Saving Seafood

RHODE ISLAND: The quahog holds a dear place in RI’s culture. Could its days be numbered?

March 13, 2024 — David Ghigliotty works his bullrake into the bottom of Narragansett Bay, using the drift of his skiff to pull its steel tines through the sandy bottom in search of quahogs on a cold December morning.

Normally, he’d feel clams tumble into the rake’s basket, but with thick rubber gloves protecting his hands on this frigid winter day, he listens instead for the faint sounds of their shells clanging against metal in the water below.

“Did you hear that?” he says. “That’s one there.”

Ghigliotty rocks the handle of his rake up and down in an easy rhythm, lifting and tugging, lifting and tugging, relying on skills he’s honed over 42 years as a commercial shellfisherman.

After a few minutes, he flips the switch on a winch that pulls the rake head to the surface, swishing the basket back and forth in the water to clear out the muck before pulling it on board.

Read the full article at The Providence Journal

Plentiful and Ferocious Shark Lurks In Local Waters

January 30, 2024 — The great white shark gets all the coverage, but another shark species, with a far-less cool-sounding name, dominates local waters, at least in sheer numbers.

The Atlantic spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) is the poor cousin to the more-alluring sharks of greater size and fame. They have sharp, albeit little, teeth, are ferocious predators, and are opportunistic feeders. They like to devour mackerel and herring.

Spiny dogfish can arch their backs and inject venom into predators from their dorsal spines. They are harmless to humans — although a jab from one of their dorsal spines could get infected — but they have been observed biting through fishing nets to get at prey, according to the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

They migrate into local waters in the warmer months, and some remain through the winter. But most stocks are highly migratory, and they spawn in the winter in offshore waters. Spiny dogfish females have between two and 12 eggs per spawning season.

The spiny dogfish is the most abundant shark in the western North Atlantic, but they aren’t the only species of dogfish swimming in local waters. Like the spiny version, the smooth dogfish or dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis) can be found in Narragansett Bay. The chain dogfish (Scyliorhinus retifer) can’t. It’s also, confusingly, known as a chain catshark.

Read the full article at ecoRI

RHODE ISLAND: Portsmouth Town Council begrudgingly approves host agreement with SouthCoast Wind

January 18, 2024 — Faced with receiving $23 million or nothing, the Portsmouth Town Council begrudgingly approved an agreement that allows a Massachusetts offshore wind farm developer access to town property under which to bury power cables.

The 18-page host community agreement, approved by a 5-1 vote of the council Tuesday, gives SouthCoast Wind Energy LLC access to town property. The easements will be used so the Massachusetts wind developer can bury 2 miles of high-voltage, underground transmission lines below town roads, meant to connect its offshore wind farm to the electric grid in nearby Brayton Point. In exchange for use of town land, the developer will pay $23.2 million in host fees and taxes, to Portsmouth over the next 33 years.

Councilman David Gleason cast the sole vote in opposition.

The council’s decision came after a nearly four-hour public hearing at Portsmouth High School, marked by impassioned testimony and pointed questions from community residents. Some criticized the lack of protections for the town in the agreement, as well as murkiness surrounding the exact route of the cable burial plan – for which there are two options. Others focused their opposition on how the offshore wind farm as a whole will upset the delicate ocean ecosystem so critical to fishermen’s livelihoods. Still others lobbed accusations based on self-described evidence that ties the company ownership to China, or insisted climate change was a “hoax.”

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

U.S. gives final nod to Rhode Island’s $1.5 billion offshore wind farm

December 8, 2023 — The U.S Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council on Thursday approved the construction of a $1.5 billion offshore wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island.

The project, Revolution Wind, is run by Danish company Orsted and U.S.-based Eversource, and would bring a total of 704 megawatts (MW) clean energy to Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Another offshore project by the two wind energy developers, the South Fork wind farm off the coast of New York, delivered its first power to the state’s power grid on Wednesday.

Read the full story at CNBC

 

Navy to build $146.7 million NOAA marine operations center in Rhode Island

December 6, 2023 — The U.S. Navy awarded a $146.7 million contract to New York-based Skanska USA to design and build a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric base on Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island, with plans for the facility to eventually be homeport for NOAA’s Marine Operations Center – Atlantic. 

Design details are still being finalized, according to a brief prepared statement issued by NOAA late Tuesday. requirements include having a pier that will accommodate four large vessels, a floating dock for smaller vessels, space for vessel repairs and parking and a building to be used for shoreside support and as a warehouse. Construction is anticipated to be completed by 2027. 

Design and construction of the NOAA port will be “funded in part by the Inflation Reduction Act — a historic $3.3 billion investment to help communities, including tribes and vulnerable populations, prepare, adapt and build resilience to weather and climate events in pursuit of a climate-ready nation,” according to the agency. “The act also supports improvements to weather and climate data and services, and strengthens NOAA’s fleet of research airplanes and ships.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman 

Newport, Block Island preservation groups seek relief from wind farms’ anticipated ‘adverse effects’

December 2, 2023 — The Newport Cliff Walk, meandering 3½ miles along the Rhode Island coast, draws more than 1.2 million visitors each year, according to the city of Newport. This scenic trail links the city’s Gilded Age mansions on one side, and on the other, seafaring ships gracefully navigate rows of tall whitecaps.

The spot is perfect for unforgettable snapshots, but those memories could soon include clusters of offshore wind turbines.

On Nov. 22, Cultural Heritage Partners filed four separate federal complaints alleging that the industrialization of the ocean near Newport and Block Island could cost the communities billions of dollars in lost tourism revenue during the wind farms’ 30-year project life.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Protecting Newport’s Gilded Age mansions takes a new turn: Suing the feds.

December 2, 2023 — Trudy Coxe relentlessly pursued funding to preserve Newport’s acclaimed mansions. She helped bring the city’s “Gilded Age” icons before a national TV audience through the HBO series by the same name.

Now, she’s turning that single-minded focus to protecting Newport’s cultural and historic identity, including its iconic landmarks, against the perceived threat of offshore wind.

The  25-year leader of the Preservation Society of Newport County is defending the decision to wage a court battle against the federal agency that approved offshore wind farms off Rhode Island’s coastline.

“I would think people would be lauding us for stepping forward,” she said in an interview on Tuesday. “We are the only entity that has stepped forward and said, ‘the law is the law and we should follow the law.’ I can’t believe there isn’t general respect for that.”

The appeal filed the day before Thanksgiving in federal court in the District of Columbia alleges that Newport’s historic coastal landmarks will be ruined by the silhouettes of hundreds of skyscraper-size turbines off the coastline. The lawsuit, along with a nearly identical complaint filed separately by the Southeast Lighthouse Foundation of Block Island, argues that the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) broke federal laws in approving wind farms without properly accounting for or mitigating against the harms to historic sites. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the U.S. Department of the Interior are also named as defendants.

Read the full article at Whats Ups Newp

Newport Mansion Owner Sues Federal Government Over Wind Farm It Says Will Block Ocean Views

November 29, 2023 — Two Rhode Island preservation groups have filed lawsuits against the federal government claiming it conducted “sham regulatory reviews” when granting the permits of two offshore wind farm projects they say would block the ocean views of the historic Newport mansions.

Several groups in support of offshore wind signed a letter Monday in response to the lawsuit saying the environmental benefits of clean wind energy outweigh the visual impacts, the Providence Journal reported. Groups like the Green Energy Consumers Alliance and Climate Action Rhode Island accused the plaintiffs of exercising “energy privilege” by valuing views “over the civilization-level threat faced by our region and world from the climate crisis.”

Read the full article at Forbes

 

RI organizations file lawsuits against CT offshore wind projects

November 28, 2023 — Two Rhode Island heritage organizations have filed lawsuits over two offshore wind projects they say will spoil their “viewsheds.”

The Preservation Society of Newport and The Southeast Lighthouse Foundation say the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) ignored the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Greg Werkheiser is a partner with the law firm Cultural Heritage Partners. He said they are not against clean energy, just the way it’s being done.

Read the full article at WSHU

RHODE ISLAND: Block Island and Newport preservationists fight to protect Rhode Island from massive wind farms

November 28, 2023 — A month ago, after Cape May County, New Jersey, filed a federal lawsuit to stop two immense Ørsted wind farms, the company responded by announcing they were canceling their plans, leaving unfinished construction, citing their inability to predict financial pressures on the project, not widespread community opposition. Two senior staff have left the company, and management is being shifted as one project after another face an insecure future.

Yesterday, Rhode Island took a double-barreled action with federal appeals being filed for both Block Island and Newport to stop two massive offshore wind farms by Ørsted, saying they would “despoil the viewsheds for at least the next 30 years”.

Without intervention, Block Island’s “quaint” set of five wind turbines, the first offshore windfarm in America, could grow to as many as 599 turbines, and of massively increased height – 800 feet tall – taller than an 80-story skyscraper.

In Newport, the group of massive turbines could be built as close as 12 miles from Newport’s coast, visible from the shore.

The Rhode Island actions are being managed by Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm specializing in historic preservation and cultural heritage law.

Block Island Historic Presesrvation Group’s actions

The Southeast Lighthouse Foundation (SELF), which owns and manages Block Island’s most iconic historic structure and New England’s highest lighthouse, appealed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)’s permitting decisions for two of the massive offshore wind farms planned by Danish-owned energy behemoth Ørsted on November 22, 2023.

Block Island is awakening to the reality that the number of visible turbines off its coast will soon grow from five to as many as 599 and despoil the Island’s treasured views for the next thirty years. The historic Southeast Lighthouse is a National Historic Landmark–honored by the Nation’s highest designation of historic importance reserved for the likes of the Lincoln Memorial and the Golden Gate Bridge. A world-renowned symbol of Block Island’s rich cultural heritage, the Southeast Light is among numerous historic resources that the government has failed to protect from what BOEM itself concedes are significant negative impacts of the industrialization of the seascape.

Read the full article at