Saving Seafood

Offshore wind sparks new lawsuits

April 18, 2024 — A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and three other federal agencies for an offshore wind project off the coast of Rhode Island.

Non-partisan, Rhode Island-based Green Oceans has filed the lawsuit, claiming the bureau has broken the law by giving Danish energy company Orsted permits for their South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind projects.

Dr Lisa Quattrocki Knight, the president and co-founder of Green Oceans, said their lawsuit is about where these wind farms will be located — at Coxes Ledge off the Rhode Island coast.

“It is an incredibly biodiverse marine ecosystem that NOAA designated in November as a habitat of particular concern because it is one of the last remaining spawning grounds for southern New England Cod,” Quattrocki Knight said. “And is a winter foraging region for five endangered whale species. Nothing should ever have been developed on Coxes Ledge and yet they have gone ahead and permitted these two projects.”

Read the full story at WSHU

 

The Power Struggle Behind Rhode Island’s Offshore Wind Farms

April 18, 2024 — Right now, 60 percent of the electricity in the United States is generated by fossil fuel, compared to 21 percent renewables. Of the latter, wind power accounts for a little over 10 percent, according to the latest data provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But in March 2021, President Joe Biden announced his administration would marshal the resources of the federal government to meet a new clean energy goal: deploy thirty gigawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030, “while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use.” 

The waters off the New England coast will be particularly busy. Currently, there are nine active leases for wind farms, stacked diagonally in a grid of turbines placed one nautical mile apart, covering a roughly 909,000-nautical-square-mile area about fifteen miles south of the Rhode Island coast, midway between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. To date, BOEM has approved the constructionand operation plans for two projects, Revolution Wind and South Fork Wind, both developed by Danish renewable energy company Ørsted with partner Eversource, which has since sold its stake in those projects. Revolution, a sixty-five-turbine farm, will deliver power to 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. South Fork, with twelve turbines, will deliver power to 70,000 Long Island homes. A third lease — the Sunwise Wind project, with eighty-four turbines — is in the early stages.

The fishing industry fears the effects on fish stocks and fishing. For example, on the sea surface, the spacing of the turbines can create navigational hazards; below, the displacement of boulders on the sea floor to lay transmission cables can create obstructions to nets, says Fred Mattera, who is executive director of the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island and has served as a fisheries representative on the construction plans and compensation packages for offshore wind farm projects. In September, the entire Rhode Island Fishermen’s Advisory Board quit in protest after the CRMC granted its approval to Ørsted’s Sunrise project.

“We love to build and deal with the consequences later. We have stakeholders that represent half a billion dollars and thousands of jobs in the fishing community,” Mattera says. “Are we willing to give that up? I do believe there will be damage to the ecosystem because there’s too many uncertainties.”

Read the full story at Rhode Island Monthly

South Fork Wind Farm off Rhode Island’s coast starts producing power

March 15, 2024 — The nation’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm is fully operational and capable of sending its entire capacity of power to the electric grid.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state and federal officials flipped a symbolic switch on Thursday, marking the completion of the South Fork Wind Farm, a 12-turbine project built off the Rhode Island coast and connected to the Long Island energy system.

“This will serve as a beacon to the rest of the nation, a statement of what is possible,” Hochul said at the event at Stony Brook University’s Southampton campus on Long Island.

Read the full article at The Providence Journal

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