April 15, 2020 — In April 2019, the Embassy of the United Kingdom and the state of New York brought two veteran British fishermen across the Atlantic Ocean to speak about their experiences working with offshore wind developers. While offshore wind is relatively new to the United States, with just one wind farm and 30 MW of capacity, the industry has exploded in Europe, with over 100 wind farms and more than 22,000 MW of capacity.
The British fishermen described an early disagreement: an offshore wind developer had done its surveys and determined the placement of a transmission cable, even though this meant laying the cable over a hard rock cliff where it would be exposed to damage and interfere with longstanding fishing activity. The fishermen recognized that this placement would be bad for both industries, hurting the cable’s longevity and creating a potential snag for fishing activity. The two industries hit the drawing board and found an alternative plan: the fishermen knew of nearby soft bottom ocean habitat where the cable could be buried, reducing the developer’s risk and preserving fishing in the area.
Issues like these are ones where fishermen’s knowledge of the seas they have worked on their whole lives – and previous generations worked on before them – can be invaluable, both for maintaining their livelihoods as offshore wind farms are constructed in or around fishing grounds, and for helping developers make the best decisions for their wind businesses.
April 15, 2020 — The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance – a lobbying group formed in January 2018 to represent the East Coast fishing industry in discussions over offshore wind energy development – has called for all a six-month pause in the regulatory process pertaining to offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The call for a delay came via a letter sent to governors of New England states, including Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Janet Mills of Maine, and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. The letter was also sent to Walter Cruickshank, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The letter sites the importance of public participation in regulatory decisions, which is hampered by measures many states are taking to prevent transmission of COVID-19.
April 14, 2020 — After looking at the Northeast Ocean Data Portal, a major energy company wanted to propose a wind farm in the Gulf of Maine in an area where they saw no documented fishing activity.
The Portal pulls together huge amounts of information on every conceivable ocean use, from cultural resources to marine transportation to fishing activity. The fishing data is robust and includes information from dockside reports and vessel tracking systems.
But then they called Annie Hawkins, executive director of Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, RODA. She suspected the area was hugely important to the lobster industry and was certainly used — a lot.
Current regulations don’t require lobstermen to have vessel tracking systems. Where they fish isn’t plugged into any standardized data collection, so it doesn’t show up on the Portal.
“That could have gone in the very wrong direction,” Hawkins said.
She is quick to add the portal does show an incredible amount, and has been useful in a number of instances.
But there are big gaps. When the portal was first being set up a decade or so ago, it was part of a larger “ocean planning” process from which many fishermen felt excluded, said Hawkins. That led to fishermen not providing insight, and a lot of relevant information wasn’t included.
March 11, 2020 — Industry innovations abound, from the Deckhand, a new product that makes it easier to log vessel trip data to Rugged Seas, a new bib-recycling venture that incorporates discarded bib scraps into a variety of rugged and well designed bags that work just as well on the trail as they do in your bunk belowdecks.
Simon Dick of Deckhand gets the farthest-traveled award for coming to Rockport from Australia, no doubt washing his hands all the way.
Fight the power: Fishing and offshore wind
Representatives from across the industry attended and hosted a full-day session on proposed offshore wind-power projects that are creeping both north and south from Southern New England.
Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, and her board of directors advocate for the fishing industry on East Coast developments. They hope to offer their expertise in negotiating new federal permits that preserve access to fishing grounds.
March 6, 2020 — Today kicks off the 45th annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum at the Samoset Resort in Rockport, Maine. This year’s conference program includes all the usual updates on marketing Maine lobster, racing lobster boats, management of a range of New England fisheries — groundfish, herring, eels, scallops — data collection and safety.
New this year is a full day of seminars on offshore wind (taking place all day today, March 5) that will be packed with information fishermen and other working waterfront stakeholders can use: What projects are underway, how they are permitted and what NOAA’s role is and will be. Stay tuned for an update here.
The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, led by Annie Hawkins, has a board of directors that represents fishing communities up and down the East Coast. The group also recently launched a West Coast coalition that will serve as advocates and watchdogs on the left coast.
January 30, 2020 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
The New England Fishery Management Council received a number of updates and reports on the first day of its January 28-30, 2020 meeting in Portsmouth, NH. Here’s a quick rundown of the day’s highlights.
The Council received a presentation on the Northeast Ocean Data Portal, which contains over 5,000 maps showing a variety of ocean uses, including fishing activity, and provides a wide range of information related to marine life, habitat, offshore wind, aquaculture, and more.
During the presentation, representatives from the Northeast Regional Ocean Council (NROC) and the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) informed the Council that they, along with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean (MARCO), are working collaboratively to update commercial fisheries data on the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portals and engage industry through focus groups and other outreach efforts in the development of data products. The groups have federal funding for 2020 to advance regional data sharing to help in management decision making.
January 21, 2020 — The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) — the group that’s been representing commercial fish harvesters in relation to the development of windfarms on the United States’ Atlantic Coast — now has a presence also on the US Pacific Coast.
RODA, which reports to already represent about 160 commercial harvesters and processors, on Jan. 1 launched a Pacific advisory committee made up of leaders from several west coast fisheries throughout California and Oregon.
“Its purpose is to improve science and policy approaches to development, while also increasing and improving communication to help strengthen ties between Pacific fishermen and fishing communities across the country,” the group says in a press release, continuing: “…As discussions of offshore wind development in the US continue to progress, Pacific fishermen have expressed significant concern over the lack of communication and collaboration necessary to inform coexistence among ocean users.”
January 17, 2020 — A fishing industry coalition dealing with offshore wind energy development has launched a West Coast venture, as a first step toward giving Pacific fishermen more voice in how those projects can be compatible with seafood production.
The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance announced it created a new Pacific Advisory Committee, to address Pacific fishermen’s “significant concern over the lack of communication and collaboration necessary to inform coexistence among ocean users.”
The new effort aims to “improve science and policy approaches to development, while also increasing and improving communication to help strengthen ties between Pacific fishermen and fishing communities across the country,” the alliance said in a statement Thursday.
January 16, 2020 — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:
The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) is excited to announce the launch of a Pacific Advisory Committee, which brings RODA’s mission of improving the compatibility of new offshore development with commercial fishing to the West Coast.
As discussions of offshore wind development in the U.S. continue to progress, Pacific fishermen have expressed significant concern over the lack of communication and collaboration necessary to inform coexistence among ocean users.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has identified 3 Call Areas off of California as areas of interest for offshore wind development. The strongest wind speeds are located along the North Coast, near the BOEM Humboldt Call Area. The other two sites, Morro Bay and Diablo Canyon, for possible development are located on the Central Coast (For more information visit the California Offshore Wind Energy Gateway). BOEM has also initiated a process for siting offshore wind projects off of Oregon, although it has not yet identified Call Areas there.
The RODA-Pacific Advisory Committee is comprised of leaders from several West Coast fisheries throughout California and Oregon. Its purpose is to improve science and policy approaches to development, while also increasing and improving communication to help strengthen ties between Pacific fishermen and fishing communities across the country.
As of January 1st 2020, the RODA West Coast advisory committee consists of:
Additional Pacific fishing industry organizations and representatives are invited to contact RODA for inquiries about membership.
RODA is a membership-based alliance of fishing businesses and communities that provides a “strength in numbers” approach to advocacy on issues of mutual interest to seafood harvesters, processors, and affiliated entities. It works on behalf of fishermen with regulators, offshore developers, science experts, and others to coordinate science and policy approaches to proposed ocean development in a way that minimizes conflicts with existing traditional and historic fishing.
About RODA
The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) is a broad, membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and companies working to improve the compatibility of new offshore development with their businesses. It seeks to coordinate science and policy approaches, through public and private partnerships, to manage development of the Outer Continental Shelf in a way that minimizes conflicts with existing traditional and historical fishing.
January 8, 2020 — A group representing New England fishing interests on Tuesday called for special travel lanes through offshore wind farms proposed off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, putting the fishermen at odds with wind farm developers who want to retain as much space as possible for their turbines.
The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance called for the creation of six travel lanes, each one four nautical miles in width, through the entire lease area off the coast of the two states. The offshore wind developers in November had proposed no special travel lanes, choosing instead to let fishermen navigate through turbines set one nautical mile apart traveling north and south and seven-tenths of a nautical mile going diagonally.
Federal regulators, who had hoped the two sides would find some common ground on their own, will now have to decide the best approach.
Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, criticized federal regulators for leaving the issue of safe navigation through the wind farms to negotiations between fishermen and wind farm developers outside the regulatory process. She said it was disappointing that such an important safety issue is still being talked about so late in the regulatory process.