Saving Seafood

New England wind farm, environmentalists agree on ways to protect whales

June 27, 2022 — The developers of an offshore wind farm and three environmental organizations announced Monday that they have reached an agreement to further protect rare North Atlantic right whales during construction and operation of the energy-generating project.

The agreement involving Orsted and Eversource — developers of South Fork Wind off the coast of New England and New York — was signed by the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Conservation Law Foundation, the groups said in a joint statement.

The agreement promotes the development of sustainable energy while protecting wildlife, said Alison Chase, a senior policy analyst at the NRDC.

“We don’t need to choose between clean energy development and wildlife protection, and this agreement shows how we can do both,” she said.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Proposed N.J. wind farm could have major impact on area fisheries, draft report says

June 20, 2022 — A proposed wind farm off the Jersey Shore could significantly affect local fisheries and boat traffic but generally have little impact on tourism and marine life while helping to move away from oil and gas, according to the draft environmental impact statement released Friday by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The impact statement is the next step toward winning federal approval for Ocean Wind, a wind farm to be built by the Danish energy company Ørsted and PSEG.

The draft statement addressed concerns by officials in some New Jersey beach towns that the turbines would spoil the ocean views and discourage tourists from returning.

It said the impact of the wind farm would be moderate on tourism due to noise from construction and the new structures, but that the wind turbines could attract tourists eager to see them.

The impact on cultural artifacts could be significant as “the introduction of intrusive visual elements” could “alter character-defining ocean views of historic properties onshore” and work on the ocean floor could disturb shipwrecks or submerged archaeological sites, the statement said.

And the significant impacts on fisheries could be attributed to ongoing regulations, climate change and the disruptions to operations by the construction and installation of the turbines, the report said. Some fishing vessels would decide to avoid the area altogether.

Read the full story at NJ.com

Orsted, Eversource Host N.Y. Supply Chain Forum to Partner with Local Businesses

June 10, 2022 — Ørsted and Eversource are hosting an offshore wind supply chain forum in Albany to help New York businesses connect with Tier 1 suppliers on potential job opportunities at Sunrise Wind Farm. This the first New York forum of its kind to feature a large project supplier sharing details on opportunities for supporting vendors and subcontractors to work on the project.

The June 14 forum from 8:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. is the first of three that Ørsted and Eversource will host in New York; it aims to match New York businesses with near-term opportunities in the offshore wind supply chain. Eversource Energy, Siemens Gamesa, Siemens Inc., Riggs Distler, Ljungstrom, Carver Companies, Blue Ocean Energy Marine, Edison Chouest Offshore, Nexans, HeliService International, ATOS and LS Cable are scheduled to attend.

Read the full story at North American Windpower

Plans for Delaware, Maryland offshore wind projects questioned at forum

May 23, 2022 — Signs of support for offshore wind power abounded outside of Indian River High School Friday.

Inside, it was just the opposite.

Waves of skepticism and opposition followed presentations by representatives of US Wind and Ørsted, two companies that have obtained leases for proposed offshore wind projects in federal waters off the Delaware/Maryland coast.

Topics of concerns included detrimental impact on marine and migratory bird life, the local fishing industry and numerous natural resources, as well as marine safety and unobstructed viewshed.

The fishing industry – recreational and commercial – would take a huge hit, says Meghan Lapp, a fisheries liaison for Seafreeze Ltd. in Rhode Island. She addressed the panel and audience by Zoom.

“What you are looking for in wind farms from a commercial fishing perspective is essentially a complete loss of fishable areas for the next 30 years, which is going to be the career and the lifetime of the fishermen that are out there right now,” Ms. Lapp said.

Bonnie Brady, executive director of Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in Montauk, New York, said sonar from site surveying and electromagnetic frequency through cables will result in long-term migratory changes that will have a detrimental impact on marine life, including several endangered species of whales.

“It will change the ecosystem of the area,” Ms. Brady said.

Read the full story at Delaware State News

N.J. offshore wind developer faces fishing industry opposition

May 16, 2022 — New Jersey offshore wind developer Orsted recently inked a deal to use all union labor for its projects along the East Coast.

Biden Administration officials helped broker the agreement between Orsted and North America’s Building Trades Unions, as part of its goal to generate 30 gigawatts of wind energy by 2030, while simultaneously developing green energy jobs.

Opposition by fishing industry

The group Ocean City Flooding opposes Orsted’s project off the coast of South Jersey and says the labor deal doesn’t take into account potential job losses in the fisheries industry.

“We support jobs for Americans, however, it should be noted that here in Cape May County Orsted has not committed to one job and in fact there will be a loss of jobs in the commercial fishing industry at the Cape May/Wildwood port,” said Suzanne Hornick, one of the group’s founders.

She says while the deal focuses on labor, other issues remain such as threats to marine life, migrating birds, the endangered Atlantic right whale, along with potential rate hikes and declining property values.

Read the full story at the Allegheny Front

New York: Wind Farm Study Moorings Anger Fishermen

May 6, 2022 — Fishermen on the South Fork are angered by the placement in August of several dozen 500-pound concrete blocks on the ocean floor off Wainscott, moorings for the telemetry devices in use for the South Fork Wind Fisheries Study Work Plan that was a condition for the East Hampton Town Trustees’ lease agreement allowing the South Fork Wind farm’s transmission cable to make landfall on a beach under their jurisdiction.

Researchers with Stony Brook University who are conducting the five-year study required of the wind farm’s developers are at present on a regular visit to the sensor array to collect data, replace batteries, and deploy new, smaller, and retrievable moorings alongside the existing 500-pound blocks. A spokeswoman for the developers, Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource Energy, said on Tuesday that the original moorings will be removed.

Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, criticized the deployment of the concrete blocks on the sea floor where dozens of boats fish. She described the area as “a really busy squid, fluke, all-of-it area,” she said on Monday. “Why would academia treat fishermen so poorly when they’ve got a body of knowledge academics can’t begin to?” For trawl fishermen, the concrete blocks are a hazard, Ms. Brady said.

Read the full story at the East Hampton Star

Orsted will use NJ Wind Port to build offshore wind farm

April 28, 2022 — Orsted, the Danish wind power developer, signed an agreement Thursday with New Jersey officials to use a state-financed manufacturing port to build the components of the state’s first offshore wind farm.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced the agreement during an international wind energy conference in Atlantic City, from whose coast the project’s turbines should be visible on the distant horizon.

Orsted, which is partnering with Newark-based PSEG to build the project, will lease the New Jersey Wind Port in Salem County for two years starting in April 2024. Murphy did not reveal how much the developers will pay for the lease. The parties signed the letter of intent Thursday, but binding agreements are to be submitted to the New Jersey Economic Development Authority by June.

The pact marks the first return on the state’s investment of up to $500 million in the wind port, designed to help the state attract companies interested in building wind power projects here as it seeks to become the East Coast hub of the offshore wind industry.

Read the full story at AP News

Survey conflicts test relations between wind, fishing industries

April 27, 2022 — The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and offshore wind energy developers are pledging to do better by commercial fishermen – with fisheries studies, scout boats to head off survey conflicts with fishing gear, and bringing on highly experienced and respected fishermen as industry liaisons.

Incidents of survey boats towing through fixed gear in Mid-Atlantic waters are putting those processes to the test. Conch and black sea bass trap fishermen who have had gear damaged off the Delmarva coast and New Jersey brought their complaints to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

At an April 5 briefing Amanda Lefton, director of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and wind developers Ørsted and Atlantic Shores updated the regional fishery management council on plans for two adjacent turbine projects off Atlantic City and Long Beach Island, N.J. – and BOEM’s recent $4.37 billion sale of New York Bight wind leases that could become even bigger arrays farther out on the continental shelf.

Then they heard from fishermen who have seen their conch and black sea bass gear dragged and damaged by survey vessels working on wind leases off New Jersey and the Delmarva peninsula.

New Jersey captain Joe Wagner Jr. told the council how he lost 157 bass traps in 2021 during a survey around the Ørsted Ocean Wind project area.

“The only reason I got somewhat of a payment (compensation) is because I caught their vessel at 3 o’clock in the morning pulling three of my high flyers behind their boat,” said Wagner.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Right whale defenders question energy industry donations

April 27, 2022 — A group opposing wind projects off the coast of Massachusetts released a report Tuesday that documents contributions from wind energy developers to environmental groups in the state, donations that the authors of the report say cast questions on the ability of groups to analyze the impacts that wind projects have on the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

The report, released by the Save Right Whales Coalition, catalogs $4.2 million between wind developers like Vineyard Wind, Bay State Wind, and Orsted to environmental groups in Massachusetts such as the Environmental League of Massachusetts, New England Aquarium, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

The flow of money, coalition member Lisa Linowes said, raised a “red flag” for potential conflicts of interest when it comes to investigating the environmental impacts of offshore wind development in places where the North Atlantic Right Whale resides. The whale is one of the most endangered large whale species in the world, according to NOAA Fisheries.

“The public has come to trust the word of these organizations, that when they say wind turbines can be safely sited within and near the waters where the right whale lives, breeds, feeds, that they will be safe,” Linowes said. “Based on their public statements and based on the donations … we should question the priorities of these organizations.”

The Save Right Whales Coalition study says the New England Aquarium received a “donation pledge” of $250,000 in 2018 from Bay State Wind, a joint venture between Orsted and Eversource during the 2019 procurement process for offshore wind energy, an undisclosed amount from Vineyard Wind in 2019, and an undisclosed amount in 2020 from Equinor, a petroleum company with offshore wind ventures.

Read the full story at WHDH

NEW JERSEY: Fishermen say Ørsted boats destroying traps

April 11, 2022 — Several commercial fishermen claim survey boats hired by wind turbine developer Ørsted inadvertently cut their lines causing their lobster and conch traps to be lost in the ocean. At issue: being reimbursed from Ørsted for the lost gear and income

Lobster fisherman Joe Wagner, a second-generation fisherman of lobster, sea bass and conch, said last year he lost 157 lobster traps to Ørsted, which is partnering with PSEG on the Ocean Wind 1 project that aims to bring up to 99 massive wind turbines to an area 15 miles off the coast of Cape May and Atlantic counties.

“They only paid me for a handful of them because they say it wasn’t their boats,” he said.

Wagner said Ørsted made that claim based on tracking data of the survey boats. He said he caught the survey boats frequently turning off their tracking devices.

Last year his father lost 100 lobster pots to Ørsted survey boats, Wagner asserted, again with Ørsted claiming their boats were not to blame. The cost of lobster pots is $180 to $220 each with a possible two-year delay to receive all the replacements due to supply chain issues, he said.

He said Ørsted sends a weekly email to fishermen with a photo of their leased areas stating “our vessels might be in your area” but doesn’t give exact coordinates.

Read the full story at Ocean City Sentinel