Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: The Push Is On For More Wind Farms Off the South Fork

June 27, 2019 — Three wind energy development companies have asked the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to make the federally controlled sea floor off the South Fork available for wind farm leases.

The BOEM is currently considering whether to create new lease areas for wind farm development on the sea floor in several large sectors off the shores of Long Island and New Jersey available to would-be wind farm developers.

Last year, the agency put out a “call” to developers for nominations of possible new wind farm locations—effectively asking development companies to point to areas where they would be interested in putting wind farms. The call areas are regions of sea floor where conditions are suitable for the placement of turbines—bounded by depth contours, shipping lanes and legal boundaries that cleaved the space into four sectors.

One of the four sectors that BOEM is considering lies directly south of the entire South Fork. Called “Fairways North” in BOEM documents, the sector starts about 18 miles south of the South Fork and extends out to more than 30 miles from shore in some portions. It stretches from approximately south of Moriches Inlet east to approximately south of Montauk Point.

Read the full story at the Sag Harbor Express

Ørsted wins 1,100 MW offshore wind contract, biggest in U.S.

June 24, 2019 — Offshore wind energy developer  Ørsted was awarded a 1,100-megawatt commitment by New Jersey Friday for its Ocean Wind project off Atlantic City, the single largest award to date for the budding U.S. industry.

“After so many years New Jersey is finally open for business as far as offshore wind is concerned,” said Joseph Fiordaliso, president of the state Board of Public Utilities, after a unanimous vote to choose Ørsted to build the project on its federal continental shelf lease.

Ørsted contractors have been surveying the tract. It will be the first in what state energy planners hope will be three awards for offshore power, with a total capacity of 3,500 MW.

“We’re looking for competition. The competition only helps the ratepayer,” said Fiordaliso.

The Ocean Wind project would deliver a first-year price for Offshore Wind Renewable Energy Certificates (ORECs) of $98.10 per megawatt-hour. BPU officials estimate the levelized net OREC, representing actual costs paid by ratepayers after energy and capacity revenues are refunded to ratepayers, at $46.46/MWh.

That will increase average ratepayer monthly bills by $1.46 for residential, $13.05 for commercial, and $110.10 for industrial customers, according to the BPU.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Who Should Build the Coming US Offshore Grid?

June 21, 2019 — New York and New Jersey policymakers have established some of the nation’s most ambitious offshore wind targets. New Jersey plans to deploy 3,500 megawatts (MW) offshore wind capacity by 2030; New York is aiming for 9,000 MW installed by 2035.

With the targets in place, attention is now turning to the question of how best to deliver power from multiple projects comprising hundreds of megawatts each to the onshore grid.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced this week it would publish a “Request for Competitive Interest” for the development of transmission infrastructure off the coasts of New York and New Jersey.

The move by BOEM is in response to an unsolicited application from Anbaric Development Partners for the right to build an offshore transmission system up to 185 nautical miles long in the area. Anbaric is a Boston-based transmission developer backed by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Read the full story at Green Tech Media

Shell, EDF Offshore Wind Venture Teams With Rutgers

June 10, 2019 — Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind LLC – a 50/50 joint venture between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America – has signed a memorandum of understanding with New Jersey-based Rutgers University to advance ocean research and monitoring in support of offshore wind development.

The five-year cooperative agreement, which will initiate this summer, will help bolster ongoing efforts at the Rutgers Center for Ocean Observing Leadership (RUCOOL). Together, Atlantic Shores and RUCOOL will focus on advancing approaches to collecting and analyzing meteorological, oceanographic and marine bioacoustic data. The work will build upon efforts RUCOOL is already undertaking in partnership with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU).

The Atlantic Shorts joint venture formed in December 2018 to co-develop a 183,353-acre lease area located approximately 8-20 miles off the New Jersey coast between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light.

Data collected from both inside and outside the Atlantic Shores lease area will support Atlantic Shores’ commitment to ground its development decisions upon sound scientific research, as well as contribute to the broader regional knowledge of the Mid-Atlantic marine environment, the company says.

Read the full story at North American Wind Power

How is Climate Change Affecting New Jersey

June 10, 2019 — Climate change is real. It’s here. It’s caused by humans. That’s the conclusion of no less than three major scientific reports in as many months that warn the world is failing to make sufficient progress to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Dr. Robert Kopp, the director of the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, uses computer modeling to demonstrate how sea levels would rise if humans kept pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

At 9 feet — the sea levels reached in Superstorm Sandy — Port Newark, the airport and much of Jersey City would be submerged. It would set off a cascade that could wash out homes and businesses, impede power lines, and cut off the supply lines for goods coming into harbor.

“Ten feet would nearly be a doomsday scenario. And it’s hard to get to, right? It requires that we have unchecked fossil-fuel emissions growth globally and that we’re unlucky in Antarctica,” Kopp said.

Kopp is also a lead author of volume one of the Fourth National Climate Assessment— the basis for the newly released climate report that warns of potential devastation to our coasts, economy and health. Devastation increases with each ton of carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere.

Read the full story at NJ Spotlight

NEW JERSEY: Striped bass: with cuts pending, fishermen asked for input

June 7, 2019 — Have you taken the striped bass survey?

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife is emailing fishermen and asking for input into measures to take to reduce striped bass harvest.

The step has to be taken before the 2020 season, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The driving force for cuts to the harvest is the 2018 Atlantic Striped Bass Benchmark Stock Assessment, which was not great.

One silver lining is the stock is not in as bad shape as it was in the 1980s when there was a moratorium.

The female spawning stock biomass was estimated at 151 million pounds, below the desired threshold of 202 million pounds. In the mid-1980s though, the biomass of breeder females was under 50 million pounds — according to the stock assessment.

In the 1990s, the female breeders rebounded and pushed out strong year classes in 1994 and 2002. Both those years saw recruitment at or over 300 million pounds of one-year-old fish.

The ASMFC is mandating that measures be taken to reduce the harvest of the fish by 17 percent within its range on the Atlantic coast.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

This iconic fish nearly disappeared from New Jersey Now it’s coming back

May 23, 2019 — Call it a poor man’s salmon.

Every year from February to June, the American shad run like 20-inch silver bullets up the east coast, pouring in from the Atlantic and swimming up rivers from Florida to Maine to return to their spawning grounds.

Hordes of anglers hit the water to chase them — for many Garden State anglers shad fishing in the Delaware River is as good as fishing gets.

“I’d rather crank on these things than a thousand-pound tuna fish,” said Dominic Troisi, the owner of Full Draw Bowfishing.

The fish are fighters, bounding in and out of the water as anglers of all ages try to reel them ashore. Most shad are released after being caught — the flesh is oily and full of bones, not so easy to eat — but some people still enjoy shad as a local delicacy.

Yet just a few decades ago, this scene was the stuff of dreams — these iconic fish had all but disappeared from the Delaware River.

Read the full story at NJ.com

ROBERT BRYCE: New York’s energy policy depends on an impossible fantasy

May 23, 2019 — Last Wednesday, the Cuomo administration blocked construction of the proposed Northeast Supply Enhancement project, a 24-mile gas pipeline that would run from New Jersey across New York Bay to near the Rockaways. The Department of Environmental Conservation claimed the pipeline could have a negative effect on water quality and marine life.

The move was cheered by environmental groups, which claim that New York doesn’t need more natural gas because it can rely on wind and solar energy instead. But that oft-repeated claim ignores the growing rebellion in upstate communities against Big Wind and Big Solar.

On May 9, six days before the Department of Environmental Conservation rejected the permit for the gas pipeline, the town board of Cambria (population: 6,000) unanimously rejected the proposed 100-megawatt Bear Ridge solar project. If built, that $210 million project would cover about 900 acres with solar panels.

“We don’t want it,” Cambria Town Supervisor Wright Ellis, who has held that position for 27 years, told me last week. “We are opposed to it.” The proposed project, he said, violates Cambria’s zoning laws. In addition, Ellis said it would result in a “permanent loss of agricultural land” and potentially reduce the value of some 350 nearby homes.

Wind-energy projects, too, are facing fierce opposition. In February, Apex Clean Energy, a wind-energy developer, withdrew its application to build 108 megawatts of wind capacity on Galloo Island, a small island off the eastern shore of Lake Ontario.

Read the full story at the New York Post

New York’s Prized Sea Scallop Faces Off Against Offshore Wind

May 23, 2019 — Developers pushing to install massive wind turbines in the waters off New York and New Jersey have run into a delicate yet mighty foe: the Atlantic sea scallop.

Prized for their sweet and tender meat, scallops are abundant off Long Island and the Jersey Shore. That happens to be where the Trump administration wants to auction leases for offshore wind farms for what’s envisioned to be a $70 billion U.S. industry.

Efforts by fishermen to block the projects could have sweeping implications for both seafood lovers and the push to bring clean energy to the most densely populated corner of America. The area in the Atlantic, which could fit enough windmills to power all of New York City, is home to some of the world’s richest scallop beds. And erecting turbines nearly as tall as the Chrysler Building could make mollusks much harder to harvest.

“It’s an insane amount of ocean to occupy, and it will leave a trail of destruction,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.

Read the full story at Bloomberg