Saving Seafood

Federal judge rejects request to halt Dominion’s Virginia Beach offshore wind farm

May 29, 2024 — A federal judge has denied a request from a coalition of conservative interest groups that sought to halt construction of Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm in Virginia Beach.

The groups sued the Biden administration earlier this year, arguing federal agencies ignored threats to endangered whales when approving the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

The suit will still move forward this fall, but the decision issued last week denied plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to stop construction while the lawsuit is decided.

U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan said there wasn’t enough proof that plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm from construction on the project moving forward.

“Plaintiffs fail to take into account the extensive measures already in place to minimize potential harm to the (North Atlantic) Right Whale during construction,” AliKhan wrote. They “have not explained why these measures would not be sufficient.”

Read the full article at WHRO

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind project clears key federal hurdle

May 29, 2024 — New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm is one major step closer to reality with the release of a critical federal study.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management last week released its Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic Shores South Wind Project. The company behind the development, Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, is a joint venture between Shell and EDF Renewables.

Plans for Atlantic Shores South call for up to 200 wind turbines across a lease area that spans more than 100,000 acres and is less than nine miles from Long Beach Island at its closest point to shore. The transmission cables that will carry electricity generated by the turbines are planned to come onshore in Atlantic City and Sea Girt.

Read the full article at NJ Spotlight News

NEW JERSEY: Would offshore wind turbines save or ruin the Jersey Shore? Debaters rumble in Berkeley

May 29, 2024 — Police officers filled Central Regional High School on Tuesday night, where tensions ran high as critics and proponents of electricity generated by offshore wind faced off with impassioned speeches during a hearing held by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

The state agency held the event to collect public feedback on permit applications for proposed landfall sites for cables that, if approved, will transmit electricity from the Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind South project to the mainland power grid.

Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind — which is looking to erect about 200 wind turbines between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light — needs a series of permits from the state environmental protection agency before the company can build transmission lines and electrical substations at landfall sites along the Jersey Shore. The company has proposed its electric cables come onshore at Atlantic City, Sea Girt and Egg Harbor Township in Atlantic County.

Read the full article at Asbury Park Press

Feds grant Maine a lease for offshore wind research project

May 29, 2024 — The federal government has granted the state of Maine a lease for a floating offshore wind research station nearly 30 miles off the southern coast.

The dozen turbines located southeast of Portland would be the first floating, offshore wind research site ever deployed in federal waters. The administration of Gov. Janet Mills requested the lease from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in 2021, kicking off a multi-year process that involved an environmental assessment, public meetings and engagement with the commercial fishing community.

The stated goal of the research project is to study the technology and how it interacts with the surrounding environment and marine life as well as ways to reduce potential conflicts with existing uses, such as commercial fishing. The research could then influence development of commercial-scale offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine, which Mills has made a critical piece of her administration’s ambitious climate goals.

Read the full article at Maine Public

NEW JERSEY: Wind Farm Opponents Vow to “Stay in the Fight”

May 28, 2024 — Opponents of offshore wind energy farms warned during a rally Saturday in Ocean City that the legal battle is far from over in their efforts to prevent what they called the “industrialization of our ocean.”

Last year, the Danish energy company Orsted scrapped plans to build two wind farms off the South Jersey coast after concluding that the projects would not be worth the enormous development cost.

However, opponents stressed during the rally that Orsted still holds the leases giving it rights to build the wind farms and could either revive them or sell them to another company that would develop the projects.

“It’s not over. Stay in the fight,” said former Superior Court Judge Michael Donohue, who has headed Cape May County’s legal strategy to block the wind farms.

Read the full article at OCNJDaily

BOEM Releases Final Environmental Statement on First NJ Offshore Wind Farms

May 28, 2024 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is continuing its efforts to push forward with the review and approval of U.S. offshore wind projects. In the latest step, they are releasing the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for two New Jersey projects which are critical to the state’s efforts to jump-start its renewable wind energy efforts.

Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, a joint venture partnership between Shell New Energies US and EDF-RE Offshore Development, submitted a combined Construction and Operations Plan for two wind energy facilities and associated export cables on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore New Jersey. If approved, the two projects could generate about 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power almost one million homes.

“We are encouraged to see forward progress and getting another step closer to delivering New Jersey’s first offshore wind projects,” said Joris Veldhoven, chief executive officer of Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

SLO County Judge Rules Against Local Fishermen

May 26, 2024 — A San Luis Obispo County judge last week rejected a request from Morro Bay and Port San Luis fishermen for a preliminary injunction to stop wind energy companies from surveying the ocean floor.

Signed into law in Oct. 2023, Senate Bill 286 requires the statewide strategy for wind energy to include best practices for addressing impacts to commercial and recreational fisheries. Local fishermen argue wind companies have failed to follow best practices because they have not put protocols in place to protect the fishing industry.

San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen found the requirements in Senate Bill 286 vague. Specifically, when the protocols and protections need to be in place: before or after work is completed.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Ørsted ditches deal on $625M vessel for installing turbines

May 26, 2024 — The developer of two offshore wind projects in New England has canceled an agreement to use Dominion Energy’s $625 million wind turbine installation vessel, marking the latest setback for the industry’s supply chain.

Ørsted spokesperson Maddy Urbish confirmed Thursday that the wind developer has secured a replacement vessel to install turbines for the 704-megawatt Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island and the 924-MW Sunrise Wind farm off the coast of New York.

The company has terminated a charter inked with fanfare in 2021 to use Dominion’s enormous installation ship named Charybdis for the two projects.

Read the full article at E&E News

VIRGINIA: Virginia Beach offshore wind farm construction begins

May 26, 2024 — Dominion Energy announced Wednesday that construction officially started at its planned 2.6-gigawatt Virginia Beach offshore wind farm.

The electric company said the Orion heavy lift vessel installed the first wind turbine foundation, a steel tube called a monopile, about 29 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. The Orion departed Portsmouth Marine Terminal with the first batch of monopiles last week.

“This is a monumental day for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind team, who have worked tirelessly to keep this project on budget and on schedule to provide our customers with reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy,” Robert M. Blue, Dominion Energy’s chair, president and CEO, said in the announcement.

The planned 176-turbine, $9.8 billion project is expected to provide enough energy to power up to 660,000 homes once completed by the end of 2026.

Read the full article at The Virginian-Pilot

Concerns rise over offshore wind in Gulf of Maine

May 22, 2024 — Ocean grabbing is a term frequently used in relation to private interests’ takeover of the ocean commons. While the Department of the Interior’s April 30 announcement that it would sell one million acres of leases for offshore wind power development in the Gulf of Maine may have shocked some, it’s been in the pipeline since 2010.

The proposal has moved ahead despite a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) determination of no competitive interest for Gulf of Maine Research Lease Applications as recently as March 2023. Over the past year, BOEM has forged on and developed a wind leasing process for the Gulf of Maine conducted a draft environmental review and analysis of the Gulf of Maine and finalized the wind energy area for the Gulf.

Read the full article at National Fisherman