Saving Seafood

Senator Whitehouse introduces bill to improve offshore wind development process

December 6, 2024 — U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) today introduced the Create Offshore Leadership and Livelihood Alignment By Operating Responsibly and Together for the Environment (COLLABORATE) Act, a comprehensive bill to improve the offshore wind development process and bring new sources of affordable clean energy onto the grid.

The COLLABORATE Act would put domestic offshore wind development on track by improving permitting, coordination, and cooperation between agencies and with developers and stakeholders, creating a holistic process for offshore wind transmission, and boosting support for fisheries and other potentially affected groups, including the establishment of a compensation fund for eligible recipients.

“Rhode Island has led an early charge in America’s offshore wind development.  My legislation applies the Ocean State model of good-faith cooperation to the federal interagency process, while fixing permitting and transmission problems to harness our abundant offshore wind potential,” said Whitehouse.  “The pathway to a clean energy future is narrowing fast, and we can’t afford to lose investments to bureaucratic delays and endless red tape.  I’m hopeful we can pass this bill swiftly and bring offshore wind online nationwide.”

Read the full story at What’s Up Newp

RHODE ISLAND: Climate change pushing some marine species out of Narragansett Bay

November 22, 2024 — On an unseasonably warm October day, the John H. Chafee pulled away from the docks of Fort Wetherill to conduct a survey of the marine life that call Narragansett Bay home.

Known as trawl fishing, scientists roll out a large net in the water, drag it along the ocean floor and see what comes up.

Christopher Parkins, the principal biologist of the trawl survey for the R.I. Department of Environmental Management (DEM), said state regulators have been using trawl fishing data since 1979 to decide which marine life can be caught and which need to be protected.

Read the full article at WPRI

RHODE ISLAND: Westport lobstermen recall fishery’s heyday

November 21, 2024 — The days of huge hauls and oceans of money may be on the decline. But as he and three other long-time Westport lobstermen sat before a packed house at the Westport Grange one recent Saturday, Grant Moore said he is happy to be passing his family’s offshore lobster business to his son John, even as the little guys struggle harder and harder to compete with well-funded corporate fishing operations that have all but wiped local independents off the map here.

“When I started off, it was 100 percent owner operators,” he told the crowd at the Westport Historical Society-sponsored talk. “I knew the guy that I washing fishing next to — we all did. That’s changed dramatically.”

Now, 30 years after Westport’s lobstering heyday came to a slow end, the work is as hard as it ever was, there is never a guaranteed paycheck, and it takes a tremendous amount of money to get into and stay in the business. So before he agreed to let his son fish with him and eventually take over the family business, he made sure to show him the worst of it.

After college, when his son expressed an interest in the family business, Moore agreed to bring him aboard but “I made it as miserable for him as I possibly could. I honestly did. Because I didn’t want him to have to experience what I had to” without knowing what he was getting himself into.

Read the full article at East Bay RI

RHODE ISLAND: U.S. Coast Guard investigates report of diesel spill from vessel that ran aground in Narragansett

November 19, 2024 — The United States Coast Guard is investigating the report of diesel in Narragansett Bay around Austin Hollow after a vessel ran aground Monday morning.

Virginia Wave, a commercial fishing vessel, ran aground 1 nautical mile north of the Beavertail Light, and was reported listing, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Motor vessel Deep Cygnus responded and aided in the rescue of all four of Virginia Wave’s passengers, and the Jack M commercial fishing vessel took the passengers on board.

Later that morning, the Virginia Wave was able to successfully float due to the incoming tide and the crew was transferred back to the vessel.

During the Jamestown Police Marine’s initial response, units reported it noticed the smell of diesel and a visible sheen coming from the Virginia Wave.

Read the full article at ABC 6

US East Coast states select firms to run offshore wind development compensation fund for fishers

November 12, 2024 — A coalition of U.S. East Coast states have selected two firms to manage the Offshore Wind Fisheries Compensation Fund, a mitigation program built to compensate commercial and recreation for-hire fishers for revenue lost due to offshore wind developments.

The fund is a collaboration between the governments of 11 East Coast states – Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina – to provide financial compensation for economic loss caused by offshore wind projects along the Atlantic Coast. The states launched a competition earlier this year to select an administrator to run the new fund.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Richmond firm to oversee fishermen compensation related to offshore wind farms

November 6, 2024 — Richmond claims resolution firm BrownGreer PLC and London’s The Carbon Trust have been tapped to design and roll out a regional fisheries mitigation program on the East Coast.

The program is aimed at providing financial compensation to the commercial and recreational for-hire fishing industries related to the impacts of new offshore wind farms.

BrownGreer and The Carbon Trust will work with 11 East Coast states and their respective fishing industry communities on the program. The groups have established a design oversight committee and a for-hire committee to provide advice and guidance from respective parties on the program.

The involved states include Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.

Read the full article at Richmond Inno

RHODE ISLAND: As NOAA Evaluates Rhode Island’s CRMC, Advocates Push to Dissolve Agency’s Decision-Making Council

October 21, 2024 — Chris Powell knows the score when it comes to coastal regulations in Rhode Island.

A retired wildlife biologist who spent decades working for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) in its marine fisheries program, Powell knows the ins and outs of environmental permitting and regulations. His stint as a state employee included a temporary assignment to the state Coastal Resources Management Council, during a time when the regulatory agency was particularly short-staffed.

Powell had nothing but praise for the agency’s staff, both when he was assigned to the agency and after, when he interacted with CRMC staff as a member of the public. But he has concerns about the 10-member, politically appointed council that makes final decisions for the agency.

“CRMC has always had good staff where they try to do the right thing,” said Powell. “I attended many meetings, however, where the council overrode the recommendation of staff.”

Lifelong Rhode Islander and chairman of Warren’s Harbor Commission, Woody Kemp, has similar concerns. Warren is one of the smaller towns in Rhode Island, and thanks to sea level rise and coastal flooding, the town is shrinking. Kemp offered praise for the work completed by agency staff, but, he said, the council moves too slowly when making decisions. “It took us maybe 10 years to get approval for our harbor management plan,” he said.

“I would like to see more staff for timelier reviews of agency applications,” added Kemp.

Powell and Kemp were part of more than a dozen members of the public testifying in a state Department of Administration conference room recently about their experiences — on both sides of the table — with CRMC. The testimony is part of the evaluation process conducted regularly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of all the state coastal programs for which it provides funding and oversight as part of the 1972 Coastal Zone Management Act.

The CRMC is charged with regulating, developing and conserving the state’s 400 miles of coastline and ocean waters. But the agency’s council has a long history of controversy, of ignoring the broader public and, at times, the recommendations of CRMC staff when it comes to permitting decisions and project approvals.

Advocates of reforming the agency are putting pressure on NOAA to advise a restructuring of CRMC into a shape that abolishes the executive authority of the council.

Read the full article at EcoRi News

RHODE ISLAND: R.I. regulators resume review of SouthCoast Wind transmission lines

September 24, 2024 — A proposal to run underwater power lines from a Massachusetts offshore wind farm through Rhode Island waters is back before state regulators, following a 14-month pause.

The Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board voted unanimously Monday to resume consideration of SouthCoast Wind Energy LLC’s application to run transmission lines from its wind farm 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard up the Sakonnet River, over Portsmouth and out Mount Hope Bay to reach land in Somerset.

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island will ramp up on offshore wind as part of a massive project with Massachusetts

September 9, 2024 — Rhode Island is set to ramp up its supply of offshore wind power with the announcement Friday that the state is will procure 200 megawatts of capacity from a much larger project that would send most of its electricity to Massachusetts.

The 1,278-megawatt total project, known as SouthCoast Wind, would be the largest offshore wind farm to be built so far in the Atlantic Ocean waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Rhode Island would take only a small portion of the project’s power capacity, with the vast majority – 1,078 megawatts – going to Massachusetts.

Read the full article at The Providence Journal

Mass. and Rhode Island pick 3 new wind projects, with less power than originally sought

September 9, 2024 — Massachusetts and Rhode Island announced the winners of their joint offshore wind auction on Friday. The three projects selected will be built south of Nantucket and collectively produce up to 2,878 megawatts of electricity — or about what it takes to power 1.6 million homes.

While this total is less than half of what the states originally sought to procure, it helps bring them closer to their legally binding offshore wind targets.

Connecticut, which was also part of the multi-state effort to solicit proposals, did not select any bids on Friday, but left the door open to doing so in the future. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the state was still evaluating projects and would announce “a final decision” about its solicitation “at a future date.”

When the three states announced their partnership, they had hoped to procure 6,800 megawatts of power — Massachusetts wanted 3,600 megawatts, Connecticut wanted 2,000 megawatts and Rhode Island wanted 1,200.

Though they missed that target, Massachusetts officials touted the bids as great news, noting that it is the largest offshore wind procurement to date in New England.

“We’re going big,” Gov. Maura Healey said at a press conference Friday. “These projects will help create a stronger economy, massive economic development, and importantly, lower electricity costs for our residents and our businesses.”

Read the full article at wbur