Saving Seafood

A Trump official said seismic air gun tests don’t hurt whales. So a congressman blasted him with an air horn.

March 8, 2019 — A hearing on the threat seismic testing poses to North Atlantic right whales was plodding along Thursday when, seemingly out of nowhere, Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.) pulled out an air horn and politely asked if he could blast it.

Before that moment at a Natural Resources subcommittee hearing, Cunningham had listened to a Trump administration official testify, over and over, that firing commercial air guns under water every 10 seconds in search of oil and gas deposits over a period of months would have next to no effect on the endangered animals, which use echolocation to communicate, feed, mate and keep track of their babies. It’s why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave five companies permission to conduct tests that could harm the whales last year, said the official, Chris Oliver, an assistant administrator for fisheries.

As committee members engaged in a predictable debate along party lines — Republicans in support of testing and President Trump’s energy agenda, Democrats against it — Cunningham reached for the air horn, put his finger on the button and turned to Oliver.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket fisherman: ‘Nothing good’ about offshore wind farm

March 8, 2019 — The only part of Vineyard Wind’s proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket waters is an undersea cable running from the turbines 14 miles southwest of the island through the Muskeget Channel to Covell’s Beach in Centerville.

But fisherman Dan Pronk is worried that the impact the 84 turbines would have on the underwater ecosystem and the fishing industry is tremendous.

“There’s nothing good about it,” he said.

Pronk has fished for lobsters, crab, squid and other fish around the island for the past 33 years. Fourteen miles to the southwest, where Vineyard Wind has leased federal waters for its wind farm, he sets up strings of lobster traps running east to west, spaced a half-mile apart.

Pronk is a fixed-gear fisherman, meaning his equipment stays in the water, as opposed to mobile-gear fishermen, who trail their nets behind their boats to catch fish. Most of Pronk’s gear is set up around the Vineyard Wind site, where he usually finds a good number of lobsters, he said.

“There’s no question that the lobsters, the shellfish, they’re all going to leave,” he said about the repetitive noise from pile-driving 84 turbine anchors 160 feet into the sea floor. “It’s going to essentially be like setting off atomic bombs in the ocean.”

The only time there would not be any construction on the turbines or the cable would be from Jan. 1 to April 30, after Vineyard Wind, in an agreement with the National Wildlife Federation and the Conservation Law Foundation, agreed to halt operations in order to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale during its yearly migration from southern waters.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Offshore wind developers court recreational fishing community

March 8, 2019 — Offshore wind energy developers are courting recreational fishermen in the New York Bight, who could gain dozens of new fishing spots around turbine towers, but worry about impacts of the massive projects on traditional fishing grounds.

“Obviously the hot button for us is access,” said charter captain Paul Eidman of Anglers for Offshore Wind Power, a project of the National Wildlife Federation, which hosted the meeting in Toms River, N.J., on Wednesday along with the American Littoral Society for offshore wind companies and recreational fishermen.

“There’s a lot being proposed to go out in the ocean and on the bottom,” said Tim Dillingham of the littoral society, adding that the developing industry must avoid critical fish habitat and seafloor bumps and ridges that are important to anglers and the region’s big charter and party boat fleet.

There are conflicted feelings in the recreational community. Many anglers want to see the new hard structure that turbine construction would put into the water, swiftly attracting hydroid and shellfish growth that become the base for new fishing hotspots, much like artificial reefs.

Read the full story at Workboat

Maryland Attorney General Frosh joins 8 other state AGs in seeking halt to underwater seismic testing for oil

March 7, 2019 — Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh announced Wednesday that a coalition of nine states that joined a federal lawsuit to prevent underwater seismic testing in the Atlantic Ocean is asking a judge to freeze the practice while the case proceeds.

The states in December joined a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in South Carolina by environmental groups seeking to reverse the authority that the National Marine Fisheries Service gave to five companies to conduct “seismic airgun surveys for oil and gas in coastal water” off the Atlantic Coast.

Now, the attorneys general are also supporting the request to halt that authorization as the case continues.

“The five authorizations allow nearly 850 combined days of around-the-clock activity, amounting to more than five million total seismic airgun blasts,” the original lawsuit states. “The authorized surveys will injure and disturb whales and dolphins hundreds of thousands of times, including critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.”

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

MASSACHUSETTS: Steering Committee Meeting SMAST Thursday March 14 at 2 pm

March 7, 2019 — The following was released by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth:

We would like to remind everyone of our Fishermen’s Steering Committee meeting on Thursday, March 14that 2:00 pm. The meeting will be held at SMAST East (836 South Rodney French Blvd, New Bedford, MA 02744) in Room 101/102, on the first floor.

The agenda for this meeting is:

(1) Funded 2019 RSA proposals

(2) Update on open codend work and the potential for a Georges Bank spring flatfish survey

(3) Recent developments in the planned windfarm areas

Please pass this announcement along to anyone that is not on the e-mail list that may be interested in attending. We welcome any additional suggestions for discussion, and as always, feel free to contact us with any questions.

N.J. fishermen and offshore wind firms learning to coexist

March 7, 2019 — Hunched over a laptop, Jeff Dement pointed to a virtual map showing lease areas for offshore wind off New Jersey’s coast.

He clicked on the legend and added a layer showing where scallop fishing overlaps with potential turbine locations.

“You could do this for days,” said Dement, fish tagging program director for the American Littoral Society, as he gave a tutorial of an online data portal published by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean.

A few anglers gathered behind him inside a conference room in the Ocean County Library, where offshore wind developers and fishers gathered Wednesday evening to discuss how the two groups can lessen proposed wind projects’ disturbance of wildlife.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

MASSACHUSETTS: Governor Baker touts promise of wind power, new technology

March 7, 2019 — New York recently set a long-term goal of generating 9,000 megawatts of energy from offshore wind power, while New Jersey plans to build 3,500 megawatts.

But Massachusetts is seeking to produce just 1,600 megawatts, a target critics say is too modest.

Some environmentalists had hoped that Governor Charlie Baker would announce a loftier goal Wednesday at a forum in Boston about the future of offshore wind power.

Instead, Baker spoke more broadly about his administration’s efforts to bring the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm to the waters off Martha’s Vineyard, a project that could begin by year’s end.

He also spoke about the promise of new battery technology that in a few years could make wind and other renewable energy reliable enough to replace fossil fuels.

“There’s a tremendous amount of momentum and enthusiasm about what’s possible with respect to deep-water wind off the East Coast,” Baker said at the forum, which was organized by the Environmental League of Massachusetts and State House News. “It’s a significant opportunity to dramatically improve our environment and to take literally millions of metric tons of emissions off the grid.”

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Maine gov won’t join group that supports offshore drilling

February 28, 2019 — Maine Gov. Janet Mills has reaffirmed her opposition to oil and gas drilling off the state’s coast by declining to participate in a governors’ group.

Mills, a Democrat, says Maine will not participate in the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition because of concerns about the toll drilling could take on the state’s environment and marine resources. Mills wrote in a letter to the group’s chair that its “work promoting the expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling is incompatible with Maine’s interests.”

Read the full story at the Associated Press

$2B offshore wind farm gets R.I. approval

February 27, 2019 — Vineyard Wind cleared a major hurdle on Tuesday when Rhode Island coastal regulators determined the $2-billion wind farm proposed in offshore waters to be consistent with state policies.

Although the 84-turbine project is planned in Atlantic Ocean waters south of Martha’s Vineyard where the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management holds lead permitting authority, it needs consistency certifications from the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council and its counterpart in Massachusetts primarily because it would affect the states’ fishing industries.

With the Massachusetts approval still under consideration, the decision from the Rhode Island coastal council represents a step forward for a project that has divided opinion and would have come as a relief to Vineyard Wind.

“It has a been a long process. It has been a very intense process. It has also been a process when emotions have run high from time to time,” said company CEO Lars Pedersen.

Even though the Rhode Island council ended up voting unanimously in favor of the wind farm, it was far from certain until just a few days ago whether Vineyard Wind would be able to secure the approval at all.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

Equinor Steps Up to Enhance Dialogue with Fisheries

February 27, 2019 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:

In an increased effort to promote the coexistence and collaboration between offshore wind development and the U.S. fishing industry, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) would like to announce that Equinor Wind US has joined its Joint Industry Task Force. The purpose of the task force is to develop recommendations for maximizing the compatibility of offshore wind development with the established fishing industry in the region.

The Joint Industry Task Force allows both industries to remain autonomous while facilitating conversations, utilizing the best available science, and providing a space for direct input to be discussed and generating novel solutions, as offshore development continues to move forward. In particular, the task force will focus on improving communications regarding operational and design elements of offshore wind energy development projects and commercial fishing practices.

This innovative partnership was created earlier this year. In order to ensure a productive and collaborative discussion, the vision of a complete joint industry task force will have fully inclusive representation from the region’s diverse fisheries and offshore wind energy developers. RODA invites any interested wind energy developers and commercial fishermen, or fishing industry businesses, to join in this endeavor.