Saving Seafood

Federal subcommittee hearing opens lines of communication between offshore energy company and fishers

September 17, 2019 — Typically, a warm, clear September day would mean boats in the water for the dozens of fisheries and anglers in South Jersey.

However, more than 50 members of the commercial and recreational fishing community filled a meeting hall inside the city’s convention center for a congressional subcommittee hearing on the impact offshore wind turbines may have on the area’s billion dollar industry.

The hearing, organized by U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-2nd, brought House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources Chair U.S. Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-California, to hear the concerns of the local fishing and tourism industries that may be affected by the state’s first offshore wind energy projects.

Van Drew, who supports wind energy, wanted to create an open dialogue between Danish power company Orsted and the area’s commercial and recreational fishing industries.

Read the full story at The Press of Atlantic City

Fishermen demand a say in decisions on offshore wind energy

September 16, 2019 — Fishermen insisted Monday to a congressional subcommittee looking at offshore wind energy that they be consulted when crucial decisions are being made on the development of such projects, including where they are located and the level of access to the waters near them.

Fishermen should have been brought into the planning process from the start, Peter Hughes, of Atlantic Capes Fisheries, told U.S. House members from New Jersey and California who were holding a hearing at the Jersey Shore.

“Look at these slides,” he said, referring to diagrams of where proposed wind projects would be built. “They’re right smack dab where we are fishing. This is going to put people out of business.”

The purpose of the hearing was to gather input from the fishing industry and its advocates to be considered in future regulation of the nascent wind energy market. So far, a single five-turbine wind farm off Block Island, Rhode Island, is the only operating offshore wind farm in the U.S., but states up and down the East Coast are readying plans for similar projects.

Capt. Ed Yates, a fisherman from Barnegat Light, New Jersey, said flounder, cod and other species have moved away from underground cables at a wind project off Denmark.

“How does offshore wind energy affect the fishing industry?” he asked. “The answer we get from the wind operators is ‘We won’t fully understand the impacts until the facilities are already built.’”

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance formed last year to represent the interests of the fishing industry regarding offshore wind. The group’s executive director, Annie Hawkins, said more scientific studies are needed, adding there has been virtually no public discussion of important questions like how wind energy projects would be dismantled after reaching the end of their lifespans.

The hearing was chaired by Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a California Democrat, and Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat who represents the area of southern New Jersey including the productive Cape May fishing port.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

Fishermen unsatisfied with wind turbine plans

September 16, 2019 — When Rhode Island commercial fishermen sat down a year ago with offshore wind developers, they say they made it clear that for the sake of navigational safety the minimum spacing of any turbines installed in ocean waters needs to be at least one nautical mile in every direction.

That meeting in July 2018 at the East Farm Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island, in South Kingstown, with Vineyard Wind and Deepwater Wind (which has since become part of Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind) wasn’t the first time that fishermen say they argued their demands for spacing and for the orientation of wind farms from east to west in a symmetrical grid pattern.

But, with Vineyard Wind and Ørsted both moving forward since then with layouts that fall short of what the fishermen want, it wouldn’t be the last.

Again, on Monday night, in a meeting with Ørsted and its partner Eversource Energy to discuss the companies’ 130-megawatt South Fork Wind Farm, members of the state’s Fishermen’s Advisory Board reiterated what they say is needed to allow them to fish within and transit through the project of up to 15 turbines that would be built in Rhode Island Sound.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Nation’s first mega-offshore wind project stalled for additional study

September 16, 2019 — The nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm has been delayed by the federal government, leaving unclear how long it will be until America’s next renewable energy sector will launch. The main opposition: outspoken commercial fishing interests in New England.

On most afternoons in Point Judith, Rhode Island, commercial fisherman Brian Loftus steers his trawler back into port after a 12-hour day. Loftus unloaded some 1,500 pounds of whiting, scup, skate and squid. Estimated revenue: $3,000. Loftus has fished for three decades here, but to him there’s a looming problem: Offshore wind developers plan to plop turbines more than 70 stories high into his fishing grounds.

“Some of the grounds are just east of where the wind farms are,” Loftus said. “Some of them are right around where they want to put the wind farms. And there’s a lot of other fish that migrate through there.”

At issue: Vineyard Wind, the nation’s first large-scale offshore-wind farm, 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Vineyard Wind had scheduled construction to begin by the end of 2019. It is the first of several offshore wind farms planned on the Atlantic Coast; the projects span from Rhode Island all the way down to the waters off North Carolina.

Read the full story at Marketplace

Connecticut, Rhode Island vie for roles in emerging offshore wind industry

September 11, 2019 — While each state wants to be the hub offshore wind, experts say there should be plenty of opportunity for both to succeed.

When Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont signed legislation last June authorizing up to 2,000 megawatts of offshore wind development, the new law signaled big ambitions.

“Connecticut should be the central hub of the offshore wind industry in New England,” Lamont proclaimed at the time.

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo made a similar statement about two weeks later when a major British wind turbine maintenance company announced it would set up its U.S. headquarters there.

“As this industry continues to grow,” Raimondo said, “we will keep working to ensure Rhode Island remains the economic epicenter of offshore wind in the United States.”

Read the full story at Energy Central

Van Drew to Bring Hearing to Wildwood to Have Fishermen’s Voices Heard

September 11, 2019 — At the request of U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-2nd), the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources will hold an oversight hearing titled, “Examining the Benefits and Potential Challenges for New Jersey’s Growing Offshore Wind Industry,” at Wildwoods Convention Center, 4501 Boardwalk, Wildwood, Sept. 16 at 10 a.m. 

According to a release, “Offshore wind is critical to meeting our clean energy goals to create good paying jobs and to reduce the threat of climate change. However, our fishermen who have long made their living off these waters need to be taken into account and brought to the table so that their livelihoods are not impaired. This exciting new industry can only succeed if it engages our fishermen in good faith and takes their views and concerns seriously,” Van Drew stated. 

Read the full story at the Cape May County Herald

BOEM Delays Vineyard Wind Until 2020

September 10, 2019 — Construction of the country’s first commercial scale offshore wind farm off Massachusetts’ coast will be delayed until at least next year while the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management determines the cumulative effect of construction of multiple wind farms in the region, the agency said in a recent update.

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Copenhagen Investment Partners and Avengrid Renewables, is developing the 800-MW, $2.8 billion project. Five other offshore wind projects are planned adjacent to the site.

The developers had expected to begin construction before the end of the year to take advantage of a significant federal tax credit for renewable energy that expires on Dec. 31.

BOEM’s original timeline was to release a final environmental impact statement in July, but that timeline was delayed when BOEM said stakeholders and cooperating federal agencies requested “a more robust cumulative analysis.” It anticipates completing the supplement to its draft EIS “late this year or early next year,” with a public comment period and public meetings to follow.

Read the full story at the Engineering News-Record

Wind turbines and fishing nets fight for offshore space

September 10, 2019 — If Block Island represents the promise of offshore wind, the industry faces a series of challenges lurking just beneath the surface of the waves. Opponents of offshore wind have raised concerns ranging from the turbines’ impact on military radar to worries they could clog shipping channels. Perhaps most dangerous to developers’ ambitions: the growing and increasingly coordinated opposition from the commercial fishing industry.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt recently delayed Vineyard Wind, an 84-turbine project planned for the shallow waters 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, out of concern for its impact on fishing. The $2.8 billion project had been scheduled to begin construction this fall, putting it on course to become the first large-scale offshore wind development in the United States.

Now its future looks less certain. Bernhardt, a former oil and gas lobbyist who has made deregulation a hallmark of his tenure, has said he will not allow the project to proceed until a cumulative impact study of all the projects planned along the Eastern Seaboard can be completed (Climatewire, Aug. 12).

Read the full story at National Wind Watch

Vineyard Wind Delays Hold Up Other Offshore Projects

September 9, 2019 — The Vineyard Wind project is a major test of the offshore wind industry. The 84-turbine project is hailed as the first large utility-scale power source, after the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm went on-line in December 2016.

As a pilot project, Block Island showed that the United States can profitably produce and deliver offshore wind energy, and create jobs. More than a dozen other proposals have followed, and new federal wind-lease areas are expected along the East Coast.

Vineyard Wind, with 800 megawatts of electric capacity, is presumed to clear the way for more than 10 gigawatts of power coming from the waters off southern New England.

Read the full story at EcoRI

Field Hearing: Examining the Benefits and Potential Challenges for New Jersey’s Growing Offshore Wind Industry

September 9, 2019 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Alan Lowenthal (D-CA):

On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 10:00 A.M., the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources of the US House Committee on Natural Resources will hold an oversight hearing titled, “Examining the Benefits and Potential Challenges for New Jersey’s Growing Offshore Wind Industry.”

This hearing will be held at the Wildwoods Convention Center, 4501 Boardwalk, Wildwood, New Jersey 08260.

For more information, click here