Saving Seafood

NY spending $2M to study offshore wind impact on waterways, fishing

August 9th, 2019 — New York State said Thursday it will spend more than $2 million for five studies to examine ways to reduce offshore wind farms’ impact on marine environments and commercial fishing.

The studies, awarded by the state Energy Research and Development Authority, or NYSERDA, followed Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s announcement of the first two large offshore wind projects for the state power grid.

The projects will produce 1,700 megawatts of a potential 9,000 megawatts planned by the state by 2040. Hundreds of turbines upward of 800 feet high will spin in waterways off Long Island, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

Another project by Norway-based Equinor for 816 megawatts will be located as close as 15 miles offshore from Long Beach.

Read the full story at Newsday

Dramatic Increase in Whales in NJ/NYC Raises Safety Concerns

August 9th, 2019 — The number of humpback whale sightings in New York City and northern New Jersey has increased dramatically in recent years, by more than 500 percent, as a result of warmer and cleaner waters, raising the risk of dangerous interactions between the huge marine mammals and humans, according to a Rutgers University-New Brunswick researcher.

The increase in sightings near one of the world’s busiest ports is a safety concern for both whales and humans, especially with a new wave of migration headed close to shores this fall, said Danielle Brown, a doctoral student in ecology and evolution in Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biology Sciences and the lead humpback whale researcher and naturalist for Gotham Whale, a New York-based nonprofit that studies and advocates for whales.

Since Gotham Whale started documenting humpback whale sightings in the New York Bight apex – the Atlantic Ocean area from New York harbor east to Fire Island and south to the Manasquan Inlet– the number has increased to 272 last year up from five in 2011. Many of the sightings have occurred less than two miles from the shore.

Read the full story at Rutgers Today

New York set to work with fishermen on offshore wind research

August 9th, 2019 — New York state energy officials announced Thursday more than $2 million has been allocated for new studies on how offshore wind energy development will affect fisheries and wildlife.

The projects include joint efforts with the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a coalition of East Coast fishing and seafood industry groups that have been advocating for the state and federal governments to move more cautiously on proposals for massive turbine arrays in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic waters.

The next studies continue offshore environmental surveys begun in 2017 by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, including digital aerial surveys of birds, marine mammals, sharks and fish shoals that concluded in spring 2019 after collecting more than 3.5 million images across the New York Bight.

NYSERDA originally set out with 20 studies of environmental, social, economic and regulatory issues with building offshore wind power in one of the nation’s busiest seaways. The new studies will build on that with more environmental, maritime and social issues to analyze.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New York Selects Five Offshore Wind Research Projects

August 8, 2019 — The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has selected five multiyear projects that will further study environmental and commercial fishing topics in support of responsibly developing offshore wind.

The projects, totaling more than $2 million, are as follows:

  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory with the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) and others – Collaborative Development of Strategies and Tools to Address Commercial Fishing:A two-year, $500,000 project to address the need to understand and develop solutions for safe and efficient access to fishing grounds, while also ensuring that offshore energy projects meet their operational goals.

Read the full story at North American Wind Power

New York funds $2m for offshore environmental R&D

August 8, 2019 — New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has chosen projects totalling more than $2m to study environmental and commercial fishing topics to support responsible offshore wind development.

The five projects advance Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Green New Deal goal of 9GW of offshore wind by 2035 as codified under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

The selected projects include National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) and others, for the initiative, ‘Collaborative Development of Strategies and Tools to Address Commercial Fishing.’

The project, which has received $500,000, will address the need to understand and develop solutions for safe and efficient access to fishing grounds, while also ensuring that offshore energy projects meet their operational goals.

Read the full story at ReNews

Catfish recalls continue in the US

July 29, 2019 — Recalls of imported catfish continue in the United States as some importers say they are unaware that the United States Department of Agriculture is now overseeing catfish imports.

In the latest case, Premium Foods USA in Woodside, New York, is recalling approximately 76,025 pounds of various frozen catfish products that were not presented for import re-inspection into the U.S, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Ørsted Wins Bid From New York State For Large New Wind Farm Off Montauk

July 25, 2019 — State officials announced last week that energy supply contracts will be awarded to two offshore wind farm developers for the construction of giant wind farms in the waters off Long Island—including one southeast of Montauk that could bring power ashore onto the South Fork, possibly Hampton Bays.

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office said it will seek to ink contracts with two projects, known as Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind, that could lead to the construction of more than 200 turbines in two areas of ocean, producing enough power for as many as 850,000 homes.

The Sunrise Wind project was proposed by Ørsted U.S. Offshore and Eversource, the companies that now own Deepwater Wind and the plans for the South Fork Wind Farm.

The Sunrise Wind proposal calls for as many as 100 turbines to be erected in the same general area of ocean as the much smaller South Fork Wind Farm, about 30 nautical miles southeast of Montauk. The company’s pitch to the state says it expects that the project could be constructed and operational by 2024, just two years after the South Fork Wind Farm is supposed to come online.

Read the full story at the Sag Harbor Express

New York signs biggest deal yet for offshore wind energy

July 22, 2019 — New York state officials struck deals with two offshore wind energy developers to build 1,700 megawatts of capacity off Long Island, aiming to have turbines in operation by 2024 that could potentially power more than 1 million homes.

The projects would also bring 1,600 jobs and $3.2 billion in economic activity, according to state energy planners. Ørsted,one of the winners in the New York power agreement bidding, says its investments in the state will include training programs for new workers – seen as a critical need for the budding U.S. wind industry.

Ørsted also plans a new operations and maintenance center near Port Jefferson, N.Y., to include dockage for a 250’ service operation vessel.

Building a Jones Act-compliant vessel of that size for the U.S. market would be a jump up from a first generation of U.S.-built crew transfer vessels now under construction for Ørsted, and could be a signal for other offshore operators to take on the risk of investing in a first U.S.-flag wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) ahead of an anticipated tight global market for those specialized assets.

“Sunrise Wind will bring renewable energy and new economic development to New York,” said Lee Olivier, executive vice president of enterprise energy strategy at Eversource, Ørsted’s partner in that 880 MW project on a federal lease 30 miles east of Long Island. “We look forward to partnering with New York State as a clean energy leader in the Northeast as well as with the local communities and businesses on Long Island and throughout the state.”

The other contract winner is Equinor, one of the early arrivals in the New York Bight when it acquired a 79,350-acre federal lease, tucked between two traffic separation lanes in and out of New York Harbor. Dubbed Empire Wind, that 816 MW project together with Sunrise Wind will total almost 1,700 MW capacity, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency that manages the state’s renewable energy planning.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

NEW YORK: Inside Montauk’s commercial fishing industry

July 22, 2019 — When Gosman’s Dock, 14 acres of restaurants and shops at Montauk Harbor, went on the market for $52.5 million in 2015, it signaled the latest evolution in a “discovered” coastal town that used to be all about surfing, fishing and dive bars. But walk past the dumpster and ice machine onto the dock that stretches into the harbor, and you’re in another world. You will typically see a forklift operator removing boxes of fish from a boat’s hold, or two guys hefting lobsters into the back of a pickup truck. Welcome to Montauk—past its heyday, perhaps, but alive and still bringing fresh local seafood to people who know enough to buy it up while they still can.

Montauk is not only the biggest commercial fishing hub in New York, it’s one of the largest in the Northeast. But that’s not saying much. In the United States, about 80 percent of the seafood we eat is imported, and most of it has been frozen, thawed and refrozen multiple times while being shipped and processed. Prices for local wild seafood, the stuff landed at the town dock or a dock on the east side of the harbor, hit a high of $21.2 million in 2012. By 2017, this figure had slid to $14.8 million.

Unlike Gurneys’ or the iconic Shagwong Tavern, Montauk’s commercial fishing boats don’t attract investors eager to keep their businesses afloat, and their property (boats, gear and permits) is not easily transferable from one person to another. Fishers are foragers of wild food in an industry that is heavily regulated, with quotas, licenses and practices dictated by state and federal governments. And unlike farmers, they have no federally subsidized crop insurance to tide them over when their harvest is threatened by wild weather.

Read the full story at Newsday

New York awards offshore wind contracts as governor signs climate bill

July 19, 2019 — New York on Thursday awarded two major offshore wind contracts to Norway’s Equinor and a joint venture between Denmark’s Orsted and U.S. utility Eversource, procuring more of the renewable power than it had planned as part of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ambitious plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Cuomo made the announcement at a New York City news conference just before signing into law a landmark climate bill to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. The law mandates reducing emissions by 85% from 1990 levels by 2050, and offsetting the remaining 15%, making the state carbon-neutral.

Offshore wind is expected to play a key role in reducing the state’s emissions, and the state has a goal of procuring 9,000 megawatts (MW) by 2035. The two contracts unveiled on Thursday add up to 1,700 MW of capacity, or enough to power 1 million homes, Cuomo said. The state’s first procurement had originally planned to be between 800 and 1,200 MW.

Instead, it awarded an 880-MW contract to Orsted and Eversource for the Sunrise Wind project off the eastern coast of Long Island and another 816-MW contract to Equinor for its Empire Wind farm that will supply New York City.

Read the full story at Reuters