Saving Seafood

Whale deaths in NC and along the East Coast have officials searching for answers

January 25, 2023 — On Jan. 7, a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale calf was found dead, wedged under a pier in Morehead City. In the previous month, three humpback whales washed up on beaches between Beaufort and the northern Outer Banks.

The four North Carolina deaths are part of at least 14 whales that have washed up on East Coast beaches since Dec. 1.

Federal officials, scientists and conservation groups have said there could be multiple factors contributing to the rise in whale strandings, including an increase in the population of the Western North Atlantic humpback whales.

But one idea that’s gained traction online and among some coastal residents and politicians is that huge offshore wind farms planned off many East Coast states, including North Carolina, could be harming the marine mammals. After nine whale deaths off their state in less than two months, several New Jersey GOP lawmakers have openly questioned if wind farms planned for the Garden State’s near-coastal waters are impacting the animals, with Fox News host Tucker Carlson calling the projects “the DDT of our times.”

Read the full article at Citizen Times

NORTH CAROLINA: Coastal federation’s lost fishing gear recovery program starts Monday

January 6, 2023 — This month, with the help of dozens of commercial fishermen and women, the N.C. Coastal Federation, based in Ocean, will begin efforts to find and remove potentially dangerous lost fishing gear. This is the ninth year the federation has held the annual Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project. Throughout the month watermen will scour parts of the northern and central coast looking to find and remove lost crab pots.

Every year, crab pots and other fishing gear are lost in our sounds in a variety of ways. Lost gear can get hung up or drift into channels, creating serious hazards to boaters, wildlife, and other fishermen. Since 2014, the federation has led the Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project in an effort to remove lost crab pots from North Carolina sounds.

With the help of various partners, commercial fishermen and women are hired to collect the pots during the annual closure of internal coastal waters to all crab, eel, fish, and shrimp pots, Jan. 1-31 north of the Highway 58 bridge to Emerald Isle.

Read the full article at Carolina Coast Online

North Carolina: Draft wind energy areas off NC coast may be downsized

December 6, 2022 — Proposed central East Coast offshore wind energy areas, including two off the northern North Carolina coast, may be scaled back in size by the time they are finalized early next year.

Sea scallop fishing, a NASA danger zone, a proposed shipping safety fairway, and marine habitat could further trim eight draft wind energy areas, or WEAs, the federal government is eyeing offshore from Delaware south to Cape Hatteras.

These areas encompass about 1.7 million acres, a little less than half of the original 3.9 million acres the Interior Department identified as potential wind energy areas.

Last month, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, opened a 30-day public comment period on the draft WEAs, including one area located about 28 miles offshore of southern Virginia and northern North Carolina and one about 50 miles from those coasts.

BOEM hosted two virtual meetings last week, giving members of the fishing community and environmental organizations an opportunity to ask questions about and comment on the draft WEAs.

Among some of the concerns raised during the meetings were potential impacts to Atlantic sea scallop fishing off Delaware’s coast and recreational fishing vessel businesses, possible effects on deep sea coral, and impacts to shorebirds and endangered right whales.

NORTH CAROLINA: Will North Carolina get offshore wind farms? Right now it’s up to one state commission

November 21, 2022 — There’s a swath of ocean just over the horizon off Oak Island, in the southeast corner of North Carolina, that one day could be home to hundreds of towering offshore wind turbines. The project, federal regulators say, could produce as much power as Duke Energy’s nearby Brunswick Nuclear plant.

Duke Energy won the rights to build a wind farm in one of two leases off the coast of Brunswick County and Myrtle Beach, called the Carolina Long Bay area. The company said that lease is not part of the sale it announced recently of its renewable energy business.

This is all part of a plan, passed last year by the General Assembly, to reduce carbon emissions from power companies by 70% by 2030 and make power generation carbon neutral by 2050.

But how that works, and what role offshore wind plays in North Carolina’s clean energy mix, is now in the hands of the state Utilities Commission. The commission, which oversees North Carolina power companies, has been taking comments and proposals for months.

“We know the absolute earliest we’ve seen anyone projecting offshore wind is in the 2030 timeframe,” said Katherine Kollins, a wind industry advocate who leads the Southeast Wind Coalition. “That still is a lot of lead time, more than I would like.”

Read the full article at Spectrum News

NORTH CAROLINA: Susan West, 73, remembered as longtime voice of NC fishers

November 15, 2022 — Susan West, a longtime advocate for the Hatteras Island fishing community and a writer who helped foster improved communications and respect between regulators and fishermen, died last week at age 73.

“She made sure that Hatteras and those small fishing communities were never left out of the conversation,” recalled Karen Willis Amspacher, director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island. “She made sure Hatteras was at the table.”

Amspacher, speaking Monday to Coastal Review, fondly remembered being able to pick up the phone to talk to her friend at 4:30 a.m., and engage in long conversations.

“She was the person I would call when I needed clarity and rational thought,” she said. “She understood people and she understood her community.”

West passed away unexpectedly Thursday at Outer Banks Hospital from complications from cancer treatment, said North Carolina Sea Grant Fisheries Extension Specialist Sara Mirabilio.

“She was a dear friend, personally and professionally,” she said, adding that besides working on fisheries issues together, they had a close bond as breast cancer survivors. West has been a part of Mirabilio’s life since she started working at Sea Grant in 2003, she said.

N.C. decides not to appeal to Supreme Court for review in lawsuit over marine fisheries regulations

October 14, 2022 — Glenn Skinner, executive director of the N.C. Fisheries Association, a trade and lobbying group for North Carolina commercial fishermen, said Thursday he was “surprised and a little confused” by the state’s decision this week not to appeal to the state Supreme Court to reverse a September Appeals Court ruling that allows the state to be sued for alleged failure to protect North Carolina’s fisheries.

“We don’t what we’re going to do right now,” Skinner said. “We’re sort of sitting here scratching our heads.”

The N.C. Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in September that the state chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, a recreational fishermen’s group that bills itself as an advocate for “sound management of public trust marine and estuarine resources,” could sue the state, rejecting the state’s claim of sovereign immunity.

Read the full article at Carteret County News-Times

EDITORIAL: Sunday’s Blessing of the Fleet, a revival of our coastal heritage

September 28, 2022 — Since 1997, the Blessing of the Fleet has honored fishermen and their families who continue to work the waters of North Carolina’s rivers, sounds, bays, and our ocean waters near and far. This service and the processional of (commercial fishing vessels) has reminded generations of local families of their own rich heritage that is embedded in the tradition of commercial fishing.

As today’s generation has gathered over the years, the Blessing has memorialized those men and women who plied these same waters, harvesting oysters and clams, working their nets and pots, building an industry of faith and fortitude that despite all odds, continues today – small, but prouder and more important than ever.

In today’s world, the value of “local” has brought new energy to the commercial fishing industry. A new generation of fishermen is now benefitting from a renewed appreciation for the values of local seafood, the heritage of families and communities it represents and the unmatched taste North Carolina seafood brings to their tables.

Read the full article at Carolina Coast Online

Court: Lawsuit accusing North Carolina of not protecting right to fish can proceed

September 7, 2022 — The North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously ruled the state can be sued for failing to protect the right of its citizens to fish.

Appeals Court Judge Toby Hampson on Tuesday published a 27-page opinion stating the lawsuit, Coastal Conservation Association v. North Carolina, could not be dismissed based on the state’s claim it possessed sovereign immunity in the matter.

The state contended it had no constitutional mandate to preserve the right of the people to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife for the public good. North Carolinians voted in 2018 to include in the state Constitution those specific rights.

Read the full article at The Center Square

How the climate bill would shift offshore wind in 4 states

August 10, 2022 — The Democrats’ climate bill would erase former President Donald Trump’s 10-year moratorium on offshore wind in the U.S. Southeast, but few experts are betting on a regionwide surge in projects.

Signed by Trump in 2020, the moratorium banned new leasing for all types of energy off the coasts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. It went into effect last month (Energywire, Sept. 29, 2020).

The “Inflation Reduction Act” — which the Senate passed over the weekend and is expected to be taken up by the House soon — would strip away the ban on offshore wind lease sales, while leaving it in place for oil and gas drilling.

But wind power has not generally experienced warm welcomes in the Southeast. Just one onshore wind farm — the Avangrid-owned Amazon Wind Farm near Elizabeth City, N.C. — currently generates electrons across the four moratorium states. Interest in offshore wind also has been mixed.

Lifting the moratorium may not transform that reality, even if Democrats’ climate bill becomes law, some clean energy advocates and environmentalists acknowledge.

In places such as Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, state officials largely haven’t enacted measures to promote offshore wind. This is in stark contrast to the state guarantees to buy offshore wind power that were crucial to the industry’s emergence in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic.

North Carolina stands out as the region’s clear exception, taking concrete steps to embrace the industry. One of its major utilities, Duke Energy, won the right to generate power from federal lease areas for offshore wind in May, as did French oil and gas major TotalEnergies SE. The state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, also has laid out specific targets for the sector: 2.8 gigawatts by 2030, and 8 gigawatts a decade later.

Across other states, however, little groundwork has been done to establish offshore wind’s foothold as a future resource. And it remains unclear if, or how quickly, official indifference might transform into boosterism.

In South Carolina, for instance, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster recently signed a law calling for a first study of how offshore wind’s need for locally made parts and staging ports could benefit the state economically.

That could help convince South Carolinians that their state is well positioned to host the industry, said Hailey Deres, program associate at the Southeastern Wind Coalition.

Read the full article at E&E News

2nd Interior lease sale boosts N.C. offshore wind

May 13, 2022 — Developers bet big on the prospect of offshore wind in North Carolina yesterday in an auction that accelerates the momentum of the Biden administration’s offshore wind thrust — and proves the industry aims to grow its footprint in the southern Atlantic.

After an all-day bidding war, French oil giant TotalEnergies SE and southern utility Duke Energy Corp. pledged a combined $315 million for the right to raise turbines in the sea off the state’s coast.

The two lease areas sold yesterday by the Interior Department could support an estimated 1.3 gigawatts of wind power between them and total 110,000 acres in federal waters roughly 20 miles south of North Carolina’s Bald Head Island. That’s enough to potentially power a half-million homes (Energywire, March 25).

The sale is part of the Biden administration’s push to raise hundreds of offshore wind turbines — 30 gigawatts of clean energy — on the outer continental shelf by 2030. Offshore wind is a critical lever in the White House’s larger climate ambitions, to decarbonize the nation’s grid by 2035 and zero out emissions economywide by midcentury.

But the robust sale that closed after 17 rounds of bidding was widely seen also as a success for the industry’s regional prospects and the sector’s growing potential footprint in the U.S. energy mix.

Read the full story at E&E News