Saving Seafood

Rhode Island commercial fishers join anti-Vineyard Wind lawsuit

December 23, 2021 — Lawyers for a Texas-based libertarian think tank, joined by members of the Rhode Island commercial fishing industry, have filed a federal lawsuit that seeks to stop the Vineyard Wind project from moving forward.

An 85-page complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia claims that federal regulators improperly permitted Vineyard Wind I, the offshore wind project that would place 62 turbines 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard while powering 400,000 Massachusetts homes.

Some commercial fishing interests in the Northeast have been trying to stop the project. In the latest round, a handful of plaintiffs across three states are represented by lawyers with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and its Center for the American Future. The foundation bills itself as a non-profit with a mission “to promote and defend liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise in Texas and the nation.”

The Rhode Island plaintiffs include Seafreeze Shoreside Inc. — a Port Judith fish dealer and portside service provider — and two small fishing companies owned by Thomas E. Williams of Westerly. The Northeast Fisheries Sector XIII — a Massachusetts-based coalition of fisheries permit holders — and New York’s Long Island Commercial Fishing Association area also parties to the lawsuit.

Read the full story at the Boston Business Journal

Texas Public Policy Foundation brings fishermen’s lawsuit against Vineyard Wind

December 22, 2021 — The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has so prioritized offshore wind energy development that it is bypassing real environmental review and failing to consider alternative sites that won’t harm the commercial fishing industry, charges a lawsuit brought by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Filed Dec. 15 in federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of six fishing businesses in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York, the action challenges BOEM and other federal agencies on their review of the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project off southern New England.

The lead plaintiff, Seafreeze Shoreside Inc. of North Kingston, R.I., is a homeport and major processor for the Northeast squid fleet. Captains there are adamant they will not be able to fish if Vineyard Wind and other planned turbine arrays are erected in those waters.

Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison at Seafreeze and a vocal advocate for its fishermen, said she had heard mention of the Texas Public Policy Foundation in conversation, “kind of along the lines of Pacific Legal Foundation which litigated for the fishing industry on the Northeast marine monument” fishing restrictions recently reinstated by the Biden administration.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Massachusetts doubles offshore wind in power pipeline

December 20, 2021 — The amount of offshore wind power in the Massachusetts pipeline is poised to roughly double with the selection Friday of projects from both Vineyard Wind and Mayflower Wind to cumulatively generate 1,600 megawatts of cleaner power for the Bay State by the end of this decade.

A group of utility executives working with assistance from the Baker administration was seeking 1,600 MW more of offshore wind power but got just two bids that each maxed out at 1,200 MW and came only from the two developers already under contract to deliver offshore wind power to Massachusetts. So instead of picking just one 1,200 MW project, the group selected Vineyard Wind’s roughly 1,200 MW Commonwealth Wind proposal and supplemented it with a 400 MW project offered by Mayflower Wind.

Both developers are already working on roughly 800 MW projects for Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind I, the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the nation, is in the very early stages of construction and is due to come online by the end of 2023. Mayflower Wind’s initial 804 MW project just began its federal review process and is expected to be up and running in 2025.

“These projects will double the size of our current offshore wind procurements, they will deliver significant economic benefits to a number of coastal communities across the commonwealth, they include important provisions for diversity, equity and inclusion as well as benefits to environmental justice communities, and they invest significantly in the state while balancing protections with environmental resources including fisheries,” Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides told the News Service on Friday.

Read the full story at WGBH

 

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