Saving Seafood

Interior Department Announces Environmental Review of Proposed Wind Energy Facility in the North Atlantic

August 31, 2021 — The following was released by the US Department of the Interior:

As part of the Biden-Harris administration’s goal to deploy 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy by 2030, the Department of the Interior today announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) plans to conduct an environmental review of a proposed commercial-scale wind project offshore New York.

“The Interior Department is committed to confronting climate change, creating thousands of good-paying jobs, and paving the way for the nation’s transition to a cleaner energy future. Offshore wind is a critical component of that ambitious agenda,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “The demand for offshore wind energy has never been greater — we will continue to invest in the infrastructure to develop the offshore wind industry and to help attract the domestic supply chain.”

The project proposes to build up to 122 wind turbines, which would generate 880 to 1,300 megawatts of renewable energy and power nearly 600,000 homes. The project would help New York meet its clean energy goal of achieving 70 percent electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

The lease area is in federal waters approximately 31 miles east of Montauk, New York; 19 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; and 17 miles from Block Island, Rhode Island.

BOEM’s Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) opens a 30-day public comment period on the proposed Construction and Operations Plan (COP) submitted by Sunrise Wind, LLC, a joint venture between Orsted North America Inc. and Eversource Investment, LLC.

During the 30-day public comment period, BOEM is seeking information to determine the scope of important resources and issues, potential impacts to the environment, reasonable alternatives, and mitigation measures to be analyzed in the EIS. After identifying the scope of the review, BOEM will conduct a full environmental analysis as part of the EIS and determine whether to approve the COP.

BOEM will accept comments via U.S. mail, through Regulations.gov, and during three virtual scoping meetings where stakeholders and other members of the public can learn more about the project before commenting for the record. The meeting dates and times are:

  • Thursday, September 16, 2021; 5:30 p.m. (ET)
  • Monday, September 20, 2021; 1:00 p.m. (ET)
  • Wednesday, September 22, 2021; 5:30 p.m. (ET)

The comment period will close at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on September 30, 2021.

More information about the proposed offshore wind project, BOEM’s environmental review, and how to provide public comments may be found at BOEM’s Sunrise Wind webpage.

CALIFORNIA: US Interior secretary touts Humboldt County offshore wind project

August 13, 2021 — Federal and state officials gathered at Woodley Island in Eureka on Tuesday to highlight Humboldt County’s promising future as a leader in offshore wind energy, a move that would bring thousands of jobs to the Humboldt Bay region.

Joined by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory and California Energy Commissioner Karen Douglas, North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman praised the Biden administration’s effort to pursue offshore wind energy in California.

“We’re getting it done here in California — that’s one of the most exciting things in the face of this daunting climate crisis,” Huffman said. “It is a big deal that today on Humboldt Bay we are being visited by the top environmental officials in the United States of America.”

Standing before Woodley Island’s iconic “Fisherman” statue after a tour of Humboldt Bay on the Madaket, Haaland said she was “thrilled to have the opportunity to see the excitement surrounding the future of this area.”

Read the full story at The Times-Standard

Tim Malley: Banning fishing in ‘monument’ a grave mistake

August 5, 2021 — Tim Malley, a founding partner of Boston Sword & Tuna, is currently investing nearly a million dollars into purchasing and repurposing an idle fishing vessel in New Bedford, Massachusetts. But a proposal in Washington to reimpose commercial fishing restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument threatens New Bedford’s iconic fishing industry and undermines the fisheries management system that sustains it, Mr. Malley writes in an op-ed for New Bedford’s Standard-Times.

The following is an excerpt from Mr. Malley’s op-ed:

I was a founding partner of Boston Sword & Tuna, which today employs over 180 Massachusetts residents with good wages and benefits. The company processes and distributes swordfish and tuna harvested by American vessels in the waters off New England and the mid-Atlantic. After selling my ownership in the company several years ago, I decided to return to my origins as an owner-operator of commercial fishing vessels. Recently, at the age of 74, I signed an agreement to purchase and re-purpose an idle fishing vessel in the port of New Bedford. This project will cost me close to a million dollars, but I consider it an investment in the future of Massachusetts’ storied fishing industry.

But that future is at risk from a proposal in Washington.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on a confidential memo sent by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to the White House, urging President Biden to enact a full ban on sustainable American fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. Located 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, this monument covers over 3 million acres and nearly 5,000 square miles – a vast stretch of ocean approximately the size of Connecticut.

This area was managed successfully by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) for nearly half a century before it was designated as a marine monument in 2016. The management was so successful that even advocates for the monument designation argued loudly that the area was “pristine.” Fishermen had been active partners in keeping it in that “pristine” state, collaborating on projects like the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment, which protects over 25,000 square miles of corals and their habitat, including 82 percent of the monument area.

Nevertheless, over the protests of fishermen and fisheries managers, fishermen were booted from the area when it became a monument in 2016. Even fishermen targeting swordfish and tuna, like the ones who supply fish to the company I helped found, were not spared, despite the fact that they fish well above the corals the monument purports to protect, and do not come close to interacting with them.

Thanks to the combined efforts of fishermen, fisheries managers who unanimously called for their expertise to be respected, and fisheries scientists who have questioned the environmental benefits of marine protected areas, sustainable American fishing was restored in the monument last year. But now the Biden Administration may consider reimposing the ban, without so much as meeting with fishermen first.

Read the full op-ed at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Bernhardt: Trump tried to boost offshore wind, not kill it

July 22, 2021 — Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt defended the Trump administration’s lengthy review of America’s first offshore wind farm in an interview yesterday, saying the additional environmental analysis he ordered was intended to strengthen the project against legal challenges rather than kill it.

The Trump administration had initially planned to complete a review of Vineyard Wind in the summer of 2019. But Bernhardt surprised the project’s developers, who proposed a $2.8 billion wind farm near Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., by expanding a government study of the project to consider other wind farms proposed along the East Coast.

The announcement cast a pall over the wind industry. It slowed planning work on other projects and raised questions about the viability of offshore wind in the United States. Many industry supporters suspected the move was a reflection of former President Trump’s disdain for wind power, which he regularly lambasted as an eyesore and a danger to birds. Trump erroneously claimed wind turbines could cause cancer.

But in a phone interview yesterday while vacationing at a North Carolina beach, Bernhardt said it was “fundamentally false” that the administration was playing politics with Vineyard Wind. Instead, he said his call for more analysis was driven by the growing number of wind projects proposed along the East Coast and by divisions among federal agencies over Vineyard Wind’s potential impact on commercial fishing and marine navigation.

“You can’t proceed with federal agencies warring with each other,” he said. “I was like, ‘Look, we don’t have our ducks in a row.’”

He added, “The last thing we wanted to do is put out a finalized program that wasn’t legally sustainable.”

Read the full story at E&E News

Solar co sues feds over offshore Vineyard Wind farm approval

July 20, 2021 — A solar energy company has sued the Department of the Interior over its approval of the nation’s first major offshore wind farm, alleging that the project off the coast of Massachusetts threatens the area’s fishing industry and imperiled marine life.

In a complaint filed Sunday in Boston federal court, Allco Renewable Energy Ltd accuses the DOI of overlooking risks that the Vineyard Wind project could pollute nearby waters and jeopardize endangered species should the turbines fail to withstand strong hurricanes.

Allco develops and invests in solar projects, making it a competitor to the planned wind farm in the renewable electricity market.

DOI spokesperson Giovanni Rocco declined to comment.

Read the full story at Reuters

U.S. to review proposed Dominion Energy wind farm off Virginia

July 2, 2021 — The U.S. government will conduct an environmental review of a potential wind power project off the coast of Virginia, the Biden administration said on Thursday, part of an effort to create tens of thousands of jobs in the business by 2030.

Dominion Energy’s (D.N) Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project calls for construction and operation of up to 205 wind turbines capable of generating up to 3,000 megawatts of electricity by 2026. The turbines would be located more than 20 nautical miles off the Virginia coast.

Dominion says the project, when fully built, could power up to 660,000 homes.

​ The Biden administration wants to develop 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, creating nearly 80,000 jobs.

“Recent technological advances, falling costs, and tremendous economic potential make offshore wind a promising avenue for diversifying our national energy portfolio, creating good-paying union jobs, and tackling climate change,” Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland said in a release.

Read the full story at Reuters

Native Hawaiian culture woven into marine area plan

June 28, 2021 — Co-trustees of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument recently released Mai Ka Po Mai, a historic-guidance document that will help federal and state agencies further integrate Native Hawaiian culture into all areas of management of the 582,578-square-mile protected region in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

“Mai Ka Po Mai is a groundbreaking document,” said Dr. Sylvia Hussey, Office of Hawaiian Affairs CEO and ka pouhana in a press release.

“This document demonstrates that providing Native Hawaiian voices equal footing with federal and state entities in a complex management structure can lead to the successful stewardship of our most precious natural and cultural resources,” she said.

”Moreover, it shows that traditional indigenous resource management is a best-management practice to address climate change and other environmental challenges currently facing humanity. We hope that this stewardship approach is replicated elsewhere in Hawai‘i and throughout the globe.”

Mai Ka Po Mai establishes a collaborative management framework for incorporating Native Hawaiian culture into the stewardship of Papahanaumokuakea for the four monument co-trustees: the federal Department of Commerce and Department of the Interior, state of Hawai‘i and OHA.

Read the full story at The Garden Island

Biden may return seamount protections

June 21, 2021 — A couple years ago, the fight over the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was all the rage.

The monument, created in 2016 by President Barack Obama, preserved about 3.2 million acres southeast of Cape Ann and about 130 miles off Cape Cod from commercial activities of all manner — including fishing. Lobster and crab harvesters were being phased out over seven years. It protected three underwater canyons, four seamounts and the surrounding resources and ecosystems.

Obama’s presidential successor, Donald Trump, did his best to gut the monument’s designation and protections during his term.

Last year, Trump reopened the area to commercial fishing and removed most of the monument’s protections. The fishing industry was ecstatic. Environmentalists were aghast. The fish had no comment.

And now the battle is rejoined.

The Biden administration, according to several reports last week, is moving in the direction of reinstating full protections to the Canyon and Seamounts and two other land-based national monuments in Utah.

According to a report in the Washington Post, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland “recommended in a confidential report that President Biden restore full protection for the three national monuments” diminished by Trump.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

With Sale, Feds Push Wind Energy

June 18, 2021 — The federal Department of the Interior announced on Friday a proposed sale for offshore wind development on the outer continental shelf in the New York Bight, an area of shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

The sale would be the first competitive offshore wind lease sale of President Biden’s administration, which previously announced a goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

The proposed lease areas have the potential for seven gigawatts of wind energy, sufficient to power more than 2.6 million residences and support thousands of new jobs, according to a statement from the Interior Department.

The proposed sale notice includes eight lease areas in the New York Bight that could be auctioned for commercial wind energy development. A proposed sale notice published in the Federal Register on Friday opened a 60-day public comment period and provides information about potential areas that could be available for leasing, proposed lease provisions and conditions, and auction details. Comments received will be made available to the public and considered before a decision is made as to whether to publish a final sale notice, which would announce the time and date of a lease sale.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

MAINE: U.S. Interior Secretary to visit Acadia National Park on Friday

June 17, 2021 — U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will visit Maine on Friday to talk with state and tribal leaders about the Biden administration’s support for public lands.

Haaland will join Gov. Janet Mills and all four members of Maine’s Congressional delegation at Schoodic Point, a smaller and lesser-known part of Acadia National Park located on a peninsula in eastern Hancock County.

The visit kicks off with a special sunrise musical performance by renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and several Wabanaki musicians at 4:05 a.m. That event is by invitation only.

Haaland is the first Biden administration Cabinet member to visit Maine.

Haaland’s approach is likely to be radically different from that of Ryan Zinke or David Bernhardt, her predecessors under former President Donald Trump. The Washington Post reported this week that Haaland has recommended restoring protections to three national monuments that had been rolled back by Trump. They are Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in Utah, as well as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Massachusetts.

There had been some concern in 2017 that Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument also might be targeted for a reduction in size, but that never happened.

Read the full story at Central Maine