Saving Seafood

NEW YORK: Peconic Bay Scallop Die-Off On Long Island Leads To Federal Disaster Declaration

July 13, 2021 — Federal regulators have declared a fishery disaster following a massive scallop die-off over the last two years in eastern Long Island.

Nearly 90% of Peconic Bay scallops died off because of parasitic disease, an invasive predator and warming waters due to climate change.

Barley Dunne, who runs the shellfish hatchery in East Hampton, said he hopes sets of scallops can make a comeback.

“Last year, there was a huge set from Flanders in Riverhead all the way out to Montuak. And right now there are tons of beautiful 1-year-old bay scallops at the bottom. So, the big question is whether they are going to make it through the summer. Because that’s when the die-off is occurring,” Dunne said.

Read the full story at WSHU

Proposed Offshore Wind Projects Could Cost NJ Tourism Billions, Says LBI Rental Business Owner

June 30, 2021 — Citing a University of North Carolina study, the founder of Vacation Rentals LBI said the economic impact of proposed offshore wind farms to be located off the coast of Long Beach Island would be in the billions and half of all tourism dollars in New Jersey.

Ship Bottom resident Duane Watlington’s comments came during the online June 23 LBI Coalition for Wind Without Impact forum in which more than 200 individuals tuned in to hear speakers discuss environmental, socio-economic and recreational fishing concerns. His business portfolio also includes Vacation Rentals Ocean City, New Jersey, and Vacation Rentals Wildwood. All three businesses connect vacationers with rental homeowners and real estate agencies.

The UNC study found more than half of rental home vacationers would choose to rent elsewhere if wind turbines are visible from the shoreline, according to Watlington’s presentation.

The closest western, or inshore, boundary of the proposed Atlantic Shores 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.

The Jersey Shore is responsible for nearly half of the overall tourism dollars in the state and generated over $22 billion in 2019 alone, according to Watlington.

Based on information from the UNC study, he said, an offshore wind farm would have an economic impact of roughly $12 billion annually.

Read the full story at The Sand Paper

Secretary of Commerce Approves Disaster Declarations in Four U.S. Commercial Fisheries

June 29, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA:

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo announced today her determination that fishery disasters occurred in four fisheries in 2018, 2019, and 2020 — for two states, Alaska and New York, and for two Tribes, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis, in Washington.

“Fisheries are essential to our communities and economy and we want to ensure America is in a position to remain competitive on the global stage,” Secretary Raimondo said. “These determinations allow us to lend a helping hand to the fishing families and communities that have experienced very real and difficult setbacks in the last few years.”

The Secretary, working with NOAA Fisheries, evaluates each fishery disaster request based primarily on data submitted by the requesting state or tribe. A declared fishery disaster must meet specific requirements under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and/or the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act. For example, there must be commercial fishery economic impacts and declines in fishery access or biomass resulting from specific allowable causes due to the fishery disaster event.

The Secretary found that the following fisheries met the requirements for a fishery disaster determination:

  • 2019 Norton Sound Red King Crab in Alaska
  • 2019/2020 Peconic Bay Scallop in New York
  • 2018 Port Gamble S’Klallam Puget Sound Coho Salmon in Washington
  • 2019 Chehalis and Black River Spring Chinook Salmon in Washington

Positive determinations make these fisheries eligible for disaster assistance from NOAA.They may also qualify for disaster assistance from the Small Business Administration. The Department of Commerce has balances remaining from previously appropriated fishery disaster assistance and will determine the appropriate allocation for these disasters.

The Secretary also determined, working with NOAA Fisheries, that red tides in Florida did not cause a fishery disaster for Florida fisheries between 2018 and 2019.

Learn more about fishery disaster assistance.

NEW YORK: In Tony Hamptons, Homeowners and Fishermen Fight Over a Beach

June 28, 2021 — A fight over access to a Hamptons beach is intensifying this summer, pitting wealthy homeowners seeking a serene oceanfront view against residents and local fishermen who want to drive trucks onto the sand.

People brought dozens of trucks onto the beach Sunday morning in violation of a court order prohibiting people from driving on a roughly 4,000-foot oceanfront stretch of East Hampton known locally as Truck Beach. Protesters drove the length of the beach displaying American flags during the roughly hour-and-a-half event. One protester carried a sign that read, “Support our local fishermen.”

Police took names of those coming onto the beach, but didn’t cite or arrest anyone, according to Daniel Rodgers, a lawyer for the fishermen. East Hampton town police didn’t respond to a request for comment. Protesters vowed more protests throughout the summer.

“We’ve caught a lot of fish on that beach, and I’m not going to stop doing it now because somebody doesn’t want to look at trucks,” said Danny Lester, a fisherman whose family for generations has worked the waters off this far southeastern part of Long Island, about 100 miles east of New York City. “If they stop us at the entrance and lock us up, so be it. We’re going down there, come hell or high water.”

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal

Feds to begin review of wind farm off Long Beach

June 25, 2021 — A $3 billion proposal to build what would be New York state’s largest offshore wind farm is taking shape, with plans to run an underground cable through Long Beach to a substation near the E.F. Barrett Power Station in Island Park. A precise location for the cable has not yet been determined.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will soon begin an environmental review of the construction and operation of what would be called Empire Wind, off Long Island’s South Shore. The review is expected to take two years, and the project would need state approval as well. Work on Empire Wind would begin no sooner than 2023. Long Beach would not be involved in the approval process, but would help determine the location of the underground cable.

The wind turbines would be about 15 miles offshore.

The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association is strongly opposed to the project, claiming that fish, and fishermen, will be adversely affected.

Equinor, a company based in Norway, has been awarded contracts by New York state, the first in 2019, to supply 816 megawatts of power to the state grid, connecting in Brooklyn. A second contract, for 1,260 megawatts, was awarded in January, for Long Island’s South Shore.

Read the full story at the LI Herald

NEW YORK: Video Simulation Shows What Empire Wind Project, Off Long Island And N.J., Will Look Like From Shore

June 23, 2021 — Offshore wind power is coming to New York for the first time, and it would be the largest wind farm in the nation to date.

As CBS2’s Carolyn Gusoff reports, a video simulation of what’s called the Empire Wind Project, off Long Island and New Jersey, shows what it will look like from shore.

Winds of change off Long Island, where offshore wind turbines will one day bring clean energy. To visualize the nation’s first large scale offshore wind farm, with its 174 turbines, the developer created a simulation from Jones Beach, which has some relieved they’re further offshore than first proposed.

The scallop industry objects to its placement.

“Fishermen can’t fish in a wind farm, and so building a wind farm on fishing grounds takes those fishing grounds out of play for the fishermen,” said David Frulla, an attorney for the scallop industry. “You are looking at people losing their livelihoods.”

“Frankly, the biggest threat to our fishing industry is climate change,” Esposito said.

The Bureau of Energy Management invites comment before impact studies are launched.

The Empire Wind Farm would be some 19 miles off Long Branch, New Jersey.

Read the full story at WLNY

With Sale, Feds Push Wind Energy

June 18, 2021 — The federal Department of the Interior announced on Friday a proposed sale for offshore wind development on the outer continental shelf in the New York Bight, an area of shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

The sale would be the first competitive offshore wind lease sale of President Biden’s administration, which previously announced a goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

The proposed lease areas have the potential for seven gigawatts of wind energy, sufficient to power more than 2.6 million residences and support thousands of new jobs, according to a statement from the Interior Department.

The proposed sale notice includes eight lease areas in the New York Bight that could be auctioned for commercial wind energy development. A proposed sale notice published in the Federal Register on Friday opened a 60-day public comment period and provides information about potential areas that could be available for leasing, proposed lease provisions and conditions, and auction details. Comments received will be made available to the public and considered before a decision is made as to whether to publish a final sale notice, which would announce the time and date of a lease sale.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

Feds propose leasing effort offshore commercial wind between New Jersey, New York

June 14, 2021 — The federal government wants to lease land in shallow water between Long Island and the New Jersey coast for offshore commercial wind energy development and the creation of union jobs.

The feds say the land, located on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the New York Bight, could enable more than 7 gigawatts of offshore wind energy and power more than 2.6 million homes. In addition, officials said the plan would support President Joe Biden’s goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

The proposed “competitive lease sale” includes a 60-day public comment period, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is seeking feedback on several mandates tied to the sale, including the requirement “to create good-paying union jobs and engage with all stakeholders and ocean users,” according to a news release.

The “announcement of new proposed lease stipulations puts a priority on creating and sustaining good-paying union jobs as we build a clean energy economy,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a news release, saying that climate change “poses an existential threat.”

Read the full story at The Center Square

U.S. to auction leases for 8 wind power sites off New York and New Jersey

June 14, 2021 — The United States plans to auction leases for eight wind power sites in the shallow stretch of the Atlantic between New York’s Long Island and New Jersey.

The proposed sites offer the potential for as much as 7 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 2.6 million homes, the Interior Department said in a statement Friday.

President Biden has laid out an ambitious plan for the development of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, and these would be the first competitive offshore leases under his administration. Biden’s proposed infrastructure initiatives have stressed that shifting to clean energy will curb planet-warming greenhouse gases while creating jobs to boost the economy.

An organization that represents the scallop industry criticized the auction plans and called on the federal government to change the lease boundaries to better protect fishing grounds.

Shifting one lease area’s borders by five miles would “better ensure that critical scallop populations will be unaffected, while not diminishing the potential for wind power in the area,” the Fisheries Survival Fund said in an emailed statement.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

BOEM to offer New York Bight wind leases; scallop fishermen urge delay

June 14, 2021 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will offer eight new offshore wind lease areas in the New York Bight, potentially opening up to 627,000 acres for energy development between New Jersey and Long Island.

With a potential for more than 7 gigawatts of generation, the lease areas are touted by the Biden administration as a new economic engine for the region ¬– with and explicit promise by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to put “a priority on creating and sustaining good-paying union jobs as we build a clean energy economy.”

Northeast state governors and lawmakers have pushed offshore wind development as a new industry that will benefit their political allies in organized labor, and that theme is front and center in the administration’s new “all-of-government” push.

The announcement Friday brought immediate pushback from commercial fishermen in the scallop industry, one of the nation’s richest and most successful fleets, urging BOEM to delay leasing and adjust the proposed areas to preserve important shellfish habitat.

The agency should “shift the boundaries of the Hudson South area just five miles, so BOEM can better ensure that critical scallop populations will be unaffected, while not diminishing the potential for wind power in the area,” according to the Fisheries Survival Fund, an advocacy group for the East Coast scallop industry.

Read the full story at WorkBoat