Saving Seafood

Fisheries Survival Fund Expresses Concern Over Recent Ruling in NY Wind Farm Case

October 1, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the Fisheries Survival Fund:

Late yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied a ruling for summary judgment in the ongoing lawsuit against the leased wind farm area in the New York Bight. While the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) is pleased that the court found that the fishing industry and affected port communities have standing to bring claims in the case, we are concerned with other aspects of the ruling.

Specifically, we are troubled by the court’s finding that our claims under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are not ‘ripe.’  The court held that, because the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) retains some authority to preclude surface disturbing activities in the period between issuing a lease and the approval of a construction and operations plan, the lease itself does not constitute the irretrievable transfer of resources required under NEPA. The court found that the “lease sale does not represent the final word on anything, nor does it commit any resources, even putting aside the question of whether it does so irretrievably.”

This suggests that the court views the lease as something akin to a ‘ticket’ to proceed, rather than a guarantee of any rights.  Just as a concertgoer’s ticket can be revoked by a venue for inappropriate behavior, the court seems to contend that the leaseholder’s ‘ticket’ for at-sea development can be revoked by BOEM at any time. But in fact, judicial precedent interpreting the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) has held that the leaseholder gains more rights as development proceeds, and as more time and money are invested in a project.  This means that, the further development proceeds, the more difficult it becomes for plaintiffs to overturn a leasing decision.

We are concerned that the court’s view of the case as premature at the leasing stage, combined with case law finding a leasing challenge too late at the construction and operation plan phase, leaves plaintiffs with no opportunity to challenge this siting decision.

We are encouraged the court never contested our view that the unsolicited bid procedure allowed BOEM to decide, behind closed doors, what area of the ocean was to be leased. But we are troubled by the court’s ruling that our OCSLA claims are barred because we did not comply with the provision requiring 60 days notice of an intended filing. We were not able to provide 60 days’ notice, because BOEM scheduled the lease sale only 45 days after publication of the Final Sale Notice.

The court held that we were not excused from compliance with the 60-day notice period because the statute does not require BOEM to schedule its lease sales with sufficient time to accommodate potential claimants. If the court’s position is upheld, BOEM apparently would have the ability to lease any portion of the ocean unchallenged, and would deny any harmed parties their right to challenge a proposed lease sale under the OCSLA.  We believe given these circumstances that we should have been granted an exemption from this requirement.

About the Fisheries Survival Fund
The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) was established in 1998 to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery.  FSF participants include the vast majority of full-time Atlantic scallop fishermen from Maine to North Carolina.  FSF works with academic institutions and independent scientific experts to foster cooperative research and to help sustain this fully-rebuilt fishery.  FSF also works with the federal government to ensure that the fishery is responsibly managed.

Vineyard Wind execs buoyed by financial report

October 1, 2018 — Top executives with Vineyard Wind were optimistic Thursday about completion dates for their offshore project after a financial report indicated timely permitting by a federal oversight agency.

Vineyard Wind intends to be in operation by 2021, said Laura Beane, president and CEO of Avangrid Renewables, which owns 50 percent of Vineyard Wind.

“We are on schedule,” Beane said in a phone call before her appearance Friday on an offshore energy panel at “The Ocean’s Turn” conference at Tufts University. Joining Beane on the call was Vineyard Wind CEO Lars Pedersen, an executive with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which owns the other 50 percent of Vineyard Wind.

“Vineyard Wind will be the very first large-scale offshore facility here in the U.S.,” Beane said. “There’s a tremendous amount of energy and excitement because people see the potential.”

Pedersen, too, said there is “a huge opportunity” for U.S. citizens to become part of an industry that is very mature in Europe and now being moved across the Atlantic.

“Those who get in early have a much better opportunity to be there long-term than those later on, and the opportunities will definitely be there,” he said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

BOEM looking at traffic lanes, buffers for offshore wind power

September 24, 2018 — Concerns raised by the maritime and commercial fishing industries now have federal officials considering wider buffer areas, and spacing as far as two nautical miles between proposed offshore wind power turbines.

At meetings in New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, representatives of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said the burden of proof is on offshore wind energy development companies to show their plans for turbine arrays will be compatible with other ocean industries.

“Right now we’re asking developers to prove that fishermen can still fish” if offshore turbines are built, said Amy Stillings, an economist with BOEM.

The agency is also looking at setting aside a corridor for shipping and barge traffic cutting across the New York Bight, which extends from Cape May Inlet, N.J., to Montauk Point, N.Y., on the eastern tip of Long Island, to maintain a safe buffer between future turbine arrays and vessel traffic.

That idea for a cross-Bight corridor nine nautical miles wide – a five-mile traffic lane, with two-mile buffers on either side – recognizes trends in maritime transportation that allow towing vessels to take the route farther offshore than the traditional paths closer to shore.

Read the full story at Work Boat

 

Fishing insider embraces new role as Vineyard Wind liaison

September 24, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — In 12 years, research biologist Crista Bank spent a lot of hours at sea aboard local fishing vessels, but never once heard wheelhouse chatter about the industrial-sized wind farms planned a dozen miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

“It wasn’t really a topic of discussion,” said Bank, the new fisheries liaison for offshore wind developer Vineyard Wind. “You would think it would be, something this huge on the horizon.”

Even for her, deep in research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science & Technology, the magnitude of what will be Vineyard Wind’s $2 billion, 106-turbine offshore construction project didn’t sink in until she happened to pass five turbines off Block Island two years ago.

“I saw them, and I was like, really?” Bank said of her reaction.

It may be that head-down, focused attitude of a researcher that allows Bank to empathize with what she says is a similar attitude of many fishermen — scallopers, lobstermen, pot fishermen, gill-netters, squid fishermen, small-mesh draggers, large draggers, inshore and offshore boat captains, charter boat captains, recreational and pelagic anglers — she knows and hopes to meet.

“I sort of see the fishermen’s perspective a lot more,” Bank said “I believe in offshore energy. I believe we need to do it. I have solar panels on my house. I’m totally for renewable energy.” But, Bank said, those turbines will be placed squarely where people make a living.

Bank might be best known now in the region for her fisheries research. But before that, she crewed aboard the tall ship Ernestina and was an onboard fishing vessel observer for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Bank considers New Bedford her home.

“Crista has an excellent track record in cooperative research with the fishing industry,” said Steven Lohrenz, dean of the UMass Dartmouth marine science school. Bank is knowledgeable about fisheries science and about the challenges being faced by fishermen, said Lohrenz, who first mentioned the Vineyard Wind job to Bank. Bank is also personable and a good communicator, he said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

First offshore wind farm in federal waters inches closer

September 24, 2018 — What could be the first offshore wind farm in federal waters took a major step forward last month when Dominion Energy applied to the Virginia State Corporation Commission for approval to build two 6 MW wind turbines and the project’s grid infrastructure.

Called the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project (CVOW), it would located about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach on 2,135 acres of federal waters leased by the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. The two 6 MW turbines will sit in about 80 feet of water and generate wind energy for customers starting in December 2020.

Denmark’s Ørsted has been hired by Dominion Energy to build CVOW. Just this past Sept. 6, Ørsted opened the Walney Extension, the world’s largest offshore wind farm with 87 wind turbines generating potentially 659 MW of power in the Irish Sea.

A demonstration project, CVOW would be the second offshore wind farm in the U.S., following the Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island, which began operating in 2015. More importantly perhaps is that CVOW will be the first offshore wind farm to go through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) approval process.

Read the full story at Marine Log

 

NEW BEDFORD STANDARD-TIMES: BOEM should do ocean study before awarding NY wind leases

September 24, 2018 — Sometimes big issues seem to appear as if out of nowhere.

Residents of SouthCoast may have been feeling that way this week upon learning that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is about to decide on the future of some of the New Bedford scallop fleet’s prime fishing grounds just next month, in October.

Mayor Jon Mitchell and others gave their testimony to BOEM Tuesday about the plans of New York state to award wind turbine leases in a 2,300-square-mile section of ocean known as the New York Bight. The area just happens to be the spot where 40 to 50 percent of the scalloping grounds fished by New Bedford’s fleet are, according to scalloper Eric Hansen.

The federal agency has indicated to developers that 80,000 of the 1.5 million acres contained in the region would be a reasonable turbine size but local officials are worried.

Mitchell called for a scientific study and analysis of where the turbines should go, and recommended against a hasty awarding of leases.

“These decisions are permanent,” he said, explaining that the North Atlantic is far larger and more complex than the areas of Northwest Europe where previous wind turbine studies have been done. There needs to be a hard assessment of the cumulative effects of the wind farms and the locations of the scallops, squid and other species.

In just one area where a lease is being considered, over the last five years New Bedford has taken an annual average of 56 million scallops. That’s a good chunk of the 354 million scallops the city fleet has taken on average over the last five years.

“This is a big deal,” Mitchell told the BOEM officials.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind energy: Fishermen ask for relief

September 21, 2018 — Offshore windmills may be the future of energy here, but they’re presently a source of agitation to commercial fishermen.

A vocal group of them, who aren’t necessarily opposed to windmills but just the placement of them on or near fishing grounds, which if you ask them is anywhere the water is salt, gave the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management their two cents at a public meeting Thursday.

BOEM oversees offshore wind for the U.S. Department of Interior and is in the planning stages of selecting ocean floor off the New Jersey coast for windmill placement.

The agency was at the Long Branch Public Library to present information collected in a recent public comment period and call for interest among offshore energy companies.

“All of these areas are prime scallop grounds. We’re not going to take any of this lying down,” said Arthur Osche, a member of the Point Pleasant Fishermen’s Dock Co-operative.

Osche was referring to fishing grounds in Hudson North and Hudson South, two designated wind farm lease sites that start about 17 miles east of the coastline here.

The two sites are grouped into the New York Bight Call Area, which also contains two lease sites off the Long Island. The four sites total 2,047 square nautical miles, which is equivalent 2,710 square miles on land.

BOEM’s officials announced they have nine energy companies waiting to potentially make a bid on the lease areas.

Scallops are the state’s most valuable seafood commodity. In 2016, the commercial scallop harvest brought in $123 million, according to National Marine Fisheries Service data.

Fellow co-operative dock member Jim Lovgren said if their access to the grounds is restricted by the windmills then they should be paid for the economic loss.

“Mark off the area and then compensate us,” said Lovgren.

U.S. commercial fishermen can be compensated for property and economic loss due to energy development on the outer continental shelf through the Fishermen’s Contingency Fund.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

‘You’re impacting the whole resource’

September 19, 2018 — Fishermen and city officials raised the alarm Tuesday about potential wind turbines in prime fishing and scalloping grounds south of Long Island.

About 55 people attended a meeting with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to discuss the agency’s evaluation of possible offshore wind locations within a 2,300-square-mile portion of the New York Bight, between Long Island and New Jersey.

Scalloper Eric Hansen said 40 to 50 percent of the scalloping grounds fished by New Bedford scallopers is within the area the federal government is considering leasing to wind developers, and if fishing there becomes dangerous, people will fish harder in the remaining places.

“You’re impacting the whole resource,” he said.

Bureau staff said they want to narrow down the areas to be leased for wind turbines, not use the entire space.

“We have no intention of leasing that whole area,” BOEM spokesman Stephen Boutwell said in an interview before the meeting.

But fishermen were skeptical.

“That’s a hope and not a promise right now, from our perspective,” David Frulla, a scallop industry attorney, said in an interview. “We think this is way overboard and needs to be reconsidered. And we’re actively opposing it.”

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell addressed the meeting, calling the potential effect on fishing “very alarming.”

“There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way to allow for the development of offshore wind,” he said.

The federal agency has indicated to developers that 80,000 acres would be a reasonable project size — compared to the nearly 1.5 million acres contained within the four areas under consideration: Fairways North, Fairways South, Hudson North and Hudson South.

The mayor cited government data showing a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of scallops were harvested in the four areas over a five-year period ending in 2016. He said a small fraction of the total acreage would satisfy New York’s renewable energy goals, and that those goals could be satisfied by unused areas off Massachusetts that have already been through this process.

Amy Stillings, an economist with BOEM, said Mitchell framed the conversation well, and research does show a lot of fishing happens in the New York Bight.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

NEFMC September 24-27, 2018, Plymouth, MA – Listen Live, View Documents

September 17, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council will hold a four-day meeting from Monday, September 24 through Thursday, September 27, 2018. The public is invited to listen-in via webinar or telephone.  Here are the details.

MEETING LOCATION: Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor, 180 Water Street, Plymouth, MA 02360; www.hotel1620.com.

START TIME: The webinar will be activated at approximately 1 p.m. on Monday, September 24 and at 8:00 a.m. each day thereafter.  However, please note that the meeting is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. on Monday and 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  The webinar will end at approximately 6:00 p.m. EST or shortly after the Council adjourns each day.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION: Online access to the meeting is available at Listen Live.  There is no charge to access the meeting through this webinar.

CALL-IN OPTION: To listen by telephone, dial +1 (415) 655-0052.  The access code is 471-062-244.  Please be aware that if you dial in, your regular phone charges will apply.

AGENDA:  The agenda and all meeting materials are available on the Council’s website at September 24-27, 2018 NEFMC Plymouth, MA.

COMMENT DEADLINE:  Written comments must be received no later than 8 a.m., Thursday, September 20, 2018 to be considered at this meeting.

THREE MEETING OUTLOOK:  A copy of the New England Council’s Three Meeting Outlook is available HERE.

ADDITIONAL EVENT:  On Wednesday, September 26, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold an “open office” in the Plympton Room of the same hotel.  BOEM staffers will be on hand to solicit input and answer questions about offshore wind-related activities, including: (1) the New York Bight Area Identification; (2) the Vineyard Wind Draft Environmental Impact Statement; (3) the South Fork Wind Farm Construction and Operations Plan; and (4) other issues of interest to Council members and the public.

Learn more about the NEFMC here