Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Wind project scope ‘staggering’

May 18, 2023 — It wasn’t “until the whales and the dolphins started washing up that people’s attention was able to focus” on the offshore wind farms, according to Cindy Zipf, and when people looked beyond the whales, they realized what is happening is “staggering.”

“I don’t think ever in the history of mankind have we proposed to industrialize an ecosystem this fast and at this magnitude,” she said.

Zipf is executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a coalition of groups dedicated to protecting the ocean.

She said the group is not against offshore wind farms but ardently believes there should be a pilot project to determine their impact on the ocean, marine species and industries that thrive on the ocean rather than a headlong rush to place turbines up and down the coast not just off New Jersey, but from South Carolina to Massachusetts.

The project closest to fruition here is Ocean Wind 1 by the Danish company Ørsted. Ocean Wind 1 plans 98 massive wind turbines 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic and Cape May counties with transmission cables that would run through Ocean City to Beesleys Point in Upper Township, where they would connect to the power grid.

Read the full article at Ocean City Sentinel 

NEW JERSEY: Snooki, Tucker Carlson and the battle for offshore wind in New Jersey

May 18, 2023 — On a recent drive to the Statehouse here, New Jersey’s top utility regulator turned on 101.5 FM, a conservative talk radio station, and got an earful about the offshore wind farms the state has staked its energy future on.

The morning show host was going off about a surge in whale deaths and an unfounded link between the dead whales and wind energy.

“All I do on the way down is yell at the radio,” said Joseph Fiordaliso, the president of the state Board of Public Utilities.

It isn’t just radio conspiracy theories, though. Mainstream Republicans and leading conservatives like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson — not to mention reality star Snooki — have been attacking Gov. Phil Murphy’s offshore wind plans as whales wash ashore. It’s a problem not just for the Democratic governor, who’s pinning his climate change agenda on coastal wind farms, but also for President Joe Biden.

Murphy is hoping New Jersey will be the nation’s leading producer of wind energy by 2040, so a stumble here could blow a hole in the side of the Biden administration’s clean energy goals.

Read the full article at Politico

NEW JERSEY: NJ holds off vote on emergency striped bass ruling, regulations remain the same for now

May 16, 2023 — Thursday came and went and New Jersey’s Marine Fisheries Council did not vote on the striped bass emergency ruling on the 28 to 31 inch striped bass.

Instead, the council made a motion to have its Striped Bass Advisory Committee meet in June and review the data and the mandate passed down by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that requires all member states to approve the measure or be found out of compliance which could result in a moratorium being places on the fisher, here. States have until July 2 to come into compliance.

For now, fishermen in New Jersey waters can continue to keep one striped bass between 28 and 38 inches.

There were some strong words spoken by the public at the council meeting as New Jersey grapples with the decision. Some such as Eddie Yates, a charter boat captain and United Boatman member, said the ruling will only lead to more discards as fishermen will throw back more fish as they try to land a keeper.

Read the full article at My Central Jersey

Poll finds whale strandings drive down New Jersey support for offshore wind

May 15, 2023 — Concern over recent deaths of whales and dolphins along the New Jersey coast is reducing public support for offshore wind power development, with 35 percent of residents supporting the projects and 39 percent saying the projects should be halted, according to a Farleigh Dickinson University poll.

New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration is deeply committed to offshore wind for building the state’s future energy sources. But state officials are under heavy political pressure from offshore wind critics and Republican legislators who call for a moratorium on the projects.

“If we’re going to meet the Murphy administration’s green energy goals, New Jersey needs to build a lot of wind farms, and fast,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Farleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J., and director of the FDU Poll. “But the administration just hasn’t convinced the public that it’s a good idea.”

Since a series of whale and dolphin strandings started in December 2022, wind power critics argued there could be a link between the deaths and offshore survey work on energy lease areas. The Murphy administration and federal officials insist there is no proof of a link and rejected calls for a moratorium, but “such arguments seem to be effective,” according to an FDU Poll summary released May 11.

“In the survey, respondents were randomly assigned to be asked about the offshore wind farms in a question that included a mention of the whale and dolphin deaths, or a version without it,” the report states. “Even though the question noted that there was no known link between the deaths and the wind farms, it significantly reduced support for the development of offshore wind.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: Wind power project demands permit for Ocean City right-of-way

May 10, 2023 — The front line of the battle over offshore wind power in New Jersey now appears to run two blocks along 35th Street.

That’s where the Ocean Wind 1 project has asked for city permits for 12 test pits and two soil borings, part of the wind power project’s plans to bring electricity ashore.

So far, the city has not issued any permits. Ocean Wind 1 suggests the city is dragging its feet.

The company filed suit in Superior Court this month, asking the court to order city Business Administrator George Savastano to issue a permit by June 16.

Savastano also serves as the municipal engineer. The suit, filed May 4, also asks for the city to be required to pay the company’s attorney fees, court costs and “such other relief as the court shall find equitable and just.”

Read the full article at The Press of Atlantic City

N.J. GOP seeks wind projects halt to see if whales benefit

May 7, 2023 — Republican state lawmakers and other New Jersey opponents of offshore wind turbines called Wednesday for a 30- to 60-day moratorium on construction work at such sites to see if it would lead to a decrease in whale deaths.

Four state senators hosted a online hearing about offshore wind energy generation and whale deaths, three weeks after the most recent East Coast whale death was reported and despite the assurances of most scientists and conservationists that there is no correlation.

The two-hour hearing came a week after Democrats, who control the Legislature and the governorship, held a similar hearing and many of New Jersey’s major environmental groups said the greatest danger to whales is climate change, not offshore wind generation.

“I’ve been labeled a climate change denier and a tin-foil hat wearer,” said Jim Hutchinson, managing editor of The Fisherman, a widely read New Jersey publication. “We’re defamed, denied, discarded and disparaged at every step along the way.”

Read the full article at WHYY

GOP pushes for New Jersey offshore wind moratorium

May 4, 2023 — New Jersey Republican state senators continued to push for a moratorium on their state’s ambitious offshore wind energy plans, with an online public hearing May 3 that brought in witnesses from the fishing industry and local activists. 

Opponents of offshore wind projects were galvanized by a beach strandings of dead humpback whales from December into March 2023. They questioned if the whales could have been affected by noise from survey vessels working on offshore wind project sites.

Northern New Jersey state Sen. Anthony Bucco said that debate is heard in his Morris County inland district, far from the Jersey Shore: “Everyone is talking about it, and everyone is concerned.”

The prospects for developing ocean wind power once had bipartisan support in New Jersey, but opposition groups emerged in recent years as the speed and scale of offshore wind development grew. Now a split has taken on some partisan aspects, with Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration fully committed to making wind a key power source, and local Republican legislators opposed.

They are proposing a delay in all work on offshore sites while the whale deaths are investigated. The Republicans’ effort is uphill in the state Legislature, which is firmly controlled by Murphy Democratic allies.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind sails past regulatory hurdle

May 2, 2023 — New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm has cleared some significant hurdles in building the project planned for 15 miles off the state’s southern coast.

The state Department of Environmental Protection last week issued a series of permits for the Ocean Wind I project, the initial permits issued for construction and operation of the facility, including a “federal consistency determination” in line with policies of the Coastal Management Zone Plan.

The approvals came as a controversy over the state’s push to build an offshore wind industry continues. Dead marine mammals have been washing ashore on beaches in the metropolitan area, a problem some critics blame on the increased activity of offshore wind surveying vessels.

Marine scientists strongly dispute those assertions. And last week, DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette denied any link could be made to the deaths of whales and dolphins and the emerging offshore wind sector.

Read the full story at NJ Spotlight News

Justices to consider case involving fishing boat monitor pay

May 1, 2023 — The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the subject of who pays for workers who gather valuable data aboard commercial fishing boats.

Justices announced Monday that they will take the case, which stems from a lawsuit by a group of fishermen who want to stop the federal government from making them pay for the workers. The workers are tasked with collecting data on board fishing vessels to help inform rules and regulations.

The fishermen involved in the lawsuit harvest Atlantic herring, which is a major fishery off the East Coast that supplies both food and bait. Lead plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey and other fishing groups have said federal rules unfairly require them to pay hundreds of dollars per day to contractors.

“Our way of life is in the hands of these justices, and we hope they will keep our families and our community in mind as they weigh their decision,” said Bill Bright, a New Jersey fisherman and plaintiff in the case.

Read the full story at AP News

GOP promises offshore wind hearings

April 27, 2023 — A packed house at a Congressional hearing in the seaside Wildwood, N.J., convention center showed how criticizing the Biden administration’s offshore wind energy ambitions could be political gold for Republicans.

The local fire marshal ordered doors closed after about 400 people crowded in, leaving hundreds more in line outside during the March 16 hearing organized by Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., and billed as “an examination into offshore wind industrialization.”

Van Drew’s southern New Jersey district includes beach resort communities and fishing ports where residents object to planned wind turbine arrays, with concerns ranging from the economic effects on tourism to commercial fishermen getting shut out of longtime fishing grounds.

“This is the coercive power of the state,” Van Drew told the audience in his opening statement. “They are not listening to us.

“It is time we examine the process,” he said. He centered the event on objections raised by critics, especially allegations that a dozen mid-Atlantic whale strandings since December could have been related to survey work on offshore wind power leases.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has strongly denied those claims. The winter strandings of mostly humpback whales follow a trend since 2016 of increased mortality along the East Coast. Necropsies of recent strandings found evidence those animals were killed by ship strikes.

Read the full story at WorkBoat