Saving Seafood

SouthCoast Wind appeal highlights project’s risk

August 8, 2023 — SouthCoast Wind Energy LLC petitioned the Rhode Island Supreme Court on July 28. SouthCoast said that the unanimous decision of the Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board to suspend the review of the project’s permit application for its offshore power cable traversing the state “is contrary to law and should be vacated.”

SouthCoast Wind’s 149-turbine, 1,200-megawatt offshore wind farm project planned for federal waters over 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 20 miles south of Nantucket is in limbo. Power was to be delivered to several Massachusetts utilities until the company determined its power purchase agreements generated inadequate revenues to finance the project, so it moved to terminate the agreements.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

NEW JERSEY: The future of East Coast wind power could ride on this Jersey beach town

August 9, 2023 — Known as “America’s Greatest Family Resort,” this beachside city now has a new distinction: It has become the epicenter of opposition to wind energy projects off New Jersey and the East Coast.

Residents of Ocean City and surrounding Cape May County, helped by an outside group opposed to renewable energy, are mobilizing to stop Ocean Wind 1, a proposal to build up to 98 wind turbines the size of skyscrapers off the New Jersey coast, which could power half a million homes.

The future of East Coast wind energy could hang in the balance. If opponents succeed, they hope to create a template for derailing some 31 offshore wind projects in various stages of development and construction off the East Coast, a key part of President Biden’s plan to reduce greenhouse emissions that are driving global climate change.

“We have a lot of leverage,” said Frank Coyne, treasurer of Protect Our Coast NJ, which gathered over 500,000 signatures on a petition opposing proposed wind farms. “The objective is to hold them up and make the cost so overwhelming that they’ll go home.”

Read the full article at the Washington Post

4 new offshore wind power projects proposed for New Jersey Shore; 2 would be far out to sea

August 8, 2023 — Wind power developers proposed four new projects off the New Jersey Shore on Friday, a surge that would more than double the number of wind farms built off its coast if they are approved by regulators.

At least two of them are more than twice as far out to sea than others that have drawn the ire of residents who don’t want to see windmills on the horizon. These two would not be visible from the beach, the companies proposing them say.

They would join three wind farms already approved by New Jersey regulators as the state races to become the East Coast capital of the fast-growing offshore wind industry.

In the first project to be made public Friday by the companies proposing it, Essen, Germany-based RWE and New York-based National Grid applied for permission to build a wind farm in the waters off Long Beach Island. Their joint venture is called Community Offshore Wind, and it aims to generate enough electricity to power

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Fishermen, activists protesting offshore wind projects on the East Coast: ‘A manmade environmental disaster’

August 8, 2023 — Critics are sounding the alarm on the ecological consequences of the Biden administration’s green energy agenda, specifically the increase marine wildlife deaths in conjunction with offshore wind farms.

Activists along with local fishermen are particularly concerned about the rise in whale and dolphin beaching.

“What we’re seeing is a failure to properly manage the situation,” Rhode Island fisherman Chris Brown said on “The Bottom Line” Wednesday.

“The whales have been migrating from their southern stations during the spring up through the mid-Atlantic region, and they didn’t even slow down the acoustic carpet bombing. And as a result, the Atlantic was littered with the dead whales and dolphins and sharks. There doesn’t seem to be any environmental concern. This is a manmade environmental disaster that’s unfolding. I expect that it will half a whale population in 10 years and probably the same for our fish.”

So far this year, more than 30 dead whales and 30 dead dolphins have washed up on the East Coast.

Brown is among those protesting and calling on leadership to consider the consequences of such an aggressive green energy push.

Other activists including the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) have staged protests at offshore wind farms such as the South Fork Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island.

Read the full article at Fox Business

More Offshore Wind Turbines Could be on the Way to Ocean City

August 4, 2023 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has identified three new Wind Energy Areas or WEAs. They lie off the coasts of Delaware, Virginia and Maryland.

For Ocean City leaders, this new proposal does not seem to be as controversial as US Winds, and it is all about the distance. The new site would be 23.5 nautical miles Southeast of Ocean City’s coastline. Essentially running parallel to Assateague.

“That’s a lot better than 11.9 miles, as is currently being proposed in the lease area for US Wind,” said Rick Meehan, Ocean City’s mayor.

Back in July the town hired an outside firm to look at US Wind’s proposal and deem if it is responsible. The end goal would be getting US Wind to move its turbines back. And now, the town can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Read the full article at WBOC

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind isn’t a partisan issue. This is how real NJ people will be impacted

August 4, 2023 — Much has been written and reported about the plans to build offshore wind turbine developments off the East Coast of the United States. Proponents argue that clean energy is better for the environment, more affordable, that in areas where these systems will operate they will generate jobs and that other countries have already installed offshore wind turbines. Opponents argue that the turbine developments will affect the economy of shore communities, commercial and recreational fishing, marine mammals and birds, public safety and national security. Some proponents have even gone so far as to mislabel and attack the opponents of offshore wind as partisan and backed by oil companies, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, the rush to set up offshore wind has been advanced only by partisan politics and internationally backed lobbying efforts without studying the impact these turbines will have in their current planned placement in many cases less than 15 miles from our shores.

Our legislators must take the time to understand the implications of what thousands of turbines will do to our oceans, marine mammals, national security, navigation commercial and recreational fishing and coastal economies before moving forward.

The thousands of turbines planned for the shores of Massachusetts and New Jersey should not be the case studies to learn the good, the bad and the ugly of offshore wind. Those who live in coastal communities who have taken the time to learn the facts about offshore wind do not want these turbines built in the oceans. In fact, in February, 50 coastal mayors signed onto a letter calling for a moratorium on these developments.

Current plans for the next decade alone include building 3,411 turbines and 9,874 miles of cable directly in the migration path of the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, a species on the brink of extinction with only an estimated 350 left in the world. If the NARW does survive the multi-year construction of the turbines, will they be able to survive the noise these thousands of turbines will generate while in operation?

The currently slated turbines and cables are planned to be built across 2,400,000 acres of federally managed ocean and there are other plans to then lease an additional 1,700,000 acres, according to a recent Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management “Vineyard Wind” Offshore Wind Energy Project draft environmental impact statement. One planned wind energy area off the coast of Rhode Island is larger than the state itself.

Read the full article at northjersey.com

Vineyard Wind wind plans to deliver power in mid-October

August 3, 2023 — The first clean wind power generated by the Vineyard Wind 1 project is expected to flow onto the regional grid by mid-October and the first-in-the-nation offshore wind project should be fully operational by this time next year, project officials said Wednesday during a boat tour of the construction.

Project developers have maintained for years that the $4 billion project they are building about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard would start to generate cleaner energy by the end of 2023, but they told a group of state lawmakers, clean energy advocates, organized labor representatives and others that the target is now mid-October, or just over two months from now.

At first, the project will send power generated by a string of six turbines onto the grid, totaling about 78 megawatts, with plans to ramp the project up to between 200 and 300 MW by the end of the year and full commercial operations of 806 MW expected by mid-2024, according to Sy Oytan, Avangrid’s chief operating officer for offshore wind.

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, began offshore construction activities in June by setting the foundations for the 62 turbines that will make up the project that has been years in the making.

On Wednesday, about 15 representatives and two senators were among those who got to see the progress of that construction from aboard the Captain John and Son II, which was chartered for the tour by Avangrid, the Environmental League of Massachusetts and the New England for Offshore Wind Coalition.

When they are fully assembled, each of Vineyard Wind 1’s 62 turbines will stretch about 850 feet above the Atlantic Ocean — taller than any building in New England. There was not much to see in the way of towers or turbines Wednesday — those on the boat tour saw a series of foundations with “transition pieces” sticking up out of the water, each arranged one nautical mile away from others in a grid pattern.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Delaware is considering offshore wind as feds approve 100,000 acres off the state’s coast

August 3, 2023 — The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced this week the creation of a more than 100,000 acres off the coast of Delaware that could potentially be used for offshore wind. It would be an opportunity for the state to tap a renewable energy source most other states along the East Coast have already embraced.

The action comes after Delaware recently took its own small step toward exploring what that form of renewable energy might entail, but the state still lags years behind neighboring states, such as Maryland and New Jersey, in planning for offshore wind.

The Delaware offshore wind area encompasses 101,767 acres that lie 26.4 nautical miles (30 miles) from Delaware Bay at an average depth of 121 feet. The area is prime territory for surf clam and scallop fishing. According to a BOEM map, the area is off the midpoint of the bay, with Cape May just to the north.

What are the wind areas?

The BOEM announced the new wind energy areas Monday for locations within the outer continental shelf off Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. If all of the areas were developed for offshore wind, they could support between 4 and 8 gigawatts of energy production, enough to power millions of homes.

The announcement of the areas within federal waters is meant to facilitate the development of wind farms. But they’re not automatically authorized. BOEM would still need to bid for leases and conduct environmental reviews.

And Delaware would have to create policies, choose a developer, and ensure any projects get connected to an electrical grid to bring power onshore.

The BOEM announcement comes as part of President Joe Biden’s goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030. The BOEM is currently accepting public comments on the leases and has posted related documents online.

Read the full article at The Philadelphia Inquirer 

Food Fight: Offshore Wind a Risk to Cultural Fabric, Fishing Industry of LBI

August 2, 2023 — Discussions about the impact of wind farms planned off the coast of New Jersey have been in the broad sense recently, but last week two commercial fishermen brought it home to Long Beach Island.

“Our lives are on the line. We wonder whether we are going to pay our bills,” said Kirk O. Larson, who has spent more than five decades on the water as a commercial fisherman, while serving as Barnegat Light mayor for more than 30 years. “It’s not for lack of product. It’s for the brashness of these people from Europe to just come in and push us around, buy up all our fishery services people, who are quitting their jobs to go work for offshore wind companies. They are taking the best of the best.”

Larson spoke as a member of the public at the July 26 standing-room-only Save LBI forum on the promises and realities of offshore wind at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences in Loveladies.

The Atlantic Shores offshore wind project is comprised of three phases, with the first phase expected to be approved later this year. It includes 120 turbines to be placed in the Atlantic Ocean with phase two calling for the placement of 80 turbines; phase three has 157 turbines, according to a presentation by Bob Stern, president of Save LBI.

As proposed, the wind farm would see 1,000-foot-high turbines between 9½ and 13½ miles offshore the entire length of LBI, extending farther eastward into the Atlantic Ocean. While offshore construction is expected to begin later in the decade, an exact date has not yet been set.

The project is a 50-50 partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America. It was formed in December 2018 to co-develop nearly 183,353 acres of leased sea area on the Outer Continental Shelf, located within the New Jersey Wind Energy Area.

“Everything is being affected. The only thing you see are the big things washing ashore on the beach,” Larson said, referencing humpback whales and dolphins that washed up on Jersey Shore beaches earlier this year. “I’ve heard they have tugboats now pulling whales offshore, so we don’t see any of them this summer. I mean this has happened. These people have money; they have clout. They have the government on their side – the federal government, the state government.

Read the full article at The Sand Paper

Leeman: Maine must hit pause on offshore wind turbines

August 2, 2023 — You wouldn’t buy a house without an inspection, so why would we fill the Gulf of Maine with wind turbine superstructures without understanding how they interact with the marine environment?

Offshore wind energy features too many unknowns to proceed at this point with widescale ocean industrialization. That’s why my organization, the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) has joined with partner organizations to call on state and federal authorities to reset our renewable energy policy.

The state of Maine is developing a floating offshore wind research array at a 15-square-mile site in the Gulf of Maine. NEFSA and its allies are asking state and federal authorities to delay any further development until experts have monitored and studied the research array. We should rescind the existing Gulf of Maine Call Area and conduct an environmental review for the Gulf of Maine before identifying any commercial wind energy areas.

I’ve been a fishing boat captain for over 20 years. I sailed out of New Bedford, Mass., and have scores of fishermen in my family lineage. From generation to generation, we have upheld a legacy of environmental stewardship and economic dynamism that has maintained the fishing industry in the Gulf of Maine while providing billions for New England’s economy. But every principle of stewardship and hard work we have upheld to preserve our maritime heritage is in jeopardy and could force our region into oblivion.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald