Saving Seafood

Van Drew, other Congress members call for answers on offshore wind and whales

March 15, 2023 — Two New Jersey congressmen, together representing a significant stretch of the New Jersey coastline, sent a letter Tuesday to Biden administration officials asking what has been done to reduce the potential harm to whales and other marine life from offshore wind projects.

“Offshore wind development and deployment stands to be a consequential national undertaking, which is why our approach should be done correctly the first time, with full consideration taken in order to mitigate negative impacts on marine species such as the North Atlantic right whale,” reads the letter, signed by U.S. Reps. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd, and Chris Smith, R-4th, along with Reps. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, and Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine.

The new letter cites a May 2022 internal federal letter raising concerns about the potential impact of wind farms on right whales, an extremely endangered whale.

Read the full article at the Press of Atlantic City

Supreme Court weighs New Jersey lawsuit over fishing monitors

March 11, 2023 — The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit challenging a federal rule requiring commercial fishing boat captains to pay for monitors to observe catches.

The legal challenge before the high court deals with a 2020 federal rule implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service that requires industry-funded monitoring. The monitors go out on commercial fishing vessels to collect data that’s used to craft new regulations.

A lawsuit, filed by plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey, argues the new rules will force Atlantic herring fishery fishermen to pay more than $700 per day to contractors, or about 20% of their pay. The program has been delayed until April, amid a shortage of federal funding, but fishermen want it scrapped entirely.

A U.S. District Court judge previously rejected the lawsuit, which was upheld by a divided federal Appeals Court, but the fishing groups filed a petition to the Supreme Court, which agreed to take up the case.

Read the full article at The Center Square

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey opens third offshore wind solicitation, amid pressure for moratorium

March 8, 2023 — New Jersey energy officials moved to open a third round of solicitations from offshore wind energy companies that could double the state’s already aggressive wind power goals.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities voted Monday to open applications for between 1.2 gigawatts and 4 GW of capacity, on top of 3.75 GW already in the pipeline set by Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration.

“Today marks a pivotal next step toward accomplishment of our offshore wind development goals,” according to a statement from Murphy, who has talked of building out to 11 GW of potential power offshore – rivaling the goals of neighboring New York State.

“Offshore wind constitutes a crucial component of our journey to 100 percent clean energy by 2035, a benchmark that solidifies our position at the national forefront of climate action,” said Murphy. His administration is building infrastructure initiatives like the New Jersey Wind Port near the mouth of the Delaware River to position New Jersey as a hub for building projects off the Mid-Atlantic coast.

The solicitation comes as the Murphy administration and federal agencies are under fire from offshore wind critics, who contend a series of whale strandings on the state’s beaches require a pause in offshore wind geotechnical surveys using sonar and seafloor drilling.

The latest whale deaths include a whale reported this week on Bethany Beach, N.J. on Delaware Bay, and a humpback at Seaside Park, N.J., that investigators say showed evidence of a fractured skull, likely from a vessel propeller.

The Ocean Wind and Atlantic Shores turbine arrays planned off New Jersey already had local opposition from residents and businesses in beachside towns. The whale deaths since December have energized their effort, and generated publicity from Fox News and other conservative commentators who have picked up the critics’ narrative that survey noise could have disoriented the whales’ sense of hearing.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

New Jersey seeks more offshore wind projects; foes want halt

March 7, 2023 — New Jersey utility regulators are seeking additional offshore wind farm projects to generate electricity, even as opponents of wind power want to pause or halt the projects.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved a third solicitation of offshore wind projects Monday; three wind farms have already been approved for the waters off southern New Jersey.

“Today marks a pivotal next step toward accomplishment of our offshore wind development goals,” said Gov. Phil Murphy. “Offshore wind constitutes a crucial component of our journey to 100% clean energy by 2035, a benchmark that solidifies our position at the national forefront of climate action. In addition to safeguarding our communities from the worsening impacts of climate change, this emerging industry will generate thousands of good-paying jobs and economic opportunity across the state.”

The Democratic governor has set a goal of having 11 gigawatts of offshore wind energy in New Jersey by 2040, which could power 3.2 million homes.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

As More Dead Whales Wash Ashore in NJ and NY, Research Into East Coast Wind Farms Eyed

March 6, 2023 — As dead whales continue to wash ashore on the East Coast — and particularly the Jersey Shore — officials and academics are planning a wide array of monitoring and research aimed at preventing or minimizing harm to whales and other marine life during construction and operation of offshore wind farms.

A dead whale washed ashore Thursday in New Jersey, a day after another was found in New York amid a continuing wave of whale deaths along the East Coast. Twenty-five of the animals have died since Dec. 1, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A research and monitoring initiative announced last year by New Jersey environmental and utility regulators is launching numerous projects to establish a baseline of current ocean conditions, with plans for monitoring while wind farms are built and operated.

Read the full article at NY4

NEW JERSEY: Over 260,000 Sign Petition To Halt New Jersey Offshore Wind Farm Surveys

March 6, 2023 — Over 250,000 people have signed an online petition calling for Governor Phil Murphy to cease work on a massive off-shore wind energy farm off the Jersey Shore coast. Protest against the project began in December when dead whales mysteriously started appearing on beaches along New Jersey’s coastline.

Since December, thirteen whales have been found dead, eclipsing previous years’ data on file with NOAA.

The petition being disseminated by Protect Our Coast NJ calls for the immediate halt of all offshore wind activity along the New Jersey shore.

Read the full article at Shore News Network

NEW JERSEY: Citing federal letter, Van Drew touts planned hearing on wind power

March 2, 2023 — U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd, again criticized the Biden administration Wednesday over plans to greatly expand offshore wind power generation, which includes projects in his South Jersey district.

Van Drew and others have connected recent highly visible whale deaths in the Northeast with survey work undertaken in advance of the wind power projects. He plans to hold a hearing on the issue March 16 at the Wildwoods Convention Center. Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have said there is no evidence linking offshore wind surveys with any whale deaths.

“If the federal government and these offshore wind companies have nothing to hide, then prove it. They must prove that the development of these projects will have no effect on the environment, which is hard to believe following the death of over a dozen whales in the Northeast region where surveying is currently taking place,” Van Drew said Wednesday. “It is also hard to believe when their own scientists have been wholly ignored when attempting to highlight concerns about these projects and their effect on endangered whale species.”

Read the full article at The Press of Atlantic City

Congressman Jared Golden to NOAA: Share Findings on Recent Whale Strandings

March 2, 2023 — Maine Congressman Jared Golden is calling on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to release more information on the recent increase in whale strandings that have been happening along the Atlantic Coast.

“As you are aware, in the past two months alone, the Marine Mammal Stranding Network has reported at least 18 cases of whales found washed ashore along the Atlantic Coast,” Golden wrote in a letter to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and National Marine Fisheries Service Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Janet Coit. “Alarmingly, humpback whales and North Atlantic right whales – both species currently experiencing Unusual Mortality Events – are the two species that account for the majority of these strandings. At least seven dead humpback whales have already been reported in 2023, including four in New Jersey. This is in addition to a North Atlantic right whale that was found stranded along Virginia Beach earlier this month.”

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

NEW JERSEY: Save LBI Takes Fight for North Atlantic Right Whale to the President

March 2, 2023 — Saying it generally supports offshore wind as an energy source, a local grassroots organization opposed to the placement of turbines in the Atlantic so close to New Jersey’s coast told President Joe Biden it is staunchly against “the ill-informed and insular decision-making process” while raising concern for the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

“The risks and consequences to the right whale from the wind projects currently planned are major and imminent,” Bob Stern, president of Save LBI, wrote on behalf of the more than 4,500-member group in the Feb. 15 letter to Biden.

On the endangered list since 1970, there are currently an estimated 350 North Atlantic right whales remaining with fewer than 70 breeding females, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. The marine mammal “is one of the world’s most endangered large whale species,” NOAA Fisheries said.

Since the beginning of the year, NOAA Fisheries has reported the death of two North Atlantic right whales, one in Virginia and the other in North Carolina. There have been four documented entanglement cases, including two in North Carolina and one each in Massachusetts and Georgia. A repeat sighting of an entangled North Atlantic right whale off Cape May was also documented this year, according to NOAA.

“North Atlantic right whales are dying faster than they can reproduce, largely due to human causes,” according to NOAA Fisheries’ information on the 2023 calving season for the endangered species.

Read the full article at The Sand Paper

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind critics try to block New Jersey grid link

March 2, 2023 — Opponents of offshore wind flooded a small New Jersey town meeting Monday in a bid to block a critical cable link for Ørsted’s Ocean Wind 1 project.

Energized by social media and publicity over winter whale strandings, more than 150 protesters tried to convince Upper Township officials to at least delay plans for moving an electrical substation, where power from the planned 1,100-megawatt wind turbine array would enter the regional power grid.

The protestors came close to that goal. In the end, the Township Committee narrowly voted 3 to 2 in favor of allowing the substation move.

With two New Jersey congressmen promising to challenge offshore wind plans – and 30 Jersey Shore mayors demanding a moratorium on projects – wind power critics seem determined to fight at the local level too.

Their coalition includes the state’s commercial fishing industry. A 2022 Rutgers University study found the surf clam fleet could lose 15 percent of its revenue if boat’s can’t fish on historic grounds after wind turbines are built.

The Ocean Wind 1 export cable would come ashore on the barrier island at Ocean City, N.J., go under the back bay and connect to the grid through an electrical substation at Beesley’s Point in Upper Township on the mainland. The connection survives from one of New Jersey’s last coal-fired power plants, the defunct 447-megawatt BL England generating station.

Upper Township officials set out a redevelopment plan for the Beesley’s Point neighborhood, envisioning a waterfront district, potentially with a hotel and marina, on the Great Egg Harbor River. At the town hall on Feb. 27, they considered moving the substation – Ørsted’s preferred connection to the regional power grid – and faced a standing-room-only crowd demanding they block it.

“Ocean Wind is clearly labeled on the plan,” said Roseanne Serowartka of Ocean City. “I do understand the people here who want jobs, who want that redevelopment, but not at that cost.

“Will the people who come to that hotel want to go to a beach with industrialization?”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman