Saving Seafood

What Biden’s New Offshore ‘Wind Energy Area’ Means for NJ, NY and US Clean Energy

March 30, 2021 — The Atlantic Ocean off of New Jersey and New York will become the epicenter of a national effort this decade to energize its power grid with renewable sources like wind and solar after President Joe Biden named the continental shelf off the two states as a “wind energy area.”

The White House’s announcement Monday locks in the federal government to an already all-in race by Mid-Atlantic coastal states to build thousands of skyscraper-sized turbines.

The efforts to build wind farms from North Carolina’s Outer Banks to Cape Cod off of Massachusetts are already nearly a decade in the making, with 17 current projects in development up and down the coast. Several are in planning stages for the waters off of New Jersey and New York. All involve European power companies, including the Danish developer Ørsted, which in 2019 won New Jersey’s first bid for a farm.

For years, the projects languished in a federal queue or permitting processes at the state level. But recently, governors like Phil Murphy in New Jersey have established ambitious goals for renewable energy production from wind farms. Biden’s announcement all but cements offshore wind’s place in the future of American power production.

Only seven wind turbines currently rotate in American waters, but more than 1,500 are in planning or development stages from North Carolina to Massachusetts, according to an NBC10 Philadelphia analysis of the federally leased areas and the 17 projects currently in development.

Read the full story at NBC Washington

Biden to Push Offshore Wind Projects

March 29, 2021 — The Biden administration plans to give wind-power developers access to more of the Atlantic Coast and start a slate of new environmental reviews in an attempt to jump-start the country’s offshore wind business.

White House officials said Monday they want to fast-track leasing in federal waters off the New York and New Jersey coasts, a priority for wind-power interests and state officials.

Much of the concern centers on how wind turbines might affect shipping, whale migrations and commercial fisheries.

The New York Bight is among the country’s three most prolific areas for scallops, said David Frulla, a lawyer who represents the Fisheries Survival Fund, a group including most of the country’s Atlantic Ocean scallop boats.

More turbines will make it harder for large fishing boats to navigate by disrupting the radar they depend on at night, Mr. Frulla said.

“We’re concerned that there’s such a momentum for offshore wind that the fishing industry is going to end up as collateral damage,” Mr. Frulla said.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

NEW JERSEY: Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Surveying Schedule – Spring/Summer 2021

March 23, 2021 — The following was released by Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind:

Geophysical
Fugro Enterprise | March 19, 2021
Fugro’s Enterprise (LOA: 52 m, Call Sign: WDD9388) vessel will conduct survey operations within the Atlantic Shores Lease Area and along potential Export Cable Corridors towards Atlantic City and Manasquan.

Geotechnical
Tidewater Regulus | April 15, 2021
The Tidewater Regulus (LOA: 82.6m, Call Sign: WDG8927) is a multiservice offshore support vessel that will mobilize to conduct geotechnical borings and seabed PCPTs for investigation of the Atlantic Shores lease area for soil characterization.

Alpine Shearwater | May 15, 2021
Alpine Shearwater (LOA: 33.5m, Call Sign: WDF5838) will mobilize to conduct geotechnical vibracores along the potential export cable routes for soil characterization.

Northstar Commander | June 1, 2021
The Northstar Commander (LOA: 73.2m, Call Sign: WDG5396) will mobilize to conduct seabed PCPTs along the potential export cable routes and in the lease area for soil characterization.

Laredo Brazos | June 14, 2021
The three-legged lift boat Laredo Brazos (LOA: 44.2m, Call Sign: WDG9589) will mobilize to perform geotechnical boreholes for the potential export cable route land fall areas.

Marine Survey Operations

For more information:

  • As our Fishing Liaison Officer, you will see Kevin around the docks. He is here to answer your questions and address concerns from fishermen of all sectors.
  • Please feel free to reach him at: 609.290.8577 or kevin.wark@atlanticshoreswind.com.

The Lease Area is located about 10 to 20 miles off the New Jersey coast, between Barnegat Light and Atlantic City in water depths ranging from 60 to 100 feet (10–17 fathoms).

The maneuverability of all survey vessels will be restricted. It is important that mariners maintain a safe distance of at least 2 kilometers (1.0 nautical miles) from each vessel.

Survey operations will be conducted 24/7, weather permitting. They are expected to conclude on or about August 2021, but may run longer as weather and operational conditions dictate. A Notice to Mariners will be issued prior to operations and vessels will monitor and broadcast on VHF Channel 16 during operations.

NEW JERSEY: 1,500 Wind Turbines. 2,700 Square Miles. Offshore Wind in the Atlantic Will Be Big. Really Big

March 22, 2021 — Off the coast of New Jersey these days, surveillance vessels hired by European energy companies are taking measurements of the ocean depths, and underwater research drones are analyzing water temperatures to accumulate data on the Mid-Atlantic “Cold Pool.”

Onshore in places like the Port of Paulsboro along the Delaware River south of Camden and Philadelphia, labor unions, port officials and politicians are angling for new marine terminals to build and ship off massive steel monopiles.

And in weekly board meetings, state-appointed officials in charge of the Garden State’s public utilities are discussing massive overhauls to the power grid and many miles of new transmission lines.

Billions of dollars will be invested in the next several years — at sea and on land — to erect hundreds of wind turbines miles from the coast in order to bring New Jersey 7,500 megawatts of renewable energy. That’s enough to power half of the state’s 1.5 million homes.

Politicians, environmentalists and European companies have invested interest in the plans. Big issues still to confront include lucrative North Atlantic fishing concerns; ecological effects on what is known as the Mid-Atlantic Bight’s “Cold Pool”; and the fundamental remaking of power grids that bring the electricity into homes and businesses of 100 million Americans.

Every year off the coast of the eastern United States, from Cape Hatteras in North Carolina to Cape Cod in Massachusetts, forms a unique oceanographic feature called “the Cold Pool.”

It’s a layering of water temperatures that makes for breathtakingly cold water near the ocean floor and much warmer water near the surface and beaches. The effect is called stratification, and it is created each spring, peaks each summer and mixes up once again each fall.

The stark difference in water temperature during the late spring and summer months makes it one of Earth’s unique marine ecosystems. It gives the continental shelf off the northeastern United States a diversity of fauna that has persisted for centuries. Fishermen and scientists alike credit the Cold Pool with powering the renowned fisheries of New England, New Jersey and Maryland.

No one knows the extent to which thousands of wind turbines would have on the stratification process, or if the twirling horizon-scrapers will affect the Cold Pool at all.

Read the full story at NBC Philadelphia

New Jersey’s fishing industry fights to weather the pandemic as aid finally pours in

March 16, 2021 — Rich Isaksen has had no trouble catching fish during a pandemic.

Selling his catch, however, has been a disaster.

Isaksen is the president of the Belford Seafood Cooperative Association in Monmouth County, a collection of about 20 independent fishing boats. When governments around the region ordered restaurants to close in efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19, demand for fish caught by people like Isaksen evaporated. Prices at the docks plunged.

In June, the fisherman was offered just three cents per pound for red hake, a fish that normally draws 50 or 60 cents per pound. It wasn’t an isolated case.

“Last week, I think they got $1.20 (per pound) for summer flounder,” Isaksen said. “Normally, that’s like three or four dollars.”

Wholesalers, to whom Isaksen’s co-op usually sells, tried to compensate for disappearing restaurant demand by peddling more to supermarkets and grocery stores. That helped some, Isaksen said, but he still estimates his 2020 income from selling to wholesalers was slashed in half.

“The thing about the fishing industry, there’s not a lot of people buying whole fish and cleaning them,” Isaksen said. “A lot of people are going to restaurants.”

Read the full story at NJ.com

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind critics say farms will damage Shore economies and ruin ocean views

March 11, 2021 — Opposition to New Jersey’s coming surge in offshore wind farms is growing at the Jersey Shore.

The hundreds of wind turbines due to be built up to 20 miles off New Jersey in the next five years or so will spoil ocean views, undermine local economies and hurt wildlife while boosting the profits of overseas developers, critics say.

These opponents reject claims by wind farm builders and their enthusiastic supporters, including Gov. Phil Murphy, that the clusters of turbines are emissions-free. The manufacture and maintenance of the massive steel structures will require huge amounts of fossil fuel-powered energy, they argue.

They also say they fear that the tourism-dependent economies of many Shore towns will be damaged if visitors flee because they don’t want to look at an array of wind turbines on the horizon, or if the new structures disrupt marine life so much that recreational and commercial fishermen stay away.

And if fewer people want to spend time at the Shore, real estate values of coastal properties will drop, the critics predict.

“If people decide they don’t want any part of coming here, they will go elsewhere,” said Suzanne Hornick, administrator of SaveourshorelineNJ, a Facebook page that’s dedicated to opposing the industry, and has about 3,100 members.

Read the full story at the New Jersey Spotlight

NJDEP Proposes Changes to Marine Management, Seeks Public Input

March 10, 2021 — The state Department of Environmental Protection is seeking comments on proposed new rules regulating crab and lobster management, marine fisheries and fishery management in New Jersey. Written comments can be electronically filed until April 30 or submitted via the regular mail.

“The department is proposing to reduce the number of commercial crab pot/trot line licenses and crab dredge licenses for both the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic coast due to a reduction in the number of actively harvesting license holders,” according to the March 1 DEP bulletin on the proposed rule change.

Under the proposal, a licensee could transfer licenses to any person, based upon the number of available licenses.

Read the full story at The Sand Paper

Yearbook: Fishing fleets flex

March 8, 2021 — With revenues up 3 percent in January and February of 2020, the industry was looking ahead to another strong year in the global marketplace.

In March, when restaurants across the country shuttered quickly under covid-19 outbreak restrictions, seafood supply chains ground to a halt in the early days of the pandemic. Fishermen who had been out harvesting to supply the once-solid market were stuck with their catch left unsold and their boats tied up.

In early March, New Jersey fisherman Gus Lovgren was headed to port after a Virginia summer flounder trip when his wife called him, “saying they’re shutting the country down, basically,” he recalled.

“We had been getting $1.75 to $2 (per pound). In the end we got, I think, 60 cents,” said Lovgren. “The market was flooded, and there was nothing we could do.”

Right out of the gates in April 2020, the Hawaii Longline Association worked with others in Hawaii’s fishing industry to donate 2,000 pounds of fresh seafood to Hawaii Foodbank, and planning larger deliveries.

The initial donation, coordinated with the with United Fishing Agency’s Honolulu auction, the Hawaii Seafood Council, Nico’s Pier 38, and Pacific Ocean Producers, “is the beginning of a new pilot program with the Hawaii Foodbank,” the association said.

“Through the partnership, Hawaii Foodbank plans to purchase $50,000 worth of seafood landed by Hawaii longline vessels,” according to a statement from the association. “The purchase will ensure that Hawaii Foodbank will be able to meet the needs of Hawaii residents facing hardship as a result of covid-19. It will also support Hawaii’s longline fishermen.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NJ fishing community says virus aid helps keep it afloat

March 8, 2021 — With New Jersey’s commercial fishing industry about to receive a second round of federal coronavirus aid, boat owners and those who run fishing-related businesses say the extra money is helping keep them afloat amid a sea of red ink.

The state’s fishing industry received $11 million last March under the CARES Act, an early aid bill passed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

And it should get roughly the same amount under a second bill passed by Congress in December, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. said Monday. Pallone, (D-NJ) held a news conference Monday at the Belford Seafood Cooperative in Middletown with boat owners and those who run related businesses.

Many said the extra money could make the difference between working and not working this spring and summer. They declined to say how much each individually received under the measure.

“I’ve been on a boat with my family since I was 7 years old,” said Capt. Richard Isaksen, president of the fishing cooperative. “We still haven’t recovered from Superstorm Sandy that hurt us badly with eight feet of water on the dock and (which) wiped everything out.”

The 2012 storm caused widespread devastation in New Jersey, New York and other northeastern coastal states.

Read the full story at the Associated Press