Saving Seafood

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

Researcher to Map Commercial Fishing Activity to Reduce Fishing, Wind Industry Conflict

July 29, 2020 — A natural resource economist from the University of Rhode Island will document where commercial fishing is conducting in southern New England waters to help reduce the conflict between the region’s fishermen and the wind industry.

“I’m exploring a new way of improving spatial planning for offshore wind,” said URI Associate Professor Thomas Sproul. “One of the biggest sources of delay in the regulatory process for offshore wind has been because of the conflicts with commercial fishing.”

Read the full story at Seafood News

SCEMFIS: Federal Offshore Wind Report Paid Lack of Attention to Impacts on Fisheries

July 29, 2020 — Researchers from the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) found that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) latest environmental report on offshore wind “paid insufficient attention” to the impact of the practice beyond the Vineyard Wind project.

Last month, BOEM released its supplement to the draft environmental impact statement (SEIS) for the Vineyard Wind project off the Massachusetts coast. The SEIS aimed to analyze the impact of every reasonable offshore wind development on the East Coast in the following years.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Offshore wind arrays will disrupt fisheries assessments, scientists warn

July 29, 2020 — Offshore wind turbine arrays planned off the East Coast will likely impede future fisheries surveys, increasing uncertainty in stock assessments and potentially lowering annual fishing quotas, according to a new critique of the federal government’s Vineyard Wind environmental report.

In a July 22 paper, the Science Center for Marine Fisheries concluded that the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management in its supplemental environmental impact statement directed “insufficient attention… to the impact beyond the Vineyard Wind project, whereas the cumulative impact is the issue of greatest concern.”

The center is a cooperative research group, including representatives of universities and the fishing industry, organized under the National Science Foundation to pursue fisheries science questions. Its review of BOEM’s environmental assessment raises eight key issues, saying that much more research is needed to clarify the potential impacts of up to 15 Atlantic wind energy projects.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Rhode Island Targets 100 Percent Renewable by 2030

July 28, 2020 — Rhode Island has embarked on its goal of achieving 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. Getting there is a work in progress, but the target will likely be reached without doing much outside of existing renewable-energy initiatives and hoping that offshore wind development reaches critical mass.

Based on an Office of Energy Resources PowerPoint presentation given at a July 9 online public workshop, the state has a fairly simple math problem to solve. Rhode Island consumes about 7,200 gigawatts of electricity annually. The offshore Revolution Wind project will deliver about 1,300 gigawatts once it goes online, which is expected in 2024. Other long-term contracts the state has with power producers, such as the the Gravel Pit Solar II project in East Windsor, Conn., will account for about 400 gigawatts. Net metering and the state’s fixed-price contract program deliver some 1,200 gigawatts. That leaves about 4,300 gigawatts, or about 40 percent, of Rhode Island’s annual electricity consumption to be filled for the state’s renewable-energy goal to be achieved.

The solutions under consideration by the Office of Energy Resources (OER) are expected to rely on renewable-energy programs like the Renewable Energy Standard (RES). The state mandate requires National Grid to make annual increases in the amount of renewable energy it delivers to ratepayers. It does so by buying renewable-energy credits (RECs) from wind turbines, solar facilities, and other qualified power systems in New England and New York.

Read the full story at EcoRI

Latest Federal Report on Offshore Wind Pays ‘Insufficient Attention’ to Overall Impacts, SCEMFIS Researchers Find

July 28, 2020 — The following was releasd by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

A new report released last week by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) found that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) “paid insufficient attention” to the total impact of offshore wind beyond the proposed Vineyard Wind project in its latest environmental report. SCEMFIS researchers also found that BOEM failed to address the scope and scale of offshore wind’s impacts on fisheries surveys beyond categorizing them as “major.”

BOEM released its supplement to the draft environmental impact statement (SEIS) last month for the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. The SEIS sought to analyze the cumulative impacts of every reasonably foreseeable offshore wind development on the U.S. East Coast in the coming years.

“In the case of the present SEIS, one cannot evaluate the total impact of the proposed development of the Mid-Atlantic Bight as insufficient attention is paid to the impact beyond the Vineyard Wind project, whereas the cumulative impact is the issue of greatest concern,” the SCEMFIS team wrote. While the SEIS analysis is “extensive across potentially affected resources,” its frequent “lack of detail” is a weakness, they wrote.

The most important direct economic impact of offshore wind on fisheries could be the impact of turbine placement on stock assessments, the SCEMFIS report found. Surveys are unlikely to be conducted in wind areas, in which case it is assumed that no stock exists there. This would likely lead to quota reductions, especially due to increased uncertainty in the assessments, and the resulting long-term effects would not be able to be resolved by a single-year compensation plan.

While the SEIS correctly categorized such impacts as “major,” the SCEMFIS team wrote, “it does not address the scale and scope of these impacts.” The SEIS also seemed to overlook potential changes in vessel transit routes that make certain areas no longer profitable to fish, the team wrote.

The biggest indirect threat to fisheries is a likely increase in marine mammal entanglements in and near wind areas, according to the SCEMFIS report. This could result from an increased density of fishing gear due to a reduction in available fishing areas and a new source of entanglements from offshore wind construction and operations that could be mistakenly attributed to fisheries. Greater threats to marine mammals would lead to greater limitations on fishermen, and the SEIS should have classified these impacts as “major” instead of “moderate,” the researchers wrote.

There are also several potential environmental impacts from offshore wind that the SEIS did not adequately explore, the SCEMFIS team found. For instance, the SEIS considered impacts on the ecologically important “cold pool” of water that extends seasonally off the U.S. East Coast, but only focused on impacts during some parts of the year. Seasonally, this region experiences one of the largest transitions in ocean stratification of anywhere in the world. Weakening the cold pool could help generate “the most catastrophic ecological event on the continental shelf the world has ever seen,” the researchers wrote, so great care must be taken to show the chance of an impact from offshore wind is “vanishingly small.” Such science is not present in the SEIS, they wrote.

Additionally, the SEIS mentioned climate change “without coming to grips with the seriousness of the problem,” according to the SCEMFIS team. While the SEIS considered the current state of resources in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, it failed to adequately consider changes in species and fishing distribution that are likely to continue as a result of climate change, the team wrote.

In total, the SCEMFIS report found the Vineyard Wind SEIS needed further work on eight key issues: the totality of impact across the Mid-Atlantic, physical oceanographic processes, climate change, adequacy of the database on finfish and benthic invertebrates, long-lived biota, fishing/surveys/stock assessments, marine mammals, and economics.

The report was written by Eric Powell (University of Southern Mississippi), Andrew Scheld (Virginia Institute of Marine Science), Pat Sullivan (Cornell University), Josh Kohut (Rutgers University), Thomas Grothues (Rutgers University), Daphne Munroe (Rutgers University), Paula Moreno (EcoMarine Integrated Analytics, LLC), and Gavin Fay (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth). The scientific results and conclusions of this report, as well as any views or opinions expressed, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the SCEMFIS Industry Advisory Board, member companies, VIMS, USM, NOAA, or the Department of Commerce. The report can be found on the SCEMFIS website here.

Offshore wind advocates, fishermen push last arguments for BOEM study

July 27, 2020 — With the public comment period closing near midnight, advocacy groups for the offshore wind and commercial fishing industries marshaled their supporters for a last push to influence federal regulators on the future of the new power supply.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is closing the 45-day comment period on its supplemental environmental impact statement for the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project proposed off southern New England.

With the clock ticking to 11:59 p.m. Monday, a coalition of East Coast fishermen and seafood businesses called for a five-year moratorium on all offshore wind power development, until an array of issues raised by the fishermen’s coalition is addressed.

“All energy, including ‘clean energy,’ has environmental impacts that must be fully understood and weighed in the context of an overall power strategy. While protecting our air and climate is important, so is protecting marine ecosystems and biodiversity,”  declared a preamble to an online petition circulating in recent days.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Ørsted Establishes Virtual Port Access Hours for Mid-Atlantic Fishing Community

July 23, 2020 — With traditional face-to-face meetings and individual forms of contact reduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind has been offering virtual port hours to answer questions and field comments from the recreational and commercial fishing community about the company’s offshore wind projects in the Mid-Atlantic region.

According to a release, interested parties may reach a member of the Ørsted marine affairs team by calling 1 (213) 458-8466 ID: 5690795#, on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. 

Ørsted has assembled the largest and most proactive marine affairs team of any offshore wind developer in the U.S. The company seeks to minimize disruption of fishing activities during all phases of development while focusing on access and safe navigation for vessels during wind farm operations.

Read the full story at the Cape May County Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Two Cape Lawmakers Call For Vineyard Wind Proposal Approval

July 23, 2020 — State legislators teamed up earlier this month to advocate for the Vineyard Wind project and the broader implementation of offshore wind technology.

In a letter, the lawmakers called upon the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to approve the Vineyard Wind 1 proposal and move forward in the permitting process.

Falmouth State Representative Dylan Fernandes and Cape and Islands State Senator Julian Cyr led the efforts.

“Massachusetts has no fossil fuels and survivors of our winters know that the sun is not our strongest resource,” said Fernandes.

“We do have wind, and a lot of it, and to transition to a clean energy future and energy independence we must move forward with deep-water offshore wind, the future of our planet is at stake and it’s beyond time to move this project forward.”

“Offshore wind projects present a cutting-edge opportunity for both economic growth in our region and long-term sustainability in our energy production,” said Cyr.

“Representative Fernandes and I would like to thank the large, bipartisan coalition of legislators who lent us their support in urging the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to approve the first utility-scale wind farm in our nation with the urgency that it deserves.”

Read the full story at CapeCod.com