Saving Seafood

RHODE ISLAND: RI coastal regulators affirm NY wind farm project

August 26, 2023 — Another mammoth offshore wind farm planned off Rhode Island’s coastline received the stamp of approval from coastal regulators on Tuesday.

The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council’s (CRMC) 6-0 vote affirms that the Sunrise Wind project meets state coastal policies, while imposing a half-dozen conditions aimed at minimizing disruption to native species, the ocean environment, and the fishermen whose livelihoods depend upon it.

The 924-megawatt project is being co-developed by offshore wind power duo Orsted A/S and Eversource Energy, the same companies behind Revolution and South Fork Wind farms, among others. Though Sunrise Wind will power New York, the area where the turbines would be built sits 17 miles southeast of Block Island.

Which is how the CRMC gets a say, since its Ocean Special Area Management Plan offers regulations for any development within 30 miles offshore of the state coastline. While federal regulators still have the final authority over all offshore wind projects, the CRMC can also recommend mitigation measures to help minimize losses to the fishing industry from the construction and operation of the projects.

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current

US approves major Rhode Island offshore wind farm

August 23, 2023 — The U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday approved the construction of a 704 megawatt (MW) wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, the fourth offshore wind project the agency has greenlighted as the Biden administration targets bringing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power online by 2030.

The Revolution Wind project off Point Judith, Rhode Island, could power nearly 250,000 homes and create 1,200 local jobs during the construction phase, the Interior Department said.

Owned by wind energy developers Orsted (ORSTED.CO) and Eversource (ES.N), the project includes up to 79 possible locations for the installation of 65 wind turbines and two offshore substations.

Read the full story at Reuters

Biden administration approves Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island

August 23, 2023 — Revolution Wind, a 704-megawatt turbine array planned for 15 miles off Rhode Island, gained final approval from the Department of Interior Tuesday. The joint venture by developers Ørsted and Eversource is the fourth offshore wind project to be greenlighted by the Biden administration, which now expects to have 16 project plans reviewed by 2025.

Under intense scrutiny for the project’s anticipated environmental and economic effects, the final review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and other federal agencies focused on BOEM’s “Alternative G” as the “preferred alternative,” which could rearrange wind turbine locations on the lease tract “to reduce impacts to visual resources and benthic habitat.”

The alternative includes up to 79 possible positions for the installation of 65 turbines and two offshore substations to fulfill the project’s designed total nameplate rating of 704 MW within a 1-nautical mile grid spacing.

“This flexibility in design could allow for further refinement for visual resources impact reduction on Martha’s Vineyard and Rhode Island, or for habitat impact reduction in the NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) Priority 1 area,” according to BOEM’s environmental assessment report issued in July.

That analysis foresaw “long term moderate to major adverse impacts depending on the fishery and fishing operation. If BOEM’s recommendations related to project siting, design, navigation, access, safety measures, and financial compensation are implemented across all offshore wind energy projects, adverse impacts on commercial fisheries due to the presence of structures could be reduced.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Why are we seeing more black sea bass in Rhode Island and Massachusetts?

August 12, 2023 — Charlie Borden, a commercial fisherman from the Rhode Island town of Little Compton, got his start targeting lobster when he was just a kid. His dad taught him to fish.

“We used to fish together out of a skiff,” Borden said.

Now 44, Borden still targets lobster, but has since added black sea bass to his repertoire. He was one of the first to target black sea bass in the region. And, as their populations have grown, so has the size of his boat and his crew. He has graduated to his own 47-foot fishing vessel “Drake.”

One of his workers, Providence resident Rob Sherman, was beginning to mix up giant vats of clams —bait for black sea bass — at about 5:30 am one morning in late July.

“These are big surf clams. I’d say a little over 400 pounds,” he said.

The sun is hazy red with Canadian wildfire smoke and it’s just finished blooming over the eastern horizon. The still half-frozen clams smell sweet — for now.

“When it’s sitting in the sun gasses build up and it can be pretty damn nasty,” Sherman said.

Read the full article at wbur

Rhode Island utility rejects Revolution Wind 2 project

July 23, 2023 — Rhode Island Energy said it will not enter a power purchase agreement for the proposed Revolution Wind 2 project because the projected costs to electric customers are too high.

The decision is a setback for offshore wind developers Ørsted and Eversource – coming just after the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it had completed an environmental review for the partners’ first-phase Revolution Wind project.

The Revolution Wind 2 decision, announced Tuesday by Dave Bonenberger, president of Rhode Island Energy, stated that “affordability and reliability would be key factors in how the company evaluated” offshore wind bids.

“Higher interest rates, increased costs of capital and supply chain expenses, as well as the uncertainty of federal tax credits, all likely contributed to higher proposed contract costs,” according to the company. “Those costs were ultimately deemed too expensive for customers to bear and did not align with existing offshore wind PPAs (power purchase agreements).”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island Energy says it won’t move forward on offshore wind energy bid

July 20, 2023 — Rhode Island Energy says it won’t move forward on a power-purchase agreement for a joint Ørsted and Eversource proposal to build a major offshore wind project in the waters off Rhode Island, in part because it would be too expensive for customers.

The utility made the announcement Tuesday. It found that the proposal, called Revolution Wind 2, didn’t meet all the requirements under state law, including a requirement “to reduce energy costs.”

“We recognize some will be disappointed that we didn’t choose to move forward on negotiating this PPA, but that doesn’t mean we are abandoning our commitment to offshore wind in Rhode Island,” Dave Bonenberger, president of Rhode Island Energy, said in announcing the decision Tuesday. “In fact, we are already in discussions with state and regional leaders about new opportunities to bring more offshore wind to the state, which we hope to progress in the coming months.”

Read the full article at Boston Globe

RHODE ISLAND: Climate change and other offshore wind farms are already hurting R.I. fishermen

July 18, 2023 — Rhode Island fishermen warned for years that offshore wind farms will hurt their livelihoods. In the case of one project planned off Rhode Island’s coast, they might be right.

Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management concluded in a report published Monday that the Revolution Wind Farm will have a “major adverse impact” on some commercial and for-hire recreational fishing activities.

The caveat: The same consequences are likely even if the wind farm planned off Rhode Island Sound never gets built, thanks to climate change and other offshore wind projects that are already causing major disruptions to species’ survival, boat traffic and more.

Any major environmental impacts resulting from the Revolution Wind Farm would have happened anyway, according to the 2,800-page environmental assessment. For project partners and advocates, the assessment was cause for celebration, marking what many consider to be the clearance of a major hurdle in the long and complicated federal approval process for ocean development.

“Revolution Wind is now one huge step closer to delivering renewable energy and significant economic benefits to Rhode Island and Connecticut,” David Hardy, group executive vice president and CEO of Orsted Americas, said in a statement. “This major milestone keeps Revolution Wind on-track to complete environmental review and obtain approval by later this summer, with construction activities ramping up soon after. We’re ready to get to work to help Rhode Island and Connecticut expand their blue economies and meet their ambitious clean energy goals.”

Gov. Dan McKee also touted the significance of the report in the context of the state’s aggressive decarbonization mandates, which rely heavily on wind-powered energy to achieve.

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current

BOEM Completes Environmental Analysis for Fourth U.S. Offshore Wind Farm

July 18, 2023 — The United States is accelerating its offshore wind development with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) reporting it has completed its environmental analysis for the next offshore wind farm, coming less than two weeks after it published the Record of Decision for another wind farm.

The proposed Revolution Wind Farm Project to be located offshore Rhode Island would become the fourth, large-scale, commercial wind farm approved in the United States. Proposed by a partnership of Ørsted and Eversource, the plan for Revolution Wind calls for constructing an offshore wind energy project of up to 100 wind turbines, capable of generating up to 880 megawatts. It will be located approximately 15 nautical miles southeast of Point Judith, Rhode Island.

“This milestone represents another important step forward in building a new clean energy economy here in the United States,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. The process, she noted was informed by feedback from industry, ocean users, communities, Tribal Nations, and other stakeholders.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Rhode Island fishermen ask Supreme Court to hear challenge to observer fees

June 20, 2023 — Encouraged by New Jersey herring fishermen’s application to the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers for Rhode Island captains are likewise asking the high court to consider what they say is “an unconstitutional rule requiring fishing companies to pay for at-sea government monitoring of their herring catch.”

The legal activist group New Civil Liberties Alliance petitioned the court June 14 for a “writ of certiorari” in its case representing Point Judith, R.I. companies Relentless Inc., Huntress Inc. and Seafreeze Fleet LLC.

Their case challenges a 2020 rule imposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that required vessel operators to pay for observers on their vessels at sea, at a cost that owners say can exceed $700 daily and sometimes exceed the money they make from landing low-priced herring.

The Supreme Court could soon hear arguments in a case called Loper Bright, named for one of several Cape May, N.J. fishing companies fighting the observer requirement that lost their initial case in court but appealed. NOAA waived the rule earlier this year as it ran short of money to administer the program. But fishermen want to make sure the observer requirement is not renewed, and conservative advocacy groups see their cause as a chance to overturn a long-standing precedent called the “Chevron deference.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Renegotiating choice: Protect ratepayers or push clean energy?

June 14, 2023 –A top regulator in Rhode Island is raising concerns about the way offshore wind developers are seeking to renegotiate the financial terms of their projects, saying policymakers are facing a harsh choice between protecting the interests of ratepayers and promoting the generation of electricity considered vital in the battle against climate change.

Ronald Gerwatowski, the chair of the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission and the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board, made his comments at the end of a 2½-hour hearing on Monday dealing with SouthCoast Wind, a project that secured a power purchase agreement in Massachusetts that the developer is now seeking to terminate so it can rebid the project at much higher prices in a procurement slated for next year. The project is before Rhode Island regulators because it seeks to run a transmission line connecting the wind farm to Massachusetts via Rhode Island.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light