Saving Seafood

Massachusetts: Gov. Baker vows to hear voice of fishermen regarding offshore wind

April 11, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Gov. Charlie Baker sat about 1,000 feet from the city’s waterfront as he discussed various aspects of the state with The Standard-Times on Tuesday. The proximity to the most valuable port in the United States wasn’t lost on him.

“I do not want (the fishing industry’s) voice to get lost, period,” Baker said. “And it won’t be.”

Through the National Coalition for Fishing Communities, scores of fishermen and organizations sent a letter to Baker on Monday to emphasize their concerns regarding the implementation of offshore wind facilities in areas where they make a living.

“Based on the past several months of interaction with the offshore wind industry, we do not have confidence that our interests are being adequately taken into account, nor will be in the future,” the letter said.

The letter also calls for the New Bedford Port Authority to take on the role of a central facilitator in discussion between the industries.

“I’m happy to have them as part of the mix, but there are a lot of people at the state and federal level who have an oar in this water as well, but, yeah, happy to have them as part of the mix,” Baker said.

The letter addressed to Baker outlined three aspects of concern held by the fishing industry: the project side and number of turbines; a lack of plan/process to study impacts; and no coordination or communication among projects.

Read the full industry letter here

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Connecticut: Proposed wind farms off of New London worry local fishermen

April 10, 2018 — Fishermen were quick to react to the possibility of another wind farm off the New England coast.

Last week, Ørsted and Eversource announced a joint venture and has submitted a bid to build Connecticut’s first offshore wind farm, in response to the state’s request for proposals for offshore wind energy generation.

The approximately 200-megawatt project – Constitution Wind – would be the first of its kind to serve the state of Connecticut and would be located in federal waters 65 miles off shore.

Through emails, News 8 has learned local fishermen claim they have already had damaged equipment from the Block Island Wind Farm and they fear another one could cause more trouble for them.

Read the full story at WTNH

 

Massachusetts: Fishing groups back New Bedford as wind liaison

April 10, 2018 — BOSTON — Fishing officials are calling for the New Bedford Port Authority to be the “central facilitator” for discussions between the offshore wind industry and fishermen.

Monday’s letter to Gov. Charlie Baker was sent by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities, a project of Saving Seafood, a group that New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell previously said was created by industry players in his city.

New Bedford is both the nation’s top fishing port as measured by the value of catch, mostly owing to the scallop fishery, and offshore wind developers have agreed to use the Whaling City’s harbor facilities as a staging area, so it is on its way to becoming an offshore wind hub, as well.

In the letter, officials also urged him to make the state’s first offshore windfarm “as modest in size and scope as possible” so that its effects can be studied and called for a possible delay in the selection of offshore wind partners.

“Three separate, developer-led outreach efforts have been launched, and all are stumbling to produce meaningful dialogue or move us closer to real solutions in areas ranging from navigation, access, cable routes, radar interference, and gear loss,” the coalition wrote. “Equally troubling, it has become clear that offshore wind developers are unwilling or unable to coordinate their interactions with commercial fishermen to tackle issues that cut across multiple project areas.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Interior secretary: ‘Opposition’ to offshore drill plan

April 9, 2018 — PLAINSBORO, N.J. — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday acknowledged there is “a lot of opposition” to President Donald Trump’s plan to open most of the nation’s coastline to oil and gas drilling.

Speaking at a forum on offshore wind energy in Plainsboro, New Jersey, Zinke touted Trump’s “all of the above” energy menu that calls for oil and gas, as well as renewable energy projects.

But he noted strong opposition to the drilling plan, adding there is little to no infrastructure in many of those areas to support drilling.

“There is a lot of opposition, particularly off the East Coast and the West Coast, on oil and gas,” Zinke said.

He said on the East Coast, only the Republican governors of Maine and Georgia have expressed support for the drilling plan, which has roiled environmentalists but cheered energy interests. Maine Gov. Paul LePage has endorsed the plan, but Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has hesitated to take a public position on it.

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

President Trump Expands Wind Leases Off Martha’s Vineyard

April 9, 2018 — The Trump administration will expand wind energy leases off Martha’s Vineyard, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior announced Friday.

In a press release, Secretary Ryan Zinke said two more areas off Massachusetts totaling some 390,000 acres would go up for sale for future commercial wind farms. The lease area lies near a 300,000-acre swath of wind-rich deepwater ocean already designated for commercial wind farms, roughly 15 to 25 miles south of the Vineyard.

No wind farms have been built yet off Massachusetts, but a high-stakes business race is on as well-funded developers work their way through a dense bureaucractic process of permitting at the state and federal level. Construction could begin by 2019 and run through 2022.

The next key date in the permitting process is April 23, when bid winners will be announced for state-mandated energy contracts with utility providers. Tied to a 2016 law signed by Gov. Charlie Baker requiring state utility companies to buy 1,600 megawatts of power from alternative energy sources in the next decade, the energy contracts are critical for wind developers since they provide a way for wind farms to transmit electricity to consumers via the grid.

To date, three developers have been awarded leases to build utility-scale wind farms off the Vineyard: Vineyard Wind, Deepwater Wind and Baystate Wind.

Vineyard Wind is a partnership between Vineyard Power, the Island energy cooperative, and the Danish company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which has an offshore wind development arm.

Deepwater Wind, based in Providence, R.I., has already launched the country’s first offshore wind farm off Block Island.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

 

Massachusetts: Offshore wind projects make headway

April 6, 2018 — HYANNIS, Mass. — There are two chances on the horizon for the public to dig into the offshore wind energy plans of Vineyard Wind, with federal and state regulatory reviews underway.

At the same time, Vineyard Wind, Bay State Wind and Deepwater Wind — all of which hope to build wind farms off Martha’s Vineyard and sell electricity from the turbines to Massachusetts electricity distributors — are moving forward with regional collaborations they say will result in community benefits.

Vineyard Wind has announced a collaboration with the nonprofit Citizens Energy Corp. to create a fund that would contribute $1 million each year for 15 years for battery energy storage and solar projects in towns that host the offshore wind project. Those communities would include New Bedford, towns on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Barnstable, Yarmouth, and towns across Bristol County.

“We have a deep commitment to helping households in need and advancing the cause of renewable energy,” Citizens Energy CEO Peter Smith said. “Our partnership with Vineyard Wind allows us to accomplish both.”

The fund will be used to create a revolving loan fund for energy efficiency improvements to multifamily, low-income housing, and to give ongoing credits to low-income residents’ electricity bills and backup power and cost savings for public buildings, according to the company.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Massachusetts: Offshore Wind Company Accepting Public Comments On Proposed Project

April 6, 2018 — An offshore wind developer is seeking comments from the public on potential environmental impacts of its proposed Massachusetts project, which could be the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm if approved.

Vineyard Wind wants to build an 800-megawatt energy facility 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. The wind farm’s 106 wind turbine generators would be capable of powering up to 500,000 homes.

The company, along with two other developers, submitted proposals to the state last year in response to a request from power companies.

If their project is approved, Vineyard Wind said their wind farm could be operational as early as 2021.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio

 

BOEM Seeks Input on Future Offshore Renewable Energy Leasing

April 5, 2018 — In support of the Administration’s all-of-the-above energy policy and using every tool available to achieve energy dominance, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is conducting a high-level assessment of all waters offshore the United States Atlantic Coast for potential future offshore wind lease locations.

BOEM is seeking your input on the Proposed Path Forward for Future Offshore Renewable Energy Leasing on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf through a Request for Feedback (RFF) that will publish in the Federal Register on April 6, 2018.

“The Administration continues to make great progress toward securing America’s energy future,” said Counselor for Energy Policy, Vincent DeVito. “The outlook for offshore wind is bright and today, we are taking the next step to ensure a domestic offshore wind industry.”

To help assess which geographic areas along the Atlantic are the most likely to have highest potential for successful offshore wind development, BOEM is considering multiple factors, highlighted below.

Factors that make an area more likely to be excluded:

1. Areas prohibited by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act for leasing.
2. Department of Defense conflict areas.
3. Charted marine vessel traffic routes.

Read the full story at Ocean News & Technology

 

Feds begin environmental review of Vineyard Wind

April 3, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The federal government is gathering public comments for an environmental report on the Vineyard Wind offshore wind proposal.

Five public meetings are scheduled this month in New Bedford, Vineyard Haven, Nantucket, Hyannis, and at the University of Rhode Island.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans to prepare an environmental impact statement on Vineyard Wind’s construction and operations plan. Vineyard Wind, a partnership between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, has proposed an 800-megawatt project off the coast of Massachusetts.

The project could include up to 106 wind turbines, beginning about 14 miles southeast of Martha’s Vineyard.

A 30-day comment period runs through Monday, April 30.

Federal Agency To Study Effects Of Electric Pulses From Proposed Wind Farm On Fish

March 28, 2018 — Federal officials say they are looking at new studies of fish species that migrate off the coast of Long Island and their potential reactions to electric pulses from the transmission cables of the proposed South Fork Wind Farm, in response to concerns raised by fishermen and the East Hampton Town Trustees.

Concerns about how fish might react to the electric magnetic field, or EMF, given off by the wind farm’s foot-thick power cable when it comes ashore have become the main objection from the East Hampton Town Trustees and the South Fork’s commercial baymen.

Fishermen rely on the annual migrations of fish through the relatively shallow waters within a couple of miles of the shore on their way to summer haunts in the bays. They worry that even if the EMF pulses given off by the sort of cable that would connect to the wind farm were minor—as studies suggest—the subtle impulses could be enough to divert fish in their migrations and away from the near-shore areas.

In the earliest discussions of the issue over the last several months, representatives of Deepwater Wind have presented the results of studies conducted at the existing wind farm off Block Island and by scientists around the giant offshore wind farms in Europe, as well as laboratory tests that show the effects of EMF on migrating fish to be inconsequential.

But fishermen and their supporters have said those studies are of little reassurance to them, since they involve different scales, different types of sea floor or different species of fish than those that are of the utmost importance to local baymen.

“What they tested in Europe is not that relevant. What they tested at Block Island, with a cable one-quarter the size of this, is not that relevant,” said Gary Cobb, an East Hampton man who has been reviewing the work done thus far on EMF and other details of offshore wind development on behalf of fishermen. “And you need several years of data for any of it to be useful.”

Earlier this winter, the Town Trustees issued a call for more studies—along with an aggressive demand for financial support from Deepwater for fishermen who are impacted by the project—to examine the effects of EMF on fishes that migrate to Long Island in summer.

Read the full story at 27 East