarded catch, or fish that are thrown back because they’re not the target species or are undersized, for example. The data is used for the management and monitoring of the annual catch limits.

The fishermen concede federal law allows the government to require at-sea monitors on their boats, but they argue Congress never gave the executive branch further authority to pass monitoring costs onto the herring fishermen. They contend that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages the nation’s fisheries, has abused its power.

“It’s humbling that a few herring fishermen like us could bring such an important case to the nation’s highest court,” said Stefan Axelsson, one of the fishermen who brought the case. “If the government can do this to fishermen trying to make an honest living, they can do it to anyone.”

Read the full article at app.

NEW JERSEY: Fishermen, activists protest offshore wind farms near Montauk, cite recent whale deaths

July 25, 2023 — Conservative activists, environmentalists and New Jersey fishermen protested the construction of wind turbines off the East Coast on Monday, highlighting increasing whale deaths in the region that they say are tied to offshore renewable energy.

The coalition, organized by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, sent out three boats to South Fork Wind Farm, roughly 20 miles from both Martha’s Vineyard and Montauk, NY, holding signs that read “STOP WINDMILLS SAVE WHALES” while shouting through a bullhorn at machinery operators to halt construction.

“Since offshore wind operations began in 2016, there is a disturbing number of whales washing up dead on beaches along the Eastern shores, and it is shocking to see how quickly utilities are willing to rush to construct them,” the group’s president, Craig Rucker, told The Post in a statement. “Their motto is almost like, ‘Damn the Whales, full steam ahead.’”

Read the full article at New York Post

NOAA Takes Ownership of the James J. Howard Laboratory in New Jersey

July 23, 2023 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries held a transfer of ownership ceremony on Tuesday, July 11, 2023 in front of the James J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory building within the Gateway National Recreation Area in Highlands, New Jersey. Guests included NOAA officials, as well as U.S. Rep Frank Pallone, Zach McCue of U.S. Sen. Cory Booker’s staff, Highlands, New Jersey Mayor Carolyn Broullon and Middletown, New Jersey Mayor Anthony Perry.

“It’s a victory for NOAA and the State of New Jersey, but really it’s a victory for the American public,” emphasized NOAA Deputy Under Secretary Ben Friedman. “I’m happy to be here to make this a permanent part of the NOAA family.”

In 1993, this building replaced the original laboratory—a building that became a marine science laboratory in 1961 though it was originally constructed as a military hospital in the late 1800s. The State of New Jersey owned the new building, and NOAA leased space there. The official transfer of ownership was years in the making. Current and retired laboratory staff, NOAA employees from other locations, and local partners gathered for the celebration.

Northeast Fisheries Science Center Director Jon Hare said, “This is a purpose-built seawater laboratory that has the capability to do world-class research. Now that NOAA owns it, we can put it to its full use.”

Fisheries Ecology Branch Chief Beth Phelan emphasized the laboratory’s value to NOAA.

“NOAA is America’s environmental intelligence agency, and our lab here in New Jersey adapts and directs its research to important topics to help produce the best available science,” Phelan said.

She has been a scientist and leader at the laboratory for nearly four decades.

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey may revoke half of Covid-19 relief funds distributed to commercial fishermen

July 23, 2023 — The U.S. state of New Jersey is considering taking back millions of dollars in Covid-19 relief from commercial fishermen after an audit found multiple issues.

In May 2020, the federal government announced USD 300 million (EUR 270 million) in fisheries assistance funding as part of the CARES Act. New Jersey was awarded USD 11.2 million (EUR 10 million) of that funding and established the Marine Fisheries Assistance Grant Program to distribute the money to fisheries-related businesses that had suffered at least a 35 percent loss in revenue from Covid-19.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NEW JERSEY: Dolphin found in Barnegat Bay is 40th death this year in N.J.

July 20, 2023 — A boat captain on the Barnegat Bay on Monday morning found a dead dolphin floating near Tice’s Shoal off Island Beach State Park.

Korey Tomei was providing a boating lesson at about 9:30 a.m. when he spotted what the Marine Mammal Stranding Center confirmed to be an adult male bottlenose dolphin.

From a distance, Tomei said thought he had spotted garbage and only realized what he saw was a dolphin after moving in for a closer look as he had planned to retrieve the trash.

Read the full article at NJ.com

Supreme Court urged to blunt power of federal regulators

July 19, 2023 — The Supreme Court is being asked to overturn a decades-old law giving federal regulators wide-ranging powers as it weighs a legal challenge by New Jersey commercial fishermen over new monitoring rules.

The high court is considering a lawsuit filed in 2020 by plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey, challenging a rule requiring the industry to fund monitors to go out on commercial fishing vessels to collect data to craft new regulations. The fishermen argue the rules will force them to pay more than $700 per day to contractors, or about 20% of their pay.

But plaintiffs in the case say the dispute over federal monitors also provides an opportunity for the high court to blunt the powers of federal agencies by overturning the so-called Chevron deference.

“It’s a classic David versus Goliath story,” said Ryan Mulvey, an attorney with Cause of Action Institute representing commercial fishermen. “Chevron deference tips the scales of justice towards powerful federal agencies and away from citizens like the fishermen who are seeing their livelihoods threatened by a bureaucracy run amok.”

Read the full article at The Center Square