Saving Seafood

For Lease: Windmill Space in the Atlantic Between Long Island and New Jersey

June 11, 2021 — The Biden administration on Friday announced that it would begin the formal process of selling leases to develop offshore wind farms in shallow waters between Long Island and New Jersey as part of its push to transition the nation to renewable energy.

The proposed sale, the first of the Biden administration, includes eight lease areas in the New York Bight, a triangular area in the Atlantic Ocean between Cape May in New Jersey and Montauk Point on the eastern tip of Long Island. Administration officials estimated wind turbines there could generate more than seven gigawatts of electricity — enough to power more than 2.6 million homes.

The move is part of efforts by the Biden administration to jump-start the country’s offshore wind sector. Last month, it gave final approval to the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and said it would open California’s coast to wind farms. Earlier this week, the administration said it was examining whether to bring wind farms to the Gulf of Mexico. President Biden has set a goal of generating 30,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind nationwide by 2030.

That contrasts sharply with former President Donald J. Trump, who disparaged wind turbines, claiming that they destroyed property values, caused cancer and killed birds. His administration favored the development of fossil fuels and disputed the scientific consensus that the emissions produced by the burning of oil, gas and coal are driving climate change.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Gentrification pressures Northeast fishing communities

June 9, 2021 — Longtime small fishing ports in New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts top the endangered list in a new NMFS social sciences study of how gentrification pressure is bearing down on those communities.

Barnegat Light, N.J., Montauk, N.Y., and Chatham, Mass., have history as home ports dating back to the 1700s, but transformed into high-priced resort towns in the 20th century. Inflating real estate values, tax burdens, development pressure, population growth are converging at a time when fishermen are facing regulatory and environmental challenges in their profession, the report shows.

Authors Matthew Cutler, a social scientist with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and Rose Jimenez, at the NOAA Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technology, applied a scoring matrix to assess social and economic changes in 29 Northeast ports from Virginia to Maine where commercial fishing is an important social and economic part of the community.

“We selected all the fishing communities in the Northeast region with ‘high’ fishing engagement scores in 2009–2018, which resulted in these 29 communities,” the authors explain in the report, published online in story map format.

“Then, for each year in each community, we added up the scores (ranging from 1 to 4) for the three gentrification pressure indices: retiree migration, urban sprawl, and housing disruption.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

N.J. fishing industry to get another $9.5M for COVID relief

June 9, 2021 — An incoming tide of federal dollars aims to lift a few boats, bait shops and seafood markets in the Garden State.

New Jersey is set to receive another $9.5 million in COVID-19 relief money for the state’s fishing industry, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-6th, announced Tuesday.

“New Jersey’s fishing communities were deeply affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which is why I fought so hard to include robust funding for them in Congress,” Pallone said in a statement. “I want the hardworking men and women who make our fishing industry so strong to know they have my support. I’m glad we were able to ensure that the fishing community in New Jersey is receiving assistance to weather this ongoing economic storm.”

Commercial and recreational fishing is a multi-billion dollar industry in New Jersey, supporting tens of thousands of jobs. But the sector was hit hard by the pandemic. Prices for fish plunged as restaurant demand evaporated. Charter boats spent weeks tied to docks after COVID-19 safety measures were put in place.

Read the full story at NJ.com

New Jersey’s 2nd Offshore Wind Project Expected to Be Approved June 24

June 7, 2021 — New Jersey is expected to approve up to 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind energy at a June 24 meeting of the state’s Board of Public Utilities, which would set the stage for hundreds of wind turbines off the Garden State coast in coming years.

The approval would add to the 1,100 megawatts already given the green light by New Jersey’s BPU, and keep the state on pace for Gov. Phil Murphy’s aggressive goal of 7,500 megawatts by 2035. That’s enough to power half of the state’s 1.5 million homes.

The first award in 2019 went to Ørsted and its Ocean Wind 1 project, which is planning 92 turbines off Cape May and southern New Jersey to produce the 1,100 megawatts. The wind farm is currently second in the federal government’s queue of offshore wind projects under review following the Biden administration’s approval in May of the Vineyard farm off Massachusetts. Ocean Wind’s federal approval is expected by June 2023.

New Jersey’s current evaluation of bids is a two-horse race that includes Ørsted and it’s Ocean Wind 2 bid, and a developer called Atlantic Shores, which owns a 183,000-acre lease area off the coast of Atlantic City and Long Beach Island. Atlantic Shores is a joint venture between Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America.

Read the full story at NBC Philadelphia

New Senate effort to keep oil rigs away from the Jersey Shore pushed by Menendez

May 27, 2021 — Legislation to permanently ban offshore drilling off the Atlantic Coast was introduced Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, the latest effort by New Jersey’s federal lawmakers to keep oil rigs away from the Jersey Shore.

The bill would prevent the Interior Department from issuing any leases in the Atlantic Ocean or the Straits of Florida. The Atlantic Coast had been placed off limits to oil exploration through 2022 under the Interior Department’s five-year drilling plan, but Donald Trump tried to open most of the waters around the U.S. to drilling.

President Joe Biden put a stop to Trump’s efforts during his first week in office.

“As we turn the corner on the pandemic and hope for near-normal crowds and a strong summer for businesses at the Jersey Shore, the last thing we need is to open our coast up for a manmade disaster like an oil spill that threatens an already fragile economy,” Menendez said.

“Our boardwalks, restaurants, small businesses, and fishing industries depend on the health and safety of our beaches and the millions of tourists and day-trippers they attract,” he said.

Read the full story at NJ.com

CAPE ISSUES: Needs to Address Community Concerns on Wind Farm

May 20, 2021 — The Danish firm Orsted is currently seeking federal permits for its planned 99 turbine wind farm 15 miles off the southern New Jersey coast. Public meetings held by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held in April did little to calm the growing skepticism surrounding the project.  

It is critical that this project only go forward with total transparency concerning its economic and environmental impacts. The project must serve as a model for renewable energy initiatives if we are to gain the level of public support so necessary for a long-term battle with climate change. 

Cape May County’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism and commercial fishing. Nothing is more important than our coastline and the ecosystems that maintain it. The issue here is so much more than the potential for visible turbines on a clear day.  

Already conflicting information is flooding the internet as public groups, non-profit environmental organizations, and local business coalitions present opposing views. Save Our Shores argues that the turbines pose a threat to migratory birds and marine mammals. The Sierra Club says those opposing the wind farms are doing so based on bad science. The Garden State Seafood Association contends that the location studies did not consider the potential negative impact on commercial fishing.  

Read the full opinion piece at the Cape May County Herald

NEW JERSEY: LBI Officials Find Support in Other Areas for Opposing Offshore Wind

May 14, 2021 — With the state Board of Public Utilities’ anticipated decision on granting approval for a second wind farm off the coast expected next month, Long Beach Island officials met in April with counterparts from Cape May County and state and federal legislators to discuss the negative impacts of offshore wind farms on shore communities.

“The Island, as a whole, is against it. The whole coast is against it,” said Surf City Mayor Francis Hodgson, who hosted the virtual meeting last month. “This is how I look at it: What is LBI going to gain? Nothing. What’s the liability? It might ruin our tourism industry. It might ruin the fishing industry. Why take the chance?”

In addition to Island officials, Congressman Jeff Van Drew, state Sen. Chris Connors and Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli were present. Van Drew extended an invitation to the mayor of Ocean City, who sent a representative, and a businessman from Cape May County attended, Hodgson said.

“It (the opposition) has some power behind it,” Hodgson said. “We all agreed this is not the end of it. We’ve got to keep the pressure on.”

Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind is poised to build the second wind farm in the state, in part off the coast of Long Beach Island. The closest western, or in-shore, boundary of the lease site is 10 miles from Barnegat Light and 9 miles from Holgate. The lease area has the potential to generate 3 gigawatts of offshore wind energy. Atlantic Shores plans to start onshore construction of substations in 2024 and offshore construction by 2025. 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.

As a fishing fleet owner, Larson said, “I stand behind the Garden State Seafood Association and the [Fisheries] Survival Fund and those kinds of outfits, and RODA (Responsible Offshore Development Alliance). He was referring to a coalition of fishing industry associations that are concerned about impacts to the commercial seafood industry.

Read the full story at The Sand Piper

NEW JERSEY: Divided by Wind

May 11, 2021 — Cape May County Chamber of Commerce President Vicki Clark April 20 provided the organization’s position on offshore wind.

With three minutes to comment, Clark demonstrated a balancing act, supporting renewable energy and welcoming the potential economic opportunities that would accompany billions of dollars in new coastal infrastructure, while also raising concerns about the potential impact to the existing local economies.

It’s a discussion that has heated up this year.

Ocean Wind, the furthest along of several wind power projects proposed off New Jersey beaches, envisions 99 turbines, starting 15 miles from the beach. The company, Orsted, based in Denmark, plans to begin construction by 2023 and generate power by the end of 2024.

Local citizen opposition groups formed, while some governments expressed skepticism, including the Cape May County Board of County Commissioners and Ocean City Council, citing the potential impact on the local economy.

Fishing industry representatives said the current plan would effectively exclude commercial boats from some of their most important fishing grounds.

“The current process in use by the BOEM identifies wind energy area sites without consideration of their adverse environmental impacts in the original lease selection, on the locations historically rich and economically vital commercial fisheries, or on the communities that support and benefit from those fisheries,” reads a statement from Scot Mackey to BOEM, on behalf of the Garden State Seafood Association (https://bit.ly/3o27mUf). “The only factors even considered in the initial location determination was visibility from shore and an attempt to minimize bird interactions, not the needs of other ocean users, particularly fishermen.”

Read the full story at the Cape May County Herald

‘E-ZPass for fish.’ What tracking sturgeon can tell us about this fragile species – and Delaware Bay

May 11, 2021 — This spring marks a decade since New Jersey’s Bureau of Marine Fisheries first deployed acoustic receivers to track the migratory patterns of the endangered Atlantic sturgeon in the Delaware Bay. For the researchers tasked with monitoring this fragile, prehistoric fish species, the past 10 years have been an exercise in hope — and occasional surprise.

“There are signs that the population has started a slow recovery,” said Brian Neilan, a senior fisheries biologist who leads the monitoring program for the bureau. “At least relative to the numbers when the [Atlantic coastwide] fishing moratorium on sturgeon went into effect in 1998.”

In mid-March, Neilan and his team deployed 19 acoustic receivers throughout the New Jersey side of the bay, from Cape May to Egg Island Point, in Cumberland County. The receivers pick up frequencies pinged from sturgeon and other fish implanted with radio tags that are similar to the microchips used for household pets. “It’s like E-ZPass for fish,” said Neilan.

On April 12, the first dataset was pulled from the receivers. Of the over 600 detections recorded, 66 came from just five sturgeon. “Those numbers are pretty on par for what we see during March and early April,” Neilan said. “May is typically when we get the most detections, because that’s when the sturgeon are using the bay the most, to go up to their spawning grounds in the river and then come back down and back out into the ocean.”

Like other depleted, culturally significant fish species in the Delaware Estuary, sturgeon are anadromous, meaning they spawn in fresh water, where they remain for the first couple years of their life before migrating to the ocean.

Read the full story at the New Jersey Spotlight

NEW JERSEY: Bill Excusing Commercial Fishermen from State Unemployment Tax Advances

May 7, 2021 — Current unemployment law has New Jersey’s commercial fishermen on the hook, and Sen. Michael Testa’s (R-1st) legislation advanced May 6 by the Senate Labor Committee would cut them loose. 

According to a release, the bill, S-3501, would exempt commercial fishermen who are paid on the percentage of fish caught or a percentage of the selling price of those fish from the state unemployment law and its costly tax on earnings. 

“This bill will be a big help for New Jersey fisheries, an industry that has been hit hard by the pandemic, and one that the state’s economy depends on,” stated Testa. “It will allow hard-working, skilled fisherman to keep more of their hard-earned income, a change that suits the independent nature of the proud individuals who make their living at sea.” 

Read the full story at the Cape May County Herald