Saving Seafood

MAINE: Winds of Change, Pt. 1: How offshore wind will impact Maine’s economy, energy

March 22, 2023 — Offshore wind is coming to the Gulf of Maine.

It’s part of a push from state and federal government to develop renewable energy.

But how soon will the wind hit the water – and how will it benefit Mainers?

Details on the state’s vision in part one of a special report: “Winds of Change.”

The winds blowing off the Gulf of Maine are strong, and consistent. It’s gotten some thinking – what if there was a way to use this resource to benefit the whole state?

That’s only part of the premise outlined in Gov. Janet Mills’ Offshore Wind Roadmap – a document that spells plans for hundreds of wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine.

“We are striving for a balance that includes moving away from fossil fuels, continuing to support existing ocean industries and also providing additional economic opportunities throughout the state,” Stephanie Watson, the offshore wind program manager at the Governor’s Energy Office, said.

Offshore wind is just one way Maine is striving to meet its goal of using 100% renewable energy by 2050 – along with solar, onshore wind and storage.

Read the full article at WABI

Fishing industry: Millions more needed to support NOAA surveys amid wind development

March 21, 2023 — Two fishing industry groups have asked a Congressional committee to allocate tens of millions more in funds to NOAA Fisheries to help the agency mitigate impacts of offshore wind development on its long-standing federal fishery surveys, which inform management and ultimately the fishing quotas that are set each year.

A “huge concern” held by the fishing industry is offshore wind farms impacting or precluding survey vessels from navigating in and around wind farms in order to assess fish stocks, which could in turn impact data collection, explained Fiona Hogan, research director at the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), earlier this month at a panel on offshore wind in Maine.

If data is missing, lacking, or can no longer be collected in the same way, it could bias available information and regulators’ understanding, potentially leading to lower fishing quotas.

“[W]e are concerned that the dollar amount provided for the Scientific Survey Mitigation work is far too low given the rapid pace of [offshore wind] leasing and the number of scientific surveys that will be impacted,” wrote Annie Hawkins of RODA and Leigh Habegger of Seafood Harvesters of America in the March 17 letter to members of the Congressional Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Save LBI offshore wind farm suit could get dumped, but here is why it has one more chance

March 21, 2023 — Save Long Beach Island’s lawsuit to halt wind farms off the coast here is in jeopardy of being tossed from a federal district court in Washingtonn D.C.

U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case on March 9. However, she also allowed Save LBI’s request to submit an amended complaint. She gave the group 30 days to make the amendment or the case will be closed. The group has 2½ weeks left to do so.

Save LBI, a coalition formed to push proposed wind turbine projects farther from shore, filed its suit 14 months ago, claiming the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act when it created the wind farm lease sites off the New Jersey coast.

Read the full article at app.

I’m a fishing boat captain. Green energy companies, government want to put me out of business

March 20, 2023 — Offshore wind energy might be killing whales, but there’s no question it’s killing American fishermen.

I’ve been a fishing boat captain for over 20 years. I live on an island in Maine and sail out of New Bedford, Mass. My brothers and cousins are lobstermen.

Fishing is the trade our family has plied for generations. We’re proud to practice the founding craft of our nation. When colonists first settled New England, they looked to the sea to sustain them. And so it is for our coastal communities four centuries on.

Read the full article at Fox News

Offshore wind requires funding boost for NOAA surveys, science centers, advocates say

March 20, 2023 — Mitigating the effect of offshore wind development on federal scientific fisheries surveys requires a major increase in funding, potentially more than $120 million a year, according to a new request to Congress from industry advocates.

The Seafood Harvesters of America and Responsible Offshore Development Alliance say that money is needed to help offset the impacts of offshore on federal fisheries surveys – a cornerstone of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries management and conservation mission.

In a March 17 letter to a Congressional appropriations subcomittee, the groups recommend a price tag at $2 million a year for each of 31 fishery surveys managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service that will be affected by offshore wind projects, plus $10 million more for each of six NMFS regional science centers to address issues with wind energy developments.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW JERSEY: GOP congressmen: Halt offshore wind, probe whale deaths

March 19, 2023 — Republican congressmen called Thursday for a halt to all offshore wind power projects amid a spate of whale deaths on the U.S. East Coast in what was likely the beginning of an expected investigation by the GOP-controlled House into the Biden administration’s clean energy plans.

Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Christopher Smith, of New Jersey; Andy Harris, of Maryland; and Scott Perry, of Pennsylvania, held a hearing on the boardwalk in Wildwood near where New Jersey has authorized three offshore wind farms, with more to come.

The hearing came as 29 whales have died on the East Coast since Dec. 1.

Opponents of offshore wind, elected officials — most of them Republicans — and several community groups say they believe that preparatory work on the ocean floor has been responsible for the whale deaths, even though three federal and one state agency say there is no evidence that the two are related.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

NEW JERSEY: Four Congressmen Strongly Criticize Plans for Offshore Wind Projects

March 19, 2023 — Four congressmen and a panel of expert witnesses denounced plans for a series of offshore wind energy projects as a mass “industrialization” of the ocean that will cause environmental harm and could seriously damage the Jersey Shore’s tourism industry.

The congressional hearing Thursday at the Wildwoods Convention Center was packed with an overflow crowd of about 450 people, while dozens of others were not allowed to enter the auditorium because of crowd restrictions.

“Let us in. Let us in,” chanted the people who were forced to stand outside while the hearing got underway.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who headed the hearing, vowed that President Joe Biden and Gov. Phil Murphy’s Democratic administrations will face stiff opposition if they continue to support the development of wind farms off New Jersey and other East Coast states.

“This is not the last hearing, I tell you. We are not giving up on this,” said Van Drew, the Republican New Jersey congressman whose district includes the shore communities in Atlantic and Cape May counties.

Read the full article at OCNJDaily

NEW JERSEY: ‘No credible evidence’ that offshore wind activity is killing whales, state officials say

March 18, 2023 — The state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which has been quiet publicly on the recent spate of whale deaths, said Wednesday that it’s “aware of no credible evidence that offshore wind-related survey activities could cause whale mortality.”

“While DEP has no reason to conclude that whale mortality is attributable to offshore wind-related activities, DEP will continue to monitor,” the statement said.

The DEP’s statement came the day before two members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) and Chris Smith (R-NJ), and a member of Maryland’s congressional delegation, Rep. Andy Harris (D- MD), are to host a hearing titled “An Examination into Offshore Wind Industrialization” at the Wildwood Convention Center. The hearing is to gather testimony from local experts and stakeholders affected by offshore wind development along the East Coast.

Read the full article at app.

East Coast congressmen seek NOAA response on scientists’ offshore wind advice

March 16, 2023 — Four East Coast congressmen asked top Biden administration officials how their agencies responded to a May 2022 scientific recommendation for wider buffer areas around offshore wind projects to protect endangered whales.

In a joint letter Tuesday Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, both R-NJ, Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Andy Harris, R-Md., sought answers from leadership of the Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The request announced by Van Drew is a scene-setter for the southern New Jersey congressman’s March 16 public hearing in Wildwood, N.J., billed by Van Drew’s office as “an examination into offshore wind industrialization.”

It could be the first of Congressional hearings by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives into how the Biden administration is permitting offshore wind developments.

“There have been more than twenty whale deaths in just the past three months, an unprecedented number, yet this administration does not bat an eye,” Van Drew said Tuesday. “Despite calls for investigations as to why endangered whales keep washing up on our shores, this administration instead has decided to expand offshore wind development, allocating $60 million for projects in President Biden’s budget proposal.”

Offshore wind critics in Van Drew’s New Jersey coastal district have pointed to this winter’s strandings of humpback whales – a resurgent species along the Atlantic coast, unlike the highly endangered right whales – in demanding a moratorium on surveys to plan offshore wind projects off New Jersey.

They contend noise from geotechnical survey vessels may have disoriented the whales before their deaths, several determined by necropsy to have been caused by vessel strikes. NOAA officials reject those claims, saying the humpback strandings are part of a larger “unusual mortality event” that has been tracked since 2016.

So far this winter’s toll has included one right whale, a 20-year-old male washed up in Virginia, the apparent victim of a vessel strike.

The congressmen’s letter focuses on a May 2022 letter to BOEM from Sean Hayes, chief of protected species for NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

Read the full release at the National Fisherman

Van Drew, other Congress members call for answers on offshore wind and whales

March 15, 2023 — Two New Jersey congressmen, together representing a significant stretch of the New Jersey coastline, sent a letter Tuesday to Biden administration officials asking what has been done to reduce the potential harm to whales and other marine life from offshore wind projects.

“Offshore wind development and deployment stands to be a consequential national undertaking, which is why our approach should be done correctly the first time, with full consideration taken in order to mitigate negative impacts on marine species such as the North Atlantic right whale,” reads the letter, signed by U.S. Reps. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd, and Chris Smith, R-4th, along with Reps. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, and Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine.

The new letter cites a May 2022 internal federal letter raising concerns about the potential impact of wind farms on right whales, an extremely endangered whale.

Read the full article at the Press of Atlantic City