Saving Seafood

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind sails past regulatory hurdle

May 2, 2023 — New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm has cleared some significant hurdles in building the project planned for 15 miles off the state’s southern coast.

The state Department of Environmental Protection last week issued a series of permits for the Ocean Wind I project, the initial permits issued for construction and operation of the facility, including a “federal consistency determination” in line with policies of the Coastal Management Zone Plan.

The approvals came as a controversy over the state’s push to build an offshore wind industry continues. Dead marine mammals have been washing ashore on beaches in the metropolitan area, a problem some critics blame on the increased activity of offshore wind surveying vessels.

Marine scientists strongly dispute those assertions. And last week, DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette denied any link could be made to the deaths of whales and dolphins and the emerging offshore wind sector.

Read the full story at NJ Spotlight News

Work has started on major offshore wind farm that would power Rhode Island. What to know.

May 2, 2023 — The developers of Rhode Island’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm are still waiting on approvals for the 704-megawatt project, but that’s not stopping them from starting work on pieces of it.

Ørsted and Eversource welcomed Gov. Dan McKee, the Rhode Island congressional delegation and other officials to the Port of Providence on Monday to mark the beginning of fabrication of some of the key components of the towering wind turbines that will be installed in the waters between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard as part of Revolution Wind.

The companies set up shop a year and a half ago in the port, where they built a regional hub that is supplying parts to a host of wind farms planned off southern New England.

‘Jobs of the 21st century’

First up for the facility was the South Fork Wind Farm, a 130-megawatt, 12-turbine array already under construction that will help power Long Island. Now comes Revolution, the 65-turbine project that would deliver energy to Rhode Island and Connecticut. Sunrise Wind, an 880-megawatt proposal to also supply New York, is expected to follow. And, if all goes as planned, a second, even bigger phase of Revolution would come.

It’s all part of a long-term vision to not only generate cleaner sources of power to help meet the nation’s climate goals, but also position Rhode Island as a manufacturing base for offshore wind development.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

NOAA making vessel traffic data more accessible to public

April 28, 2023 — Escalating debates over siting offshore wind energy projects has made stakeholders reliant on Coast Guard vessel traffic data to scope out potential conflicts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been making improvements and new online tools to open that knowledge to a wider public.

The Automatic Identification System that tracks vessel movements with transponders on ships has helped create an “AIS database of 30 billion-plus vessel locations has become the go-to resource for maritime planners and ocean geospatial tech experts,” according to a recent summary from NOAA.

That data is a base for a NOAA website, MarineCadastre.gov . Cadastre is the ancient system of metes-and-bounds surveying of real estate on land.

For the ocean, NOAA developed the tool AccessAIS to help users access AIS data and more from MarineCadastre.gov on birds, economics, boundaries, federal regulations and other factors in planning.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

U.S. identifies Gulf of Maine area for offshore wind development

April 26, 2023 — President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday said it had finalized an area of nearly 10 million acres in the Gulf of Maine for potential offshore wind development, a major step toward expanding the industry into northern New England.

The announcement was the latest milestone in the government’s plan to put wind turbines along every U.S. coastline to help displace fossil fuel for power generation and fight climate change

In a statement, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it would kick off a 45-day period for public comment on the area, which sits off the coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

The final “call area” was identified after soliciting feedback from tribes, states, the Department of Defense, fishing and shipping industries and the public. It is nearly 30% smaller than the area BOEM identified in an initial “Request for Interest” last year.

Read the full article at Reuters

NEW YORK: Recuiting underway on Long Island as work on offshore wind farm begins

April 26, 2023 –The nation’s first large offshore wind farms are being built off of New York.

It’s a fast-growing industry looking to hire thousands of people.

CBS2’s Carolyn Gusoff went to a forum on Long Island that is matching local companies and job seekers with opportunities.

New York is leading the nation in offshore wind projects planned, and here come the jobs.

The first of 10,000 were previewed Tuesday at a Brentwood forum for local companies and a future workforce.

Read the full article at CBS

North Atlantic Right Whale, Harbor Seals Focus of New Offshore Wind Studies

April 26, 2023 — State environmental officials and utility regulators announced last week their coordinated Offshore Wind Research and Monitoring Initiative requested an updated proposal for the deployment of “archival passive acoustic monitoring equipment to understand better the distribution and habitat space of the baleen whale species, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale,” off the coast.

RMI is administered by the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection and the Board of Public Utilities. In a joint statement April 19, officials said the updated request for proposal is part of a larger project that includes coordination with other state, regional and federal agencies looking to protect marine mammals as offshore wind lease areas develop on the Eastern Seaboard.

Read the full article at The Sand Paper

Panel: Climate change, not wind prep, is threat to whales

April 25, 2023 — Climate change, spurred by the burning of fossil fuels, is the biggest danger to marine life including whales, a panel of Democratic officials and environmental groups said Monday.

The gathering, held in an oceanfront conference room as a half-dozen dolphins frolicked in the ocean behind them, also strongly criticized a bill in the House of Representatives containing numerous incentives for oil and gas companies, and which eliminates several environmental protections currently in effect.

It also was a retort to opponents of offshore wind development, who claim that preparation for wind farms off New Jersey and New York are killing whales along the U.S. East Coast. Numerous federal and state agencies say there is no evidence that the deaths are related to offshore wind survey work.

The event came a week after U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. and other New Jersey Congressional Democrats wrote to the White House Council on Environmental Quality “demanding real solutions in response to the death of marine mammals off New Jersey’s coast.”

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

RHODE ISLAND: 4 hours not enough for vote on Revolution Wind proposal in R.I.

April 25, 2023 — People have a lot to say about the Revolution Wind offshore wind project proposal.

In fact, they have so much to say that even after a four-hour meeting Tuesday night, the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council had to adjourn instead of voting on whether the agency should sign off on the proposal. The room in a Department of Administration building in Providence was only available until about 10 p.m., and as the clock neared that hour, the chair of the CRMC asked how many more people wanted to speak. At least a half-dozen hands shot up.

Instead of continuing to push it, the council set a new date: May 9. Public input will pick back up then.

CRMC had heard from the developer, from an advisory board for fishers who are concerned about the project and say more needs to be done to accommodate for the effects on their way of life, and then from members of the public on both sides of the divide before the meeting ended.

Revolution Wind would bring 400 megawatts of power to Rhode Island and 304 to Connecticut, the first utility-scale project to bring power directly to Rhode Island. Though it’s in federal waters, the CRMC has the authority to certify whether the project is consistent with its coastal policies, a crucial part of the regulatory process that will also have to go to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The developers have proposed a nearly $13 million fund to compensate for potential effects on fishers, which could be boosted by as much as $5 million if the effects are worse than thought. If the effects are less than thought, the developer would recoup up to $2.5 million.

Advocates said the proposal is necessary as Rhode Island tries to confront climate change, while the Fishermen’s Advisory Board, an internal panel that advises the CRMC, asked for additional mitigation measures.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Comments to The Light: Intense reaction to wind/fishing investigation

April 25, 2023 — New Bedford Light readers reacted strongly to our investigation into offshore wind and what impacts it could have on the fishing industry, and to the opinion piece critical of the story.

Here’s what you had to say:

“Wind is renewable but turbines are not. They require massive amounts of fossil fuel to produce and the destruction of massive amounts of habitat. Climate change is a symptom of industrial development. So these machines will only compound the problem. Energy capturing devices kill wildlife and no amount of greenwashing can change that fact. Destroying the planet to save it makes no sense.”

— Carl van Warmerdam

“I’m sorry to say that this is a pretty weak story. There are many people here making dire claims — but I don’t see any evidence. This would be OK if this technology were new, but it most certainly is not. Britain and in particular Denmark, which has a large fishing fleet, has a lengthy offshore wind track record. Instead of just quoting lots of upset people, why not dig up the scientific evidence from those long-extant projects? Tell us what damage these turbines have done in salt water environments there, and then tell us how those projects will compare to what’s projected here. By now you should be presenting us with lots of evidence rather than just sowing the seeds of fear. Additionally, I’d like to know a lot of the data about offshore turbines and birds and bats. I was very surprised to know that there’s lots of evidence of bats out on some of these turbines. What’s going on there? If you’re gonna do a ProPublica thing, you need to dig a couple of layers deeper here.”

— Wendy Williams

“The cod are gone, fished to the point of collapse. The water is warming and lobsters have moved out. Sea level rise threatens our shores and cities. It is either stop burning carbon or render large areas of the planet uninhabitable. Wind turbines offer a path to that goal. We need to do this.”

— William Trimble

“Offshore wind is a boondoggle that will only benefit government fat cats, China and a few investors. It will NEVER produce significant steady reliable electrical power. The power can’t be stored, it will require rapid start/stop backup power to compensate for when the wind does not blow, the equipment has an at best 10-15 year working life cycle and can’t be recycled effectively. The impacts on the biosphere near it (air currents and temperatures, ocean currents and temperatures, sediments, nutrients, electromagnetic fields near turbines and cables, bottom ecosystem damage, etc) will be immense to $500+ million fisheries. Also it requires rare earth minerals that are NOT sustainably and fairly harvested.”

 — Andy Carr

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Biden admin is rushing to industrialize US oceans to stop climate change: ‘Environmental wrecking ball’

April 25, 2023 — The Biden administration is pushing full steam ahead to massively expand offshore wind development across millions of acres of federal waters, actions that critics warn would have dire ecological and economic impacts.

Days after taking office, President Biden issued an executive action ordering his administration to expand opportunities for the offshore wind industry as part of his aggressive climate agenda to curb greenhouse gas emissions and stop global warming. Months later, he outlined goals to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, the most ambitious goal of its kind worldwide.

“Two years ago, President Biden issued a bold challenge to move America towards a clean energy future,” Deb Haaland, the secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI), said earlier this month. “The Interior Department answered that call and is moving rapidly to create a robust and sustainable clean energy economy with good-paying union jobs.”

In May 2021, the DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project 12 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, marking the first ever large-scale offshore wind approval. Then, in November 2021, the agency approved the 130-megawatt Southfork Wind project off the coast of Long Island, New York, the second commercial-scale offshore project.

Read the full article at Fox News