Saving Seafood

New Jersey: Despite criticism, lawmakers advance big tax win for offshore-wind developer

June 28, 2023 — Ørsted’s bid to obtain lucrative federal tax credits to fend off mounting challenges in building New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm moved forward under legislation approved by lawmakers Tuesday as they cleared bills ahead of this week’s deadline for a new state budget.

But the bill was amended by a Senate committee, requiring its Assembly counterpart to go along with the changes at another meeting planned for Wednesday. The imminent passage was hailed early Tuesday evening by Tim Sullivan, CEO of the Economic Development Authority, who called the offshore-wind sector the biggest single net economic opportunity in New Jersey.

After a six-hour meeting, the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee voted out an amended version of the bill despite criticism that it would end up boosting the Danish energy company’s profits at the expense of utility customers.

Read the full article at NJ Spotlight News

Fishing, tourism dominate at Atlantic Shores public hearing

June 27, 2023 — Potential impacts on fishing, property values and tourism loomed large among critics of the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project during a virtual public hearing held by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The online proceedings during more than five hours Monday pitted those views against project supporters, who focused on climate change and how it will affect the densely populated New Jersey coastline.

BOEM’s draft environmental assessment for the Atlantic Shores project off Atlantic City runs over 6,000 pages. Opponents are asking the agency to extend a 45-day public comment period past July 3, insisting the public needs more time to understand the proposal and its implications.

With turbines standing 574 feet above sea level at their rotor hubs and 1,047 feet high at the blade tips, the future visual impact – amply illustrated by simulated images in the DEIS document – is alarming seaside homeowners and the tourism industry.

“Frankly, all of us have bought a view,” said homeowner Paul Snyderman. “Everyone living at or near the shore has made an investment.”

BOEM workers said the DEIS document notes alternatives to reduce the visual impacts seen from shore. Removing 31 turbines from the array would move the first visible machines out from 8.7 nautical miles offshore to 12.75 miles, for example. Those options include restricting the height of turbines to 522 feet at the hubs and 932 feet at the blade tips.

The Atlantic Shores plan would cover some 885 acres of natural sandy bottom – habitat for scallops and surf clams – with rock dumped to protect turbine foundations, said Blair Bailey, general counsel for the Port of New Bedford, Mass. New Bedford is the top East Coast port for scallop landings, with Cape May and Barnegat Light, N.J., not far behind.

“No one has any idea what the impact of offshore wind with be on commercial fishing,” said Bailey, citing a joint report by the industry group Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, BOEM and NMFS issued in March.

Offshore wind advocates who see unreasonable fears among critics need to understand “the fishermen have a fear of uncertainty,” said Bailey.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW YORK: First monopile foundation completed for New York offshore wind project

June 26, 2023 — Yesterday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that South Fork Wind, New York’s first offshore wind farm, has achieved its “steel in the water” milestone with the installation of the project’s first monopile foundation.

Later this summer, South Fork Wind will install the project’s U.S.-built offshore substation. The project remains on-track to become the first U.S. utility-scale offshore wind farm to be completed in federal waters. The goal of the project is to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035.

The announcement comes just two weeks after the completion of the first monopile foundation at Vineyard Wind 1, the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind project.

The two projects will be staged out of the ports of New London, Conn., and New Bedford, Mass., using local labor and supply chain participants. Additional foundation components for South Fork Wind were fabricated in Providence, R.I. Advancement of the South Fork Wind project includes additional key U.S. milestones, as the project includes the first U.S.-built substation for offshore wind and will be serviced by the ECO Edison, the first U.S.-built service operation vessel for offshore wind.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

A federal bill would ban wind power development in key fishing area off Maine coast

June 26, 2023 — U.S. Rep. Jared Golden has introduced a bill that would bar commercial offshore wind energy development in a key fishing area along the coast of Maine.

The bill would prevent the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management from potentially hurting the fishing and lobstering industries in Maine, said Golden, D-2nd District. The legislation would ban wind energy development in Lobster Management Area 1, which is the zone closest to shore and stretches along the entire coast of Maine. The bill also would launch an assessment of how federal agencies like the BOEM and the National Marine Fisheries Service study the effects of offshore wind development and engage with industry groups.

Maine has a long, complex relationship with such attempts to harness the power of distant sea breezes to generate electricity.

There are currently a variety of plans across the state to create both public and private offshore wind farms. The Governor’s Energy Office wants to lease a site 45 miles from Portland in the Gulf of Maine to create the nation’s first floating offshore wind research site.

A developer also is working with University of Maine researchers to build a commercial-size floating wind turbine off the coast of Maine. And the Governor’s Energy Office is thinking about turning a portion of Sears Island, off Searsport, into a center for assembling and servicing wind turbines.

However, the attempts all require a massive build-out of the state’s infrastructure. Wind turbines would have to float in the Gulf of Maine because the waters are too deep to allow the structures to be anchored to the seabed. And an attempt to build a commercial-size floating wind turbine project might be scrapped because it’s too large, complicated and expensive.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

NEW JERSEY: Controversial New Jersey Offshore Wind Developer Asking For More Taxpayer Funds

June 27, 2023 — According to a Politico article by Ry Rivard, the Danish wind developer responsible for constructing New Jersey’s first industrial offshore wind farm is seeking additional funds from state taxpayers before proceeding with their project to industrialize the state’s inshore waters.

Rivard reported from a Board of Public Utilities (BPU) meeting, where the five-member board began accepting proposals for new wind farms off the coast of New Jersey. During the meeting, it was revealed that the governor and the wind developer were renegotiating previously agreed-upon terms.

The negotiations between the Murphy administration and Ørsted, the Danish energy giant, have been ongoing to ensure the financial sustainability of the state’s first offshore wind farm. Ørsted is seeking to modify a portion of the 2019 deal made with the BPU, citing factors such as inflation, interest rates, and supply chain challenges. However, the specific details of Ørsted’s requests from the state have not been disclosed publicly. Two BPU commissioners revealed that Ørsted aims to retain federal tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, which could cover up to 40% of construction costs.

Read the full article at Shores News Network

BOEM’s Atlantic Shores public sessions dilute, but don’t deter criticisms

June 24, 2023 — Local groups opposing New Jersey offshore wind projects hoped this week’s public meetings on the Atlantic Shores development would be a platform for voicing their strenuous objections.

But the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held the first session Wednesday evening in a highway Holiday Inn hotel in Manahawkin, N.J., in the style of an informal informational session, rather than a formal public hearing on its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) on Atlantic Shores.

Dozens of visitors, many of them seaside residents from nearby Long Beach Island, made a circuit of poster presentations. Presentations on how turbines will be visible from the beach – and the project’s impact on marine mammals – attracted the most attention.

Some visitors went toe-to-toe debating with BOEM staffers and agency contractors about the DEIS findings. Others, who had hoped for publicly making their cases before an audience, were dismissive of the proceedings.

“Typically BOEM. Totally tone-deaf,” said Greg DiDomenico, a fisheries management specialist with Lund’s Fisheries in Cape May, N.J.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: Maine congressman’s bill to block wind power from Lobster Management Area 1

June 23, 2023 — Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, introduced a bill in Congress that would block commercial offshore wind development from Lobster Management Area 1, and require a new study of how federal agencies are conducting environmental reviews for potential wind projects in the Gulf of Maine.

“BOEM’s decision not to remove one of the most lucrative and productive fishing grounds in the region from consideration for commercial offshore wind projects is just the latest in a series of unrelenting challenges to Maine fishermen,” Golden said in announcing the bill Thursday. “Prohibiting commercial wind development in LMA 1 protects Maine fishermen’s way of life and of making a living for their families and their communities, just as they have for generations.”

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has identified more than 9.8 million areas of federal waters in the Gulf of Maine for consideration as wind energy areas for future leasing to developers. The agency included LMA 1 “and areas closed seasonally or permanently to protect the North Atlantic right whale, as potential commercial offshore wind sites,” according to Golden. “Prohibiting offshore wind development in LMA 1 would help to avoid conflict with the New England commercial and recreational fishing industries.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NEW JERSEY: How dead whales became the symbol of a political battle in NJ and elsewhere

June 22, 2023 — Cindy Zipf wears a whale pendant around her neck each day to work at her office at Clean Ocean Action in Long Branch, touching the necklace and worrying that at any moment, another whale will wash onto a beach somewhere in New Jersey.

It was Zipf who first sounded the alarm on Jan. 9, two days after a second humpback whale washed ashore dead in Atlantic City, making it at the time the sixth dead whale in New York and New Jersey since Dec. 1. Zipf held a press conference in Atlantic City calling for President Joe Biden to step in and do an immediate federal investigation and halt offshore wind farm activities. Biden did not answer.

The press event thrusted whales into the crossfires of a contentious, often partisan political debate over the wind farms that re-ignites every time a marine mammal strands. And during this past winter and early spring, an abnormal amount of cetaceans have washed up to roil public opinion one way or the other.

Read the full article at app.

Port facilities must be part of Maine’s offshore wind strategy

June 22, 2023 — Tony Buxton is a partner with Preti Flaherty. He represents New England Aqua Ventus and Pine Tree Offshore Wind, developing the Monhegan Project and the Maine Research Array, respectively.

Gov. Janet Mills’ Offshore Wind Initiative in 2021 negotiated a historic bipartisan legislative compromise to facilitate offshore wind development while protecting the Gulf of Maine from threats to fisheries and lobstering. The compromise banned offshore wind in Maine waters, mandated a power contract to enable construction and operation of the Maine Research Array and established the Maine Offshore Wind Research Consortium, all to protect our iconic Gulf of Maine resources, relying on both science and common sense.

The compromise continued Maine’s decades of preparation for offshore wind development to come to the Gulf of Maine’s vast and wind-rich federal waters over which Maine has no legal control. The paired objectives of resource protection and deliberate offshore wind development remain wise.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

NEW JERSEY: Cape May County to Host Forum in Battle Against Wind Farm

June 22, 2023 — Opponents of a proposed offshore wind energy farm are intensifying their legal, political and public relations campaign against a project they say will create a “superhighway of windmills” in the ocean.

In the latest salvo against the Ocean Wind 1 project, Cape May County will hold an online forum on Saturday to present more arguments against the wind farm planned 15 miles off the South Jersey coast.

Cape May County Commission Director Leonard Desiderio, who is also the Sea Isle City mayor, said in a statement Wednesday that the wind farm forum will be a “factual presentation of our many concerns about the Orsted windmill projects.”

“We believe that the plan to create a superhighway of windmills should be subject to more specific and serious studies to answer the questions about the whale and dolphin deaths and other serious negative environmental and economic impacts that are likely to occur,” he said. “And if those studies show that our losses will be severe, then these windmills should not be built.”

The online forum closely follows the county’s hiring of more law firms to oppose the project in court and also to challenge state and federal regulatory permits needed for the wind farm.

The public is invited to join the livestreamed forum on Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon. The attendees will learn more about the potential negative impacts of Orsted’s Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 offshore wind projects. The link Capewindinfo.com will go live at 10 a.m.

Read the full article at OCNJDaily