Saving Seafood

Offshore Wind Agenda Still Has Some Bight

April 27, 2021 — The Biden administration isn’t bowing to all local opposition to offshore wind development (“Railing Against the Wind,” Review & Outlook, April 21). Although the wealthy residents of the Hamptons succeeded in preventing offshore wind farms from spoiling their ocean views, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to sink all opposition to development in the New York-New Jersey Bight, a roughly triangular area bordered by New Jersey and Long Island.

In December 2020, the Interior Department’s Office of the Solicitor issued a detailed ruling that commercial fisheries’ interests must be considered when siting offshore wind. But in March the Biden administration rescinded that ruling. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to ignore fisheries’ interests, even though the Bight is home to some of the most productive fisheries in the world and is a migratory route for endangered right whales.

In the end, the fisheries industry and thousands of jobs at risk are no match for Big Wind’s lobbyists, whose European customers stand to reap billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars from the Biden administration’s new offshore wind-investment tax credit and the sky-high prices for the intermittent and unreliable power that regulators will force utility customers to buy.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

NEW JERSEY: Long Beach Island Residents Critical of Ocean Wind Project During Scoping Meeting

April 21, 2021 — Long Beach Island residents aired criticisms and concerns about a proposed wind farm off the Atlantic City coast at a scoping meeting held online April 15, as required by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

When the BOEM published its notice of intent to engage in an environmental impact study for Ørsted’s Ocean Wind offshore wind farm, it triggered these so-called scoping meetings in which the public is invited to voice concerns or alternatives to the planned wind farm.

Ørsted, a Danish energy company, is in the process of developing a wind farm to be located 15 miles off Atlantic City on the outer continental shelf that will include 98 turbines on monopoles and generate 1,100 megawatts of wind-generated power, enough to power 500,000 homes.

Ørsted held three online scoping meetings this month and on April 15, Beach Haven Mayor Colleen Lambert and Bob Stern, a representative of the Long Beach Island Coalition for Wind Without Impact, both asked that the Ocean Wind turbines be moved farther out to sea. Lambert asked why the Hudson South call area had been abandoned in favor of a lease much closer to shore when there would be more wind farther out. She expressed concern about the visibility of turbines if they are located nearer to the coast. “The alternative is to impact tourism with a decrease of 40% of revenue if turbines are visible.” She noted that New York has required turbines to be located 17 miles from shore.

Read the full story at The Sand Piper

Ocean Wind project worries New Jersey beach resorts, fishing industry

April 20, 2021 — As the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management prepares for an environmental review of the Ocean Wind project off New Jersey, the prospect of seeing wind turbines arise on the horizon is raising alarms in prosperous resort towns.

Politically the state government has been all-in on offshore wind, with $250 million planned for investment in manufacturing at the port of Paulsboro on the Delaware River, and plans for a new port downriver – beyond the air draft limitations of river bridges – to accommodate wind turbine installation vessels.

The Biden administration’s policy imperatives for renewable energy include a dramatic expansion of new wind leasing in the New York Bight. Ocean Wind, a 75/25 percent joint venture of Ørsted and the PSEG utility group, could be sending power ashore in 2024.

The 1,100-megawatt array would be built between 15 and 27 miles offshore on Ørsted’s federal lease east of Atlantic City, with up to 98 turbines feeding power to three offshore substations.

From there, export cables would carry the energy to a couple of once-thriving power plants on New Jersey bay shores: The disused BL England coal plant, considered by state regulators for conversion to natural gas a few years ago, and the obsolete Oyster Creek nuclear generating station, an industry showpiece when it entered operation in the 1960s. Both sites have grid connections to handle the wind-generated power.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: Residents, officials reiterate concerns about wind farm off Atlantic City

April 19, 2021 — Rick Robinson likens the idea of building up to 98 wind turbines on the ocean horizon to placing them on the rim of the Grand Canyon. The Seven Mile Island homeowner was among numerous people who spoke this week at a federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management virtual hearing on a proposed wind farm 15 miles off Atlantic City.

In addition to ruining a magnificent view, the 850-foot turbines will endanger wildlife, scar coastal land, scare away fish, interfere with shipping operations and raise electric bills, according to about 20 speakers in opposition.

Others at the hearing spoke in favor of the Ocean Wind farm. They touted wind energy as a way to bring abundant and clean energy to New Jersey, while helping fight climate change and creating jobs.

“Rather than continue down the path toward catastrophic sea level rise and flooding,” said Hayley Berliner of Environment New Jersey, “we can instead start to mitigate that by replacing our fossil-fuel power with clean, renewable offshore wind power.”

Read the full story at The Press of Atlantic City

N.J. fishing groups worry offshore wind will adversely affect their industry: ‘This is our farmland’

April 19, 2021 — Capt. Hank Lackner docked a 100-foot trawler in Cape May on a recent day after unloading a catch of squid that might end up as calamari on someone’s plate just about anywhere in the United States.

Lackner fears that offshore wind farms coming to the waters off the New Jersey coast in the next few years could threaten his business. Other commercial and recreational anglers, along with the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA), a political action organization, share his concerns.

They worry that wind farms with their soaring turbines could disrupt fish habitat, reroute fishing lanes, and force sport anglers farther out to sea.

Lackner, of Montauk, N.Y., believes that the farms will narrow the currently wide-open pathways to the vessel he docks at Cape May so often that he calls it his second home.

“We have no power,” said Jeff Reichle, chairman of Lund’s Fisheries, a processor of scallops and squid in Cape May that employees 300. “We’re being bulldozed here. It’s just being rammed down our throats.”

He also has attended meetings, and concludes the wind industry and its government backers have all the clout.

Reichle said he is not opposed to offshore wind and was part of a group called Fisherman’s Energy that tried to install five turbines a few miles off the coast of Atlantic City. He said that project, had it succeeded, might have generated data that could have shown potential impact on marine life.

Read the full story at The Philadelphia Inquirer

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind power lines: Buried under Island Beach State Park, hooking into Oyster Creek

April 15, 2021 — The developer of New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm plans to run the project’s power lines under Island Beach State Park, across Barnegat Bay and connect to the electrical grid at the former Oyster Creek nuclear plant, according to plans submitted to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Ørsted, the Danish power company that is proposing to build 98 wind turbines southwest of Atlantic City, has applied to the bureau to construct an offshore wind farm powerful enough to supply electricity to half a million homes.

If approved, wind farm construction would involve tunneling under Island Beach State Park and laying power lines under the auxiliary parking lot of Swimming Area 2. From there, the power lines would run southwest under the bottom of Barnegat Bay and connect to the grid at the former Oyster Creek nuclear power plant, which ceased generating electricity in 2019.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

New Jersey offshore wind to connect at 2 former power plants onshore

April 12, 2021 — A large offshore wind energy project planned off the coast of New Jersey will connect onshore to two former power plants, and cables will run under two of the state’s most popular beaches, officials said Tuesday.

At a virtual public hearing on the Ocean Wind project planned by Orsted, the Danish wind energy developer, and PSEG, a New Jersey utility company, officials revealed that the project would connect to the electric grid at decommissioned power plants in Ocean and Cape May Counties.

The northern connection would be at the former Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey Township; the southern connection would be at the former B.L. England plant in Upper Township.

Cables running from the wind farm, to be located between 15 and 27 miles (24 to 43 kilometers) off the coast of Atlantic City, would come ashore at one of three potential locations in Ocean City: 5th Street, 13th Street or 35th Street. They would then run under the roadway along Roosevelt Boulevard out to Upper Township and the former power plant, which closed in 2019.

Scot Mackey, of the Garden State Seafood Association, said the fishing community’s input was not incorporated into final plans for the project.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

NMFS switching Northeast fishermen to electronic reporting; new policy to reimburse electronic monitoring

April 9, 2021 — NMFS and the Northeast fishing fleet will shift to fully electronic catch reporting this fall for most commercial and for-hire fishing vessels, says the agency’s Greater Atlantic regional office.

It’s the end of the traditional paper logbooks distributed by the agency, where officials say the new system via digital devices “will increase reporting efficiency, accuracy, and timeliness of the fisheries data we use to manage fish stocks in our region.”

In an April 5 announcement promoting the system, NMFS quotes “early adopters” who have been using the electronic reports.

Ryan Kelly, owner/operator of the Seaquestor II out of Barnegat Light, N.J., has been reporting electronically for several years using his iPhone and the NMFS iOS Fish Online app.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Incidental Take Authorization: Ocean Wind, LLC Marine Site Characterization Surveys off of New Jersey

April 5, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries has received a request from Ocean Wind, LLC (Ocean Wind) for authorization to take marine mammals incidental to marine site characterization surveys offshore of New Jersey in the area of Commercial Lease of Submerged Lands for Renewable Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Lease Area OCS-A 0498 (Lease Area) and potential export cable routes (ECRs) to landfall locations in New Jersey. NOAA Fisheries is requesting comments on its proposal to issue an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to incidentally take marine mammals during the specified activities. We are also requesting comments on a possible one-year renewal that could be issued under certain circumstances and if all requirements are met. We will consider public comments prior to making any final decision on the issuance of the requested MMPA authorizations and agency responses will be summarized in the final notice of our decision.

Read the full release here

NEW YORK: Biden Puts Spotlight On Waters Off Long Island For Wind Power Future

April 1, 2021 — President Joe Biden’s administration this week declared all of the waters between the south shore of Long Island and the New Jersey coast — including a swath of water less than 20 miles south of the Shinnecock Canal — a priority area for the development of offshore wind.

It’s the foundation of an already accelerating rush to establish a new multibillion-dollar industry, create tens of thousands of jobs and set the United States on a course away from reliance on fossil fuel energy.

To do so, the White House threw its weight behind accelerating the pace of planning and development of offshore wind farms in the waters south of Long Island, which potentially could see thousands of turbines, each nearly 800 feet tall, sprout from the sea in the coming decade.

The call for an even faster pace of growth than is already underway also could mean that regions seen as suitable for wind farm development directly south of Southampton and East Hampton will get closer consideration.

While the administration’s announcement made no actual reference to specific areas of the sea where wind turbines should be built, it did say that the Department of the Interior will advance the creation of new leases of ocean floor for the development of wind farms. The goal will be to have 16 projects approved and ready for construction by 2025.

The regions of ocean directly south of the East End are particularly sensitive for fishermen, according to Bonnie Brady, a commercial fishing advocate from Montauk, since they are critical grounds for the small boats that sail out of Shinnecock Inlet and Montauk to harvest sea scallops, fluke and squid.

Placing wind turbines in Fairways North, she said, would pose a navigational hazard and would drastically change the habitat of the ocean in the area, which is currently a sandy ocean plain, to one of hardened structure, which could upset the ecological balance that fishermen rely on.

Commercial fishermen have been the most strident opponents of offshore wind farm development and met this week’s announcement from the White House with renewed exasperation at the breakneck speed with which offshore wind development is apparently going to be introduced to the ocean off the Northeast coastline.

“Here we have the administration that holds science so near and dear just throwing science right out,” Ms. Brady said. “They are throwing up $4 billion to create this future industry, but they are not funding the science that should be the basis of all this and has to be done before build all these turbines. They could screw it all up, and then they’ll just say, ‘We didn’t know’ — but it’s the fishermen who will be hung out to dry.”

Read the full story at The Southampton Press