Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford about to become hub for offshore wind

August 24, 2020 — New Bedford is about to become home to the first port in North America built specifically for the staging and installation of offshore wind projects.

The state has announced lease agreements with Vineyard Wind and Mayflower Wind at the facility from 2023 to 2027, and are worth more than $32.5 million.

“These are the two first projects that Massachusetts is involved in and they’re going to be staged their construction project from New Bedford,” New Bedford Port Authority Director Edward Anthes-Washburn said.

The two 800 megawatt offshore wind projects will be over 15 miles off the East Coast, but the turbines and equipment needed to build them will be set up at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, a 9-acre plot of remediated tideland that was filled in for this purpose.

Read the full story at WPRI

Maryland board OKs taller wind turbines off Ocean City

August 24, 2020 — The Maryland Public Service Commission on Thursday approved a power company’s request to build wind turbines off Ocean City that are more than 200 feet taller than had originally been permitted.

The decision came after Ocean City officials, including Mayor Rick Meehan, had testified that the new, larger turbine design chosen by Skipjack Offshore Energy for the wind projects would ruin views of the horizon from the beach, thus affecting the town’s crucial tourism industry.

They added that the new turbines, three times taller than the tallest building in Ocean City, would require aerial hazard navigation lights, which the previous turbines did not, and contended that values of beachfront properties would be adversely affected.

Town officials wanted the commission to order Skipjack to move the turbines 33 miles offshore, citing a wind farm development off Long Island, New York, that is that far out, and thus out of sight.

Read the full story at WTOP

In Massachusetts, offshore wind opens up job training, economic opportunities

August 17, 2020 — In a northern Massachusetts fishing town, an advocacy group that has opposed an offshore wind farm is opening up to economic opportunities the project could provide.

As part of a $1.3 million state grant program, a partnership between fishing advocacy group the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association and the Northeast Maritime Institute will enroll commercial fishermen in a certification course that will qualify them to transport people and supplies to wind turbine sites for the Vineyard Wind project. Gloucester has traditionally been a major New England fishing port, but the industry has been hard hit by declining fish stocks and regulations designed to prevent overfishing.

Though the program has not started actively recruiting participants yet, word of mouth has raised some interest and there are already five names on the waiting list, said Angela Sanfilippo, president of the organization.

The Gloucester group has spoken out against Vineyard Wind from the start, but recognizes offshore wind is likely to be a reality. The group wants to help the fishermen it serves adapt to whatever comes next, Sanfilippo said.

Read the full story at Energy News Network

Coordinated New York offshore grid ‘could save $500m’

August 7, 2020 — A multi-user, planned transmission system for offshore wind in New York could achieve grid cost savings of over $500m, according to a new study produced by the Brattle Group.

Other benefits include “significantly reduced” environmental impacts and project risks if a multi-user, planned transmission system can be developed.

The report, Offshore Wind Transmission: An Analysis of Options for New York, evaluates the challenges of connecting each wind farm to shore individually in comparison to a planned approach.

Such an approach would comprise a high-capacity offshore wind transmission system serving multiple wind farms, reducing marine cabling, and optimising onshore landing points and substations.

The study found that planned offshore transmission “significantly” reduces seabed marine cabling by almost 60%, avoiding over 800km of seabed disturbance and reducing impact on fisheries and marine ecosystems.

Read the full story at ReNews

U.S. Offshore Wind Needs to Clear a Key Hurdle: Connecting to the Grid

August 4, 2020 — In May of last year, a ring of explosives planted around the base of two 500-foot concrete cooling towers at what was once the largest coal-fired power plant in New England brought them down.

In 18 seconds, they were reduced to dust and gravel. Then in February, the plant’s four soot-encrusted chimneys were felled like brick trees.

The demolition of the Brayton Point Power Station was the stunning first act of a national energy drama playing out before the residents of Somerset, Mass. (population 17,896).

The second act—still unfolding slowly —- started with a proposal for the Anbaric Renewable Energy Center on the cleared site. It includes plans for a refurbished seaport, facilities for making and assembling parts of offshore wind turbines, and a state-of-the-art electric cable connection to bring in the electricity from multiple wind farms at sea.

It was the first in a series of transformations underway up and down the East Coast to support 16 offshore wind farms planned in seven states. Those efforts will cost an estimated $70 billion altogether. They are part of still larger plans to eventually shift both U.S. coastlines to offshore wind and other clean energy sources.

Read the full story at Scientific American

Reports raise questions regarding impact of offshore wind on seafood industry

August 4, 2020 — A pair of new reports from NOAA Fisheries’ Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee (MAFAC) and the Science Center for Marine Fisheries  has raised more questions about how big offshore wind projects – planned for areas of water off the coast of New England in the Northeast U.S. – will impacts the fishing industry in the region.

The science center report calls into question the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s investigations of wind energy impacts on seafood, particularly the supplement to the draft environmental impact statement (SEIS) that the bureau released on June. That supplement was intended to examine all of the potential impacts wind energy development – both current and future – could have on the surrounding area.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

RODA: Offshore Wind Report Indicates ‘Major Fundamental Flaws’ in Process

August 3, 2020 — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) latest report on offshore wind “highlights the severity of impacts to fishing resources, businesses, and communities” and indicates “major fundamental flaws” in the offshore wind planning process, according to new public comments from the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA). Deficiencies in the report also reveal an unacceptable level of uncertainty and risk from a large-scale new ocean use.

RODA’s comments responded to BOEM’s supplement to the draft environmental impact statement (SEIS) for Vineyard Wind’s proposed 800-megawatt offshore wind project in federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts. In the SEIS, BOEM found that “major cumulative effects could occur on commercial fisheries” from East Coast offshore wind development in the coming years.

“We need to be thinking about the long-term impacts on our coastal communities and marine ecosystems, and right now there are too many red flags and unknowns,” said Annie Hawkins, RODA’s executive director. “Unfortunately this is the result of a collective failure to plan in a way that accommodates both fishing and renewable energy, and to invest in sound research and conflict resolution before the very latest stages of project review. The SEIS was a welcome step, but if it serves as the basis for greenlighting 2000 of the world’s largest turbines over 1400 square miles of unique ocean habitat, we’ll be embarking on one of the biggest socio-ecological experiments in history.”

Offshore wind planning has been fundamentally flawed, RODA wrote, and for fishermen, fisheries scientists, and managers “it is nothing short of chaotic.” While the SEIS partially evaluated fishing impacts, the most important decisions have already been made at the state- and project-level, making it difficult for BOEM to fairly weigh ocean uses, or ensure adequate ecological safeguards, on a geographically-appropriate scale. Fisheries experts have expressed for nearly a decade that the leasing process systematically ignores their environmental concerns until the final permitting phases. Without this important expertise, it is not surprising to see how much conflict and uncertainty remains, RODA wrote.

Transit lanes, the creation of a comprehensive mitigation plan, environmental impacts, and domestic job creation are among the other issues that still need to be resolved if offshore wind is to move forward, according to RODA’s comments.

Fishermen have long maintained that for most fisheries and gear types in the Vineyard Wind area, spacing turbines in a grid 1×1 nautical miles apart is too narrow to operate, making viable and safe transit lanes through the turbine arrays extremely important in the project design. RODA also questioned BOEM’s reliance on the Coast Guard’s Massachusetts and Rhode Island Port Access Route Study analysis of transit lanes, which RODA previously criticized for containing “serious errors.”

RODA prefers that mitigation efforts focus on avoiding and minimizing impacts on fisheries, before resorting to direct compensation. Fishermen aim to preserve healthy ecosystems and continue fishing for their livelihoods, rather than be paid for damages. Unfortunately, avoiding and minimizing impacts are not currently prioritized in the process, and current compensatory mitigation is insufficient and must be revised with direct input from the fishing industry.

There are also “major flaws” with the current understanding of offshore wind’s impacts on the outer continental shelf ecosystem, RODA wrote. These flaws include insufficient data against which to measure impacts, and a lack of time to evaluate impacts before further projects move forward. The comments also cited a recent Science Center for Marine Fisheries review which concluded the SEIS paid “insufficient attention” to overall wind impacts, including the overall scope and scale of impacts on fisheries surveys and on the critical but ecologically sensitive Mid-Atlantic Cold Pool phenomenon.

Should the Vineyard Wind project move forward despite the largely unaddressed major cumulative impacts to commercial fishing, RODA maintains that BOEM’s final EIS must re-do the mitigation plan to be complete and equitable, make Vineyard Wind a study site for radar interference, adopt adequate transit lanes for fishing, increase investment in research, implement the recommendations of NOAA’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee, require enhanced interstate coordination, and put fishermen at the table for all decisions and planning going forward.

RODA represents fishing industry associations and companies dedicated to improving the compatibility of offshore developments with their businesses. RODA’s approximately 170 members represent every Atlantic coastal state from North Carolina to Maine, and Pacific coast members in California, Oregon and Washington.

CALIFORNIA: New plan could bring wind turbines closer to SLO County’s shore. And people aren’t happy

July 31, 2020 — A task force working to bring offshore wind energy to the Central Coast suggests moving a proposed wind farm much closer to San Luis Obispo County’s shore after the U.S. Navy once again balked at the idea of erecting up to 100 floating turbines in an area of the Pacific Ocean where it conducts maneuvers.

The new plans, however, have already drawn objections from Morro Bay leaders and the fishing industry, who are worried about the impacts.

Meanwhile, Congressman Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, who has been negotiating with the Navy since 2016 to bring offshore renewable energy to the Central Coast, introducted legislation to compel the military back into talks after it apparently reversed course on a working agreement reached earlier this year.

On July 1, the same day Carbajal’s staff was offering ideas at a public webinar hearing on new proposals to launch the offshore wind industry, Carbajal offered an amendment to the Department of Defense’s annual appropriation that was designed to bring the Navy back into the conversation.

Read the full story at The Saint Luis Obispo Tribune

NOAA Committee: Public Engagement on Wind Development ‘Not Sufficient’; Reforms Needed

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — July 30, 2020 — NOAA’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee (MAFAC) has offered new recommendations to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on how to improve community engagement and address other long-terms potential impacts of offshore wind development. The recommendations come as the MAFAC, which regularly provides advice to the Secretary of Commerce on marine issues, has raised concerns about the “rapid pace” of development and questions about its long-term consequences.

In its report, the MAFAC calls for, among other changes, the offshore wind development process to be reformed to allow for early, meaningful engagement from fishermen and affected communities; greater analysis of the long-term impact of wind energy projects on fish species and marine environments; and additional funding for scientific research on wind projects and surrounding habitats.

“The Committee’s work demonstrates clearly the urgent need to address the issues that have resulted from the rapid expansion of offshore wind energy development on the East Coast, and the reality that the federal government’s BOEM has initiated planning for a similar scale of development on the West Coast, Hawaii, and the Gulf of Mexico,” said MAFAC Committee Co-Chair Peter Moore, a former commercial fisherman and marine fisheries consultant. “We’re hopeful that Commerce Department leadership will closely follow the recommendations and will continue to be responsive to the needs of fishermen and coastal communities.”

The MAFAC has been developing these recommendations since last year, when a working group was formed in spring 2019 following concerns from affected groups that offshore development was moving too quickly, and that the views of coastal communities were being left out of the process. The Committee had earlier expressed its concerns in a November 2019 letter to Secretary Ross. The new report expands on these concerns and offers ways to address them in future wind development projects.

The report notes that offshore wind is poised for a massive expansion: 10 percent of the offshore shelf from Massachusetts to North Carolina is currently under some stage of consideration for development. Citing this potential expansion, MAFAC writes that they are concerned that development is “racing forward” without addressing critical scientific, economic, and engagement issues.

Among these issues is how the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and other agencies deal with public engagement. The MAFAC report states current engagement efforts “have not been sufficient” in engaging fishermen and other ocean users, and as a result there is “distrust and anger based on a perceived lack of transparency and input into the planning process.”

“After months of work and research we came to the conclusion that most of the fishing industry impacted felt left out of the process, and their concerns were not being addressed. This has the potential to greatly diminish fishery revenues, and the impacts to ecosystems and habitat remains a big question,” said Mike Okoniewski, the West Coast co-chair on the MAFAC Offshore Wind Ad Hoc Working Group. “We do not wish to lose our sustainable fisheries to another sustainable resource. Nor do we want to see these projects take place without a transparent and comprehensive environmental scoping.”

Lack of information on the long-term effects of wind energy construction is another key issue highlighted in the report. Officials need a better understanding of how wind projects affect habitats, what changes will need to be made to scientific surveys to account for wind energy construction, and the cumulative impact that the construction will have on the marine environment.

“Like a pebble in a pond, these impacts are likely to ripple throughout the ecosystem and affect the lives and livelihoods of all ocean users,” the report states.

The report also raises concerns about how expanding wind energy will impact NOAA’s ability to conduct scientific surveys. Construction will potentially impact how current surveys are conducted, which may increase uncertainty in the assessment results and impact how quotas are set.

This will also create the need for new surveys to make sure that wind projects are developed appropriately and their potential impacts are measured, increasing the amount of resources that NOAA scientists and personnel need to dedicate to wind-related issues. The report labels this a “multi order-of-magnitude increase of demand on the agency’s resource base,” and warns that an increase in funding and available resources will be needed.

The full report, including all of the MAFAC’s recommendations, is available here.

 

MASSACHUSETTS: State lawmakers eye new office to look at wind impacts on fisheries

July 29, 2020 — House lawmakers unanimously backed the idea of creating a new office within the Department of Fish and Game to specifically study the impacts of offshore wind infrastructure on marine fisheries and ocean life.

In a consolidated amendment adopted Tuesday as part of its economic development bill, the House proposes an Office of Renewable Energy Fishery Impacts that would “conduct and foster research concerning the impacts of offshore wind energy infrastructure on marine fisheries including effects of such installations and connections on the health and behavior of marine mammals; (ii) accept and review commentary from representatives of impacted fishing fleets and renewable energy operators or providers; and (iii) educate and inform citizens on matters related to offshore wind energy and associated impacts on marine life.”

The office would also function as a liaison to federal agencies and academic institutions.

The text in the consolidated amendment mirrors an amendment originally filed by Rep. William Straus of Mattapoisett.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times