Saving Seafood

NOAA questions Vineyard Wind environmental impact study

March 21, 2019 — A Gloucester-based division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has raised concerns that a government environmental impact study about the proposed Vineyard Wind project lacked sufficient detail.

Michael Pentony, the head of NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, warned in a March 15 letter that the report on Vineyard Wind completed by the U.S Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in December included conclusions that were not well supported by data and needed additional analysis of several key angles of impact.

“We determined that many of the conclusory statements relating to the scale of impacts for biological and socioeconomic resources are not well supported in the document,” Pentony wrote in his letter to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. “Specifically, impacts categorized as major appear under-inclusive, while impacts designated as moderate seem overly inclusive.”

The letter, posted online by fishing industry advocacy group Saving Seafood, serves as the office’s official response to the federal draft environmental impact statement on the construction and operation plan for Vineyard Wind’s proposed offshore wind farm.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

NOAA Fisheries Issues Public Comments on Vineyard Wind Project

March 20, 2019 — (Saving Seafood) — Last Friday, in a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), NOAA Fisheries expressed concern over how the proposed Vineyard Wind offshore energy project may negatively impact New England’s fisheries, marine life, and ocean habitats.

The letter was the agency’s official public comment on BOEM’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Vineyard Wind project, which is proposed for off the coast of Massachusetts. In the letter, NOAA Fisheries Northeast Regional Administrator Mike Pentony raises issues with BOEM’s analysis of the project’s negative impacts.

Specifically, the letter notes that the BOEM analysis does not include “the most accurate or updated data on fishery landings and associated revenue” for several fisheries, including squid, Jonah crab, and American lobster. The letter also faults BOEM for not sufficiently addressing the potential economic impacts of the project, particularly on the issues surrounding fisheries displacement.

“In some cases, if fishermen are displaced from an area they will move somewhere else, which can have direct economic impacts such as increased fuel costs, longer trips, etc., as well as indirect impacts such as increased conflicts with other fishermen,” the letter states. “However, it is also possible that the fish are simply unavailable to the fishery outside of the area.”

NOAA similarly criticizes BOEM’s analysis of potential mitigation measures for the project, noting that “the analysis is solely dependent upon an undefined financial mitigation package, while impacts to the fishing communities go beyond just revenue loss.”

Other areas of the DEIS criticized by NOAA include its limited analysis on critical habitats, impacts with marine mammals and endangered species, and the effects of project development and construction. The agency offered to continue to collaborate with BOEM to address these issues.

Read the full public comments here

 

Offshore wind industry could come to Gulf of Maine

March 15, 2019 — The offshore wind gold rush has largely blown past the Gulf of Maine.

Not anymore.

German utility EnBW just joined a lobbying and trade group, Clean Energy New Hampshire. Normally, such a minor corporate move goes unremarked. But this one represents an important milestone: EnBW becomes the first offshore wind developer to publicly show an interest in developing waters near the New Hampshire coastline.

Bill White, EnBW’s North American managing director, says his company is also eyeing the wind potential in waters off Maine and northern Massachusetts. EnBW competed in the federal government’s December auction for offshore wind leases south of Martha’s Vineyard, but was outbid.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Don’t let wind industry disrupt fishing industry

March 14, 2019 — As owner of Empire Fisheries, one of Connecticut’s largest commercial fishing companies, I testified recently at a hearing before the General Assembly’s Energy and Technology Committee on two bills (SB 875 and HB 7156) in support of the state’s plan to procure clean energy from offshore wind turbines in federal waters.

While in support of the bills, I cautioned, as many other fishermen have, that any authorization from the state for procuring wind energy must first guarantee protections that keep fishermen, fish and the ecosystems they rely on, safe. At a minimum, the legislation should require that before any procurement authorization, Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection commissioner consider the latest science at the time of a proposal, to avoid or mitigate impacts to wildlife, natural resources, ecosystems and traditional or existing water-dependent uses, like commercial fishing. The DEEP should start collecting information about the needs of fishing fleets and develop criteria for the wind energy developers to ensure that this traditional water-dependent use is not compromised.

We need to first find the balance that protects our fisheries and fishermen to ensure that one renewable resource, wind energy, does not displace another, fishing.

Read the full story at The Day

Offshore wind getting its sea legs in New Hampshire

March 8, 2019 — After years of advocacy and growing citizen engagement, New Hampshire’s clean energy industry finally has the wind at its back.

On Jan. 2, Governor Sununu sent a letter to the federal government requesting the establishment of a federal task force to coordinate federal, state and local government officials — along with relevant stakeholders — to determine possible locations for future offshore wind projects. Prior to that, New Hampshire had been the only New England state that hadn’t participated in exploring this rapidly developing clean energy industry.

The letter was directed to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), triggering the establishment of what is known as the BOEM Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force. According to BOEM material, “BOEM’s task forces serve as forums to coordinate planning, solicit feedback, educate about BOEM’s processes, permitting, and statutory requirements, and exchange scientific and other information.”

Prior to the request, New Hampshire would only have been able to develop offshore wind projects within three miles off the coast — the point at which state waters end and federal waters begin. This task force will investigate the potential for projects farther out into the ocean, thereby reducing the potential for visual impacts.

Read the full story at the New Hampshire Business Review

Fishing Report: Regional panels could assess wind farm impacts

March 8, 2019 — It’s very hard to get a handle on offshore wind. We have 20 or so lease areas from Massachusetts to the Carolinas, six of them (all granted to developers now) are off Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The kicker is that each of these lease areas will house multiple projects — projects that could harm or help habitat and fish in their area. However, the big question being asked by fishermen and scientists alike, is what cumulative impact they will they have on fish and habitat when they are all built, up and running?

For the past few months Vineyard Wind has been in negotiation with fishermen on a mitigation plan for one project… eventually many projects will be built on the East Coast. The permitting process and various stages of approval for any one wind farm is daunting, including hundreds of meetings, hearings, permits, negotiations, etc. Who knows what effect several projects in an area will have, developers have been just trying to get their project up and running.

Offshore wind farm developers are much like land developers. They acquire or lease a parcel and then develop it with ocean wind farms as they have the electricity sold. Much the same way that a land developer would develop a large parcel of land only building what they have good reason to believe they can sell in stages.

Last month during mitigation negotiations Rhode Island fishermen on the Fisheries Advisory Board (FAB) of the Coastal Resource Management Council (CRMC) approved a $16.7-million negotiated mitigation agreement with Vineyard Wind. The settlement provides funds for research to study safe effective fishing in the project area as well as research that may help future projects and their relationship to fishing. The agreement also includes $4.2 million in payments spread over 30 years for assistance with direct impacts of the wind farm on fishing in Rhode Island.

Read the full story at The Providence Journal

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket fisherman: ‘Nothing good’ about offshore wind farm

March 8, 2019 — The only part of Vineyard Wind’s proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket waters is an undersea cable running from the turbines 14 miles southwest of the island through the Muskeget Channel to Covell’s Beach in Centerville.

But fisherman Dan Pronk is worried that the impact the 84 turbines would have on the underwater ecosystem and the fishing industry is tremendous.

“There’s nothing good about it,” he said.

Pronk has fished for lobsters, crab, squid and other fish around the island for the past 33 years. Fourteen miles to the southwest, where Vineyard Wind has leased federal waters for its wind farm, he sets up strings of lobster traps running east to west, spaced a half-mile apart.

Pronk is a fixed-gear fisherman, meaning his equipment stays in the water, as opposed to mobile-gear fishermen, who trail their nets behind their boats to catch fish. Most of Pronk’s gear is set up around the Vineyard Wind site, where he usually finds a good number of lobsters, he said.

“There’s no question that the lobsters, the shellfish, they’re all going to leave,” he said about the repetitive noise from pile-driving 84 turbine anchors 160 feet into the sea floor. “It’s going to essentially be like setting off atomic bombs in the ocean.”

The only time there would not be any construction on the turbines or the cable would be from Jan. 1 to April 30, after Vineyard Wind, in an agreement with the National Wildlife Federation and the Conservation Law Foundation, agreed to halt operations in order to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale during its yearly migration from southern waters.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Offshore wind developers court recreational fishing community

March 8, 2019 — Offshore wind energy developers are courting recreational fishermen in the New York Bight, who could gain dozens of new fishing spots around turbine towers, but worry about impacts of the massive projects on traditional fishing grounds.

“Obviously the hot button for us is access,” said charter captain Paul Eidman of Anglers for Offshore Wind Power, a project of the National Wildlife Federation, which hosted the meeting in Toms River, N.J., on Wednesday along with the American Littoral Society for offshore wind companies and recreational fishermen.

“There’s a lot being proposed to go out in the ocean and on the bottom,” said Tim Dillingham of the littoral society, adding that the developing industry must avoid critical fish habitat and seafloor bumps and ridges that are important to anglers and the region’s big charter and party boat fleet.

There are conflicted feelings in the recreational community. Many anglers want to see the new hard structure that turbine construction would put into the water, swiftly attracting hydroid and shellfish growth that become the base for new fishing hotspots, much like artificial reefs.

Read the full story at Workboat

MASSACHUSETTS: Steering Committee Meeting SMAST Thursday March 14 at 2 pm

March 7, 2019 — The following was released by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth:

We would like to remind everyone of our Fishermen’s Steering Committee meeting on Thursday, March 14that 2:00 pm. The meeting will be held at SMAST East (836 South Rodney French Blvd, New Bedford, MA 02744) in Room 101/102, on the first floor.

The agenda for this meeting is:

(1) Funded 2019 RSA proposals

(2) Update on open codend work and the potential for a Georges Bank spring flatfish survey

(3) Recent developments in the planned windfarm areas

Please pass this announcement along to anyone that is not on the e-mail list that may be interested in attending. We welcome any additional suggestions for discussion, and as always, feel free to contact us with any questions.

N.J. fishermen and offshore wind firms learning to coexist

March 7, 2019 — Hunched over a laptop, Jeff Dement pointed to a virtual map showing lease areas for offshore wind off New Jersey’s coast.

He clicked on the legend and added a layer showing where scallop fishing overlaps with potential turbine locations.

“You could do this for days,” said Dement, fish tagging program director for the American Littoral Society, as he gave a tutorial of an online data portal published by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean.

A few anglers gathered behind him inside a conference room in the Ocean County Library, where offshore wind developers and fishers gathered Wednesday evening to discuss how the two groups can lessen proposed wind projects’ disturbance of wildlife.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City