Saving Seafood

OPINION: Windfarm plans for Atlantic coast hit fishermen hard and threaten US food supply

December 20, 2021 — GE’s new Haliade-X offshore wind turbine is enormous—each blade is longer than a football field. It’s nearly three football fields in height. Its imprint on the seabed is likewise gigantic, and not merely because of the concrete base that anchors it. Miles and miles of transmission lines must be buried then covered over in debris.

So when ground was broken last month on Vineyard Wind 1 in the waters off of Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, local families involved in the fishing industry for generations wondered how the planned 62 (for now) wind turbines would affect the fishing grounds, their ability to navigate those waters—and the nation’s food supply.

Tom Williams, a lifelong fisherman whose sons now captain the family’s two boats, doesn’t scare easily—not after the storms, regulations and economic ups and downs he’s weathered. But the wind farms planned for much of the nation’s Atlantic coastline do scare him. His own extended family began fishing in Rhode Island in 1922.

Read the full opinion piece at Fox News

 

With federal approval of South Fork wind farm, construction could begin early next year

November 29, 2021 — A second major offshore wind farm near the Rhode Island coast has won federal approval.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this week approved construction and operation of the South Fork Wind Farm, a 132-megawatt project proposed in a stretch of Rhode Island Sound between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard.

The project being planned by Danish company Ørsted and utility Eversource is only the second commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the nation to secure approval from the federal government.

The first, Vineyard Wind, received a record of decision in May and marked its groundbreaking a week ago in Massachusetts. The 800-megawatt project is being built in an area south of Nantucket, further off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts than the South Fork proposal.

Read the full story at The Providence Journal

As Vineyard Wind Moves Forward, Fishermen and Scientists Raise Questions About Impact

November 23, 2021 — The Biden administration has approved America’s first large-scale, offshore wind power project – Vineyard Wind off the coast of Massachusetts. But for every supporter of the project, there are detractors raising questions. Lisa Fletcher looked at the pros and cons of ‘reaping the wind’ on “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”

Ms. Fletcher examined what the project could mean for New Bedford, Massachusetts, the nation’s top grossing fishing port, and its valuable scallop harvest, which averages around $400 million a year in landings.

“The amount of wind farms they’re proposing will displace fisheries,” said Ron Smolowitz, the owner of Coonamessett Farm in East Falmouth, Massachusetts and a former fishing captain who worked with NOAA. “The fish will adapt, the fishermen can adapt, but they’ll need funding.”

Mr. Smolowitz said that current funding proposed by Vineyard Wind to compensate fishermen for their losses is “nowhere near enough.” The proposed funding would average roughly $1 million a year over the 30-year life span of the project, Mr. Smolowitz said, while one scallop vessel alone can gross $2 million annually, and there are 342 scallop vessels. “And that’s just one fishery,” he said.

Ms. Fletcher also examined other obstacles for the project, including the potential threat to critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

“The industrial activity will increase shipping markedly both during the construction phase as well as during the maintenance phase,” said Mark Baumgartner, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Mr. Baumgartner said he and his team are working on deploying acoustic monitoring, with funding from Vineyard Wind, to help prevent ship strikes with right whales.

Watch the full story here

Work starting on 1st commercial-scale US offshore wind farm

November 19, 2021 — U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland joined with Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday to mark the groundbreaking of the Vineyard Wind 1 project, the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States.

The project is the first of many that will contribute to President Joe Biden’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and to Massachusetts’ goal of 5.6 gigawatts by 2030, Haaland said at the event in the town of Barnstable on Cape Cod.

The first steps of construction will include laying down two transmission cables that will connect Vineyard Wind 1 to the mainland.

The commercial fishing industry has pushed back against the wind farm.

In September, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance — a coalition of commercial fishing groups — filed a legal challenge to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval of the Vineyard Wind 1 project with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

The approval of the wind farm “adds unacceptable risk to this sustainable industry without any effort to minimize unreasonable interference with traditional and well-managed seafood production and navigation,” the group said at the time.

Read the full story at the AP

Coalition intends to sue feds over offshore Massachusetts wind project

October 29, 2021 — Massachusetts fishermen worried for their livelihoods and the ocean’s ecology are suing the federal government over an offshore wind project called Vineyard Wind.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), a coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies, recently filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the federal government, according to a news release. This follows a petition for review filed in the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last month, which is pending.

The notice gives the government 60 days to address statutory and regulatory violations RODA asserts the wind project will cause, including violating the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act, the press release said.

RODA Executive Director Annie Hawkins said the government has not done enough investigation into the effects of offshore wind projects.

Read the full story at The Center Square

 

RODA gives 60-day notice on possible suit regarding Vineyard Wind project

October 19, 2021 — A consortium of commercial fishing industry stakeholders announced on Tuesday, 19 October, it intends to file a lawsuit against federal officials over their approval of the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore energy development project if the U.S. government fails to address violations the stakeholders allege were made in its approval process.

The law firm representing the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) sent a 27-page letter Tuesday to six federal officials, as well as the CEO of Vineyard Wind, and attorneys general in three states, saying the group will file a lawsuit if federal officials do not make changes to the project that brings it into compliance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other federal laws.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

As turbines rise, small-scale fishermen have the most to lose

October 14, 2021 — Offshore wind is a critical component of President Biden’s climate strategy, but it has met fierce resistance from fishermen like Aripotch. They fear installing thousands of massive turbines in the ocean could displace them from their fishing grounds and sink their industry.

The conflict is a vivid illustration of the tradeoffs involved in confronting climate change.

Biden and other supporters say offshore wind can deliver a surge of clean electricity and slash greenhouse gas emissions. But many fishing captains worry the turbines could alter the ocean in unexpected and irreparable ways. Last month, a commercial fishing group filed a lawsuit challenging the federal permit issued to Vineyard Wind I, the country’s first planned development.

Efforts are being made to address those concerns. In New York, one company sat down with local fishermen to discuss turbine placement. Developers working off New England will space their turbines one nautical mile apart to ease navigation. In fact, federal regulators selected many wind development areas specifically because they were less popular with fishermen.

But fishermen say those concessions fall short. U.S. regulators plan to allow fishing inside wind developments, but many captains worry it’s only a matter of time before a boat wrecks on a turbine and they’re banned from wind areas. They also contend the government has underestimated the value of fishing grounds and plowed ahead with new projects.

The truth may lie somewhere in between.

“Many fishermen will not see a big impact, but fishermen who do may see a very large impact,” says Chris McGuire, director of the marine program of the Nature Conservancy’s Massachusetts chapter. “That’s a hard part about this. You hear disparate opinions. And I think this is one of those situations where they’re all true depending on where you sit.”

Read the full story at WBUR

U.S. Fishermen Are Making Their Last Stand Against Offshore Wind

September 30, 2021 — A few hundred yards south of the fishing boat docks at the Port of New Bedford in southeastern Massachusetts, workers will soon start offloading gigantic turbine components onto a wide expanse of gravel. Local trawlers and lobster boats will find themselves sharing their waterways with huge vessels hefting cranes and massive hydraulic jacks. And on an approximately 100-square mile patch of open sea that fishermen once traversed with ease, 62 of the world’s largest wind turbines will rise one by one over the ocean waves.

Known as Vineyard Wind, the project is set to be the first-ever commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, generating 800 megawatts of power, or enough to power about 400,000 homes. Dozens of other offshore wind projects are in development up and down America’s east coast. But some in the fishing industry, including many New Bedford fishermen, are concerned that the turbines will upend their way of life.

Earlier this month, a coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing outfits, including 50 New Bedford fishing boats, filed a lawsuit against several U.S. agencies, including the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which approved Vineyard Wind in May, alleging that they violated federal law in allowing the project to go forward. The fishing groups frame that fight as a matter of survival, a last ditch effort to slow down a coalition of banks, technocrats and global energy companies set on erecting multi-billion dollar projects that they worry could devastate their livelihoods.

Money is certainly a big issue for many of those behind Vineyard Wind—backers like Bank of America and J.P. Morgan have pledged about $2.3 billion in funding for the project, and they’re looking for returns on that investment. But there’s also a societal imperative to push ahead with such projects, with many green energy proponents saying there is little choice but to get offshore turbines built as soon as possible if the U.S. is to have any chance of meeting its obligations under the Paris Agreement and averting the worst effects of climate change. The Biden Administration is counting on such turbines to produce about 10% of U.S. electricity by 2050, and in coastal, population dense states like Massachusetts and New York, leaders view sea-bound wind farms as a lynchpin of their net zero ambitions.

Read the full story at TIME

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Biggest offshore wind procurement draws just 2 bids

September 27, 2021 — The two companies already chosen to develop offshore wind projects for Massachusetts were the only two to submit proposals for the state’s third offshore wind solicitation, each offering up to 1,200 megawatts of power generation and various economic development-related sweeteners.

The state’s third competitive solicitation attracted bids from just Vineyard Wind and Mayflower Wind, a smaller pool of bids than House Speaker Ron Mariano and others were hoping for. Both developers submitted bids that maxed out at 1,200 MW of capacity, 25 percent short of the 1,600 MW upper limit that the state’s solicitation sought but still 50 percent more than either project currently under development.

Though key details like the price of the cleaner power and the number of turbines planned remain under wraps until later stages of the selection process, the two developers vying for the work outlined Thursday what they think are the benefits of their bids.

If one of its multiple proposals is chosen, Mayflower Wind said it would set up an operations and maintenance port in Fall River and spend up to $81 million for supply chain support, training and education, port investments, and diversity and inclusion programs on the South Coast.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

 

What’s behind one lawsuit against Vineyard Wind

September 21, 2021 — Annie Hawkins has a message you don’t hear very often in Massachusetts these days.

The executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a national group of fishing interests, Hawkins is questioning the rush to develop offshore wind. Her organization is suing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, alleging the agency is failing to protect the fishing industry as it races to develop the nation’s offshore wind potential to help address climate change.

“In taking action to address climate change, we have to acknowledge that these new uses [of the ocean] have a lot of environmental uncertainty. They have a lot of impacts of their own,” Hawkins said on The Codcast. “They can be better understood and minimized before we go whole hog on this 30 gigawatts tomorrow. A lot more upfront due diligence needs to be done.”

The 30 gigawatts reference refers to President Biden’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. It’s a goal that meshes with Gov. Charlie Baker’s push to develop 3.2 gigawatts by 2030. The Baker administration has already procured 1.6 gigawatts and is in the midst of reviewing proposals that would double that amount.

Read the full story at CommonWealth Magazine