Saving Seafood

Could offshore wind plan hurt scallop fishermen? New Bedford official has ‘grave concerns

October 28, 2024 — According to a letter he wrote to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, New Bedford Port Authority Executive Director Gordon Carr has “grave concern” for the scallop fishing industry in the face of a potential new call area to be leased out to offshore wind projects.

The 13,476,805-acre area off of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina — dubbed the “Central Atlantic 2” call area — encompasses a large portion of key scalloping grounds, Carr wrote.

In his Oct. 21 letter, sent on the last day of BOEM’s comment period, Carr wrote that throughout New Bedford’s process of developing “the first large scale offshore wind industrial marshalling port,” the port “has been diligent in providing comments for multiple offshore wind projects underway and proposed for the future.”

Read the full article at The Standard-Times

NEW JERSEY: Birds are attracted to offshore wind turbines. How Jersey Shore is preparing for risks.

October 28, 2024 — Much of the attention around what towering offshore wind turbines could mean for Jersey Shore animals has focused on whales and certain fish species.

Birds, some believe, have gotten short shrift.

As have bats.

Not that wind developers and environmentalists aren’t looking up to the skies.

During a recent tour of the Long Island South Fork wind farm — a project that could be instructive for what’s planned in New Jersey in the years to come — managers from Ørsted said they monitor for birds and bats.

How? With the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, an international collaborative research network.

The equipment is affixed to one of the projects’ 12 turbine platforms, the company said.
Worries have been shared by advocates about what wind structures, simply by the nature of their size and placement, will mean for birds and bats that travel off the coast. Bats have been shown to collide with turbines. Lighting has also been observed to attract certain birds to the structures, an organizer from the National Audubon Society told NJ Advance Media.

Vineyard Wind To Resume Pile Driving For Turbine Foundations This Week

October 28, 2024 — Even as it prepares to take down additional defective blades, repair others, and retrieve the remaining debris on the sea floor from the July 13 blade failure, Vineyard Wind is still forging ahead with the construction of its 62-turbine wind farm southwest of Nantucket.

Despite the turmoil and delays, the offshore wind company announced Saturday that the crane vessel Orion would be returning to the area this week to conduct pile driving and installation of the remaining monopile foundations within its lease area.

Read the full article at Nantucket Current

Port of New Bedford cites ‘grave concern’ about new offshore wind area

October 25, 2024 — The city’s Port Authority published a letter to offshore wind regulators Wednesday, raising “grave concerns” over a 13.4 million acre tract of ocean recently opened to wind farm developers in the Central Atlantic that could put up to $2 billion in commercial fishing revenue at risk.

“BOEM has painted with too broad a brush,” New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell wrote in the letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). “We believe that the new Mid-Atlantic call areas must be cut back from existing scallop and other fishery access areas, which still would leave ample room for nearby states to achieve their offshore wind capacity goals.”

In August, BOEM began soliciting proposals for offshore wind developers to lease 13.4 million acres of ocean off New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. It is the second of such sales in the Central Atlantic and the fifth offshore wind lease sale held during the Biden-Harris administration. The first lease sale in the Central Atlantic was completed also in August, yielding nearly $93 million from developers Equinor Wind US and Virginia Electric and Power Company.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

More Vineyard Wind blades coming down

October 25, 2024 — Vineyard Wind officials announced Wednesday that an unspecified number of turbine blades will be removed from its lease area 15 miles south of the Island, raising further questions about the integrity of the blades.

GE Vernova, the contractors charged with the construction of the Vineyard Wind farm — through a press release and during a call with investors Wednesday — did not specify how many blades have been or will be removed, although they said that less-than ten were impacted.

“There was a manufacturing deviation at one of our factories in Canada,” GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said during a quarterly call with investors on Wednesday. “We have been very systematically reviewing all of our blades in offshore wind and we can say today that a very small proportion, low single-digit proportion of our manufactured blades in totality also had a manufacturing deviation similar to the blade that we experienced the failure in Vineyard Wind.”

The latest press announcement follows recent reporting from the New Bedford Light that four blades were quietly shipped from New Bedford to a manufacturing plant in France.

Read the full article at MV Times

Scallop, menhaden fishermen call to cut back Mid-Atlantic wind areas

October 25, 2024 — A recent proposal to outline new wind energy areas off the Mid-Atlantic coast could threaten some of the most important East Coast sea scallop fishing grounds, New Bedford, Mass. officials warned the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“As the port where the fishing and offshore wind industry intersect more than anywhere else, New Bedford is committed to the successful coexistence of both industries,” New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said, in an Oct 23 statement with the New Bedford Port Authority. “We believe that the new Mid-Atlantic call areas must be cut back from existing scallop and other fishery access areas, which still would leave ample room for nearby states to achieve their offshore wind capacity goals.”

The next day Virginia-based menhaden fishermen also called for BOEM to alter its plans and provide significant setbacks from wind power development areas and fishing grounds.

Read the full article at WorkBoat

Preservation Society of Newport County asks judge to stop offshore wind project

October 25, 2024 — The Preservation Society of Newport County is asking a judge to halt work on a controversial wind farm located 15 miles offshore.

The Preservation Society, which owns the famed Newport Mansions, sued the federal government last year after the Revolution Wind project was approved.

Their complaint names the U.S. Department of the Interior, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) as defendants.

In a new court filing, the Preservation Society asked a judge to rule in their favor before the case heads to trial. They claim BOEM broke the law by not considering the consequences the turbines would have on the Newport Mansions and other historic landmarks.

Read the full article at WPRI

More Vineyard Wind blades must be removed, repaired

October 24, 2024 — The Vineyard Wind project must remove an unknown number of blades that have already been installed south of Martha’s Vineyard while it repairs others, the company announced Wednesday. The project also received permission from the federal government this week to resume blade installation after it removes and repairs the components in the coming weeks.

The latest announcement suggests investigations found more defective blades similar to the blade that failed in July, and comes after the project quietly delivered at least four turbine blades from New Bedford to Cherbourg, France, where GE Vernova operates a blade manufacturing plant.

Both companies had not responded to questions as to why blades were being shipped to Europe from the U.S., but on Wednesday, a GE spokesperson told The Light the repair work will occur “in the water/at the turbine, in other cases at the [marshaling] harbor and our factory in Cherbourg, France.”

The companies said they would be “strengthening” the blades “as needed to support the safety and operational readiness of this project,” but it is unclear what is meant by “strengthening” — whether it means applying more adhesive or fiberglass — or where in the blade the repair work will occur.

During an earnings call with investors Wednesday morning, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said the last few months for offshore wind have been “difficult for us.”

“We can say today that a very small proportion, low single-digit proportion of our manufactured blades in totality also had a manufacturing deviation similar to the blade” that failed at the Vineyard Wind site, Strazik said. “In those cases, we are taking action on those blades.”

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

Vineyard Wind is given the OK to move forward after blade failure in July

October 24, 2024 — After months of delay, Vineyard Wind has announced it was given the OK to remove a damaged blade and complete its wind turbine project 15 miles south of Nantucket.

In July, a GE Genova-manufactured wind turbine blade broke off, falling into the ocean and littering nearby beaches with floating debris and sharp fiberglass, which angered residents.

The failure occurred at Vineyard Wind’s offshore wind farm, which began delivering energy from five of its planned 63 wind turbines in February.

Read the full article at Boston.com

Ocean Harvesters and Omega Protein Call for 15-Mile Buffer Zone from Offshore Wind on Central Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf

October 24, 2024 — The following was released by Omega Protein and Ocean Harvesters:

Ocean Harvesters, owner and operator of nine menhaden purse seine vessels, and Omega Protein, which develops healthy products from menhaden, have called for a 15-mile buffer from offshore wind development on the Central Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. Responding to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) recently proposed Central Atlantic 2 Call Area (Docket No. BOEM-2024-0040), the two Reedville, Virginia-based companies wrote that their operations are incompatible with wind turbine arrays, and that critical adjustments are needed to protect the menhaden fishing industry.

Ocean Harvesters vessels harvest Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay and in Atlantic Ocean waters from the mouth of the Bay to northern New Jersey, providing these catches exclusively to Omega Protein. This fishery, active in the communities of Virginia’s Northern Neck for over 140 years, supports the production of essential products for aquaculture, agriculture, and human nutrition.

On average, nearly 70 percent of Ocean Harvesters’ catch occurs in federal waters, with approximately 93,000 metric tons of menhaden harvested annually in the Exclusive Economic Zone between the Virginia-North Carolina border and Long Island. These operations rely on aerial spotter planes and a complex netting process to harvest menhaden, a method that is incompatible with wind turbine arrays. The range of the nets, the need for spotter planes to fly at low altitudes, and the drift of vessels during harvesting make it essential that a buffer zone be established around wind energy sites.

The companies recommend that BOEM move the boundary of Central Atlantic 2 Call Area seaward from the current six miles to 15 miles to prevent conflicts. Such a change would not only reduce conflicts with the menhaden fishery, but with many other small and large-scale commercial fisheries as well.

Maintaining an appropriate buffer zone is particularly crucial off the coast of Virginia because waters around the Chesapeake Bay are where conflicts with the menhaden fishery would be most acute. Additionally, the confluence of shipping lanes, military operations, and recreational traffic makes this a congested area in the ocean, of importance to numerous existing ocean users.

Ocean Harvesters and Omega Protein remain committed to working collaboratively with BOEM to find a solution that balances offshore renewable energy development with the preservation of vital commercial fisheries.

About Omega Protein
Omega Protein Corporation is a century old nutritional product company that develops, produces, and delivers healthy products derived from menhaden, a fish found abundantly off the U.S. Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. Omega Protein Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary and division of Cooke Inc., a family-owned company based in New Brunswick, Canada.

Through its subsidiaries, Omega Protein owns three menhaden manufacturing facilities in the United States. Omega Protein also has a long-term supply contract with Ocean Harvesters, which owns 30 fishing vessels which harvest menhaden. All fishing vessels owned and operated by Ocean Harvesters, an independent company, were formerly owned by Omega Protein. Any references to commercial fishing of menhaden relate to Ocean Harvesters, not Omega Protein or Cooke Inc.