Saving Seafood

Offshore wind energy watchdogs expanding to West Coast

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.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

RODA Expands West Coast Fisheries Engangement with Launch of Pacific Advisory Committee

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:

  • Mike Conroy, West Coast Fisheries Consultants
  • Hugh Link & Tim Novotny, Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission
  • Mike Okoniewski, Pacific Seafood Group
  • Noah Oppenheim, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations
  • Peter Flournoy, International Law Offices of San Diego
  • Steven Scheiblauer, Marine Alliances Consulting
  • Lori Steele, West Coast Seafood Processors Association (WCSPA)
  • Susan Chambers, WCSPA and Southern Oregon Ocean Resource Coalition

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.

Fishermen, wind farm developers at odds

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.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

Fishing advocates propose transit lanes for offshore wind

January 7, 2020 — A coalition of commercial fishing groups is calling for 4-mile-wide transit lanes through offshore wind turbine arrays off New England, as federal ocean planners and the Coast Guard consider maritime safety aspects of the projects.

In a Jan. 3 letter to those agencies, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance proposed six vessel traffic lanes — each 4 nautical miles wide and up to 70 miles long — through wind turbine areas proposed by energy companies south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket off Massachusetts.

Those developers submitted their own proposal Nov. 1 to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Coast Guard, offering a consistent grid layout across their federal offshore leases that would space turbine towers 1 nautical mile apart.

Without endorsing that spacing — opposed by Rhode Island squid fishermen and others who say they cannot not work amid such arrays — the alliance letter is a counter-proposal that superimposes wider transit lanes on the developers’ plan.

“The proposal presented here utilizes the uniform 1×1 nm spaced turbines presented in the Nov. 1 proposal and includes transit lanes of adequate widths to preserve safe and efficient passage along the routes most often used by fishermen,” the letter states.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Fishermen call for 4-nautical-mile lanes between offshore wind turbines

January 7, 2020 — Northeastern commercial fishermen and seafood businesses are calling for transit lanes four nautical miles wide between rows of offshore wind turbines.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a fishing lobby group whose members hail mainly from New England and New Jersey, wrote a letter to the U.S Coast Guard and other federal authorities to make its case for wider lanes, saying they would:

– Allow enough room for a vessel to make a significant alteration of course if needed;

– Provide space for vessels to pass one another;

– Compensate for reduced radar effectiveness; and

– Serve as passageways for marine life.

In November, wind developers proposed spacing turbines one nautical mile apart and laying them out in uniform rows.

With regard to the proposed spacing of one nautical mile, the fishing group wrote, “RODA reiterates, consistent with each of our previous comments on the record, that most fishing vessels will not be able to operate in this array and significant displacement will still occur due to (one-nautical-mile) spacing.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Warren releases ‘Blue New Deal,’ a plan to help ailing oceans

December 10, 2019 — Senator Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday released an addendum to her vision for a Green New Deal: the Blue New Deal.

The new plan seeks to address how climate change is affecting oceans and other waters, while ensuring a vibrant marine economy, she said.

“While the ocean is severely threatened, it can also be a major part of the climate solution,” she wrote in a nine-page summary of the plan. “That is why I believe that a Blue New Deal must be an essential part of any Green New Deal.”

“Not being consulted on this isn’t a good start to the relationship,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for the Fisheries Survival Fund in Washington, D.C., which represents the scallop industry. “We expected something more well-thought-out from her.”

Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a coalition of fishing industry associations and companies, said that “any large industrial project in the ocean will have significant impacts to the sustainability of established activities and the marine environment.”

“To me, it seems like it was written by staff, and they did a lot of Googling,” said Robert Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, a Washington-based group that represents commercial fishermen. “It’s disappointing, because we know Senator Warren has a more sophisticated understanding of fisheries.”

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Fisheries Survival Fund warns changes to Jones Act interpretation give foreign offshore wind companies advantage over U.S. maritime industries

December 2, 2019 (Saving Seafood) — WASHINGTON — The Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF) submitted a letter to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) late last month warning against a proposed new interpretation of the Jones Act that would allow foreign wind energy developers to use foreign vessels for the rapid build-out of offshore wind farms. For nearly a century, commercial fishermen have been required to use domestic manufacturing for construction of their scallop vessels due to Jones Act requirements, FSF wrote.

FSF, which represents the vast majority of full-time Limited Access permit holders in the Atlantic scallop fishery, wrote that the proposed modifications “would place foreign-owned offshore wind energy companies at a unique advantage not afforded to the thousands of U.S.-owned maritime industries” and “would jeopardize the countless job opportunities for domestic laborers who would otherwise benefit from the build-out of offshore wind facilities.”

In its letter, FSF emphasized that is has been actively engaged in the public input process for the planning and development of offshore wind leases, and has worked with both government agencies and offshore wind developers to better understand and reduce the potential impacts of offshore wind development.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) also wrote to CBP expressing “serious concern” over the proposed modifications.

Read FSF’s full letter here

Turbine spacing unites offshore wind executives

November 21, 2019 — Executives representing the offshore leaseholders off Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket announced their joint support for a one-nautical-mile width between all their proposed wind turbines.

The executives also announced agreement on an east-west orientation of the wind turbine rows. Orsted North America president Thomas Brostrom, Equinor Wind US president Christer af Geijerstam, Eversource Energy-enterprise energy strategy executive vice president Leon Oliver, Mayflower Wind president John Hartnet, and Vineyard Wind CEO Lars Thaaning Pedersen signed a letter to the U.S. Coast Guard advocating for the one-nautical-mile spacing and east-west configuration. The letter was accompanied by a report executed by W.F. Baird & Associates Ltd. that concludes such distancing and orientation of turbines is advantageous.

For Vineyard Wind, the width is a mile short of what it previously supported. As The Times reported in December 2018, Vineyard Wind was in support of two-mile transit corridors, while fishermen pushed for four-mile corridors. However, the executives contend in their letter that the widths are “responsive to fishermen’s requests.” Among other reasons, fishermen in Rhode Island and Massachusetts have pushed for wider navigation spaces between wind turbines for safety reasons, due to the length of mobile gear some fishing vessels trail. The executives state the width they propose addresses mobile gear concerns.

In a statement to The Times, Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Rhode Island’s Seafreeze Ltd. and a board member of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), found the executives’ announcement foreseeable, and as evidence they may not be taking fishing industry input to heart.

Read the full story at the Martha’s Vineyard Times

US harvesters cold on wind farm industry’s proposed turbine standards

November 20, 2019 — A group of wind farming companies with hopes of building soon off the North Atlantic coast of the United States released on Tuesday their proposal to the US Coast Guard (USCG) for how to consistently position turbines across the region in a way that they believe will satisfy safety concerns raised by commercial fish and shellfish harvesters.

The proposal includes requiring a minimum of one nautical mile (1.2 miles) between each turbine and an east to west configuration, just as harvesters earlier asked.

However, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), a group of 160 commercial harvesters and processors with vessels spread across nine states and operating in about 30 different fisheries, said on Tuesday morning that it would rather wait on the results of a scientific study from the USCG — expected soon — before accepting the wind industry’s plan.

And the Fisheries Survival fund, a group that represents Atlantic scallop harvesters, has flat out rejected the wind industry’s proposal, saying it doesn’t meet their needs.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

RODA Submits Comments on Proposed Changes to Interpretation on the Jones Act

November 18, 2019 — The following was released by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance:

On Friday, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) submitted a letter to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection expressing serious concern with proposed modifications to ruling letters that would allow non-Jones Act compliant vessels to be utilized for a wide range of offshore activities, including offshore wind energy facility construction.

For nearly a century, fishermen have complied with the Jones Act. RODA is concerned that the proposed modifications and revocation of ruling letters to CBP’s application of the Jones Act would not hold offshore wind energy developers to the same standards. The proposed definition is too broad and violates the purpose of the Jones Act. Carving out a broad exemption for an entire new industry does nothing to aid the development of U.S. marine commerce.

As the number of proposed offshore wind energy projects continues to grow throughout the U.S., their widely promised economic benefits must accrue to the citizens who are displaced, and to U.S. coastal communities at large. For offshore wind energy-related operations that can be executed with existing American vessels and crew, this means delivering on promises to fully utilize those resources. For larger construction tasks for which there may not currently be qualified vessels, foreign-owned wind energy companies should contract with U.S. shipyards to build the necessary Jones Act-qualified boats.

The actions proposed in the notice also have significant bearing on national security and environmental protection. Monitoring and enforcement of U.S. environmental and security laws on foreign vessels poses extraordinary challenges due the additional permissions needed by the Coast Guard to board non-U.S. flag vessels.

Finally, RODA noted that CBP may only issue Jones Act interpretations relevant to these activities through a public rulemaking process and after conducting thorough interagency evaluations. Due to the highly case-specific nature of ruling letters, any CBP action that affects the maritime community or the public more broadly must follow the Administrative Procedure Act. The notice overreaches a ruling letter’s authority by proposing to adopt a new and unprecedented definition for “vessel equipment.” The inclusion of specific, previously uncontemplated activities—and the materials for use in those activities—in the definition of “vessel equipment” is a new statutory interpretation, and unfit for adoption through modification of existing ruling letters.

The proposed changes are described at page 12 here: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2019-Oct/Vol_53_No_38_Title.pdf. Comments are due by November 22nd and must be submitted by postal mail.

Read RODA’s submitted comments here