Saving Seafood

Nantucket Group Sues To Stop Massive Wind Farm, Claiming Threat To Endangered Right Whales

August 27, 2021 — A federal lawsuit is aiming to stop the construction of thousands of wind turbines off the Massachusetts coast.

The “ACK Residents Against Turbines” who filed the lawsuit said the proposed Vineyard Wind project poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

“The whales belong to all of us and with fewer than 400, of which there are fewer than 100 breeding females left, each one is worth protecting. The people of Nantucket have a long history with these whales and we have done so much recently to protect this species,” said group co-founder Mary Chalke in a statement. “It would be a tragedy to see all of them lost in order to build an industrial offshore development.”

The project is set to be the first utility-scale wind power development in federal waters.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which are named in the suit, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. Vineyard Wind, a joint project of a Danish company and a U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish energy giant, Iberdrola, also declined to comment.

But the American Clean Power Association, a group that represents renewable energy companies, stressed the project has undergone a lengthy environmental review, permitting and public comment process.

Read the full story at CBS Boston

Concern about endangered whales cited in suit over wind farm

August 25, 2021 — The construction of dozens of wind turbines off the coast of Nantucket threatens the survival of a dwindling number of endangered Northern Atlantic right whales that inhabit the waters, a group of residents on the affluent resort island in Massachusetts argue in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

ACK Residents Against Turbines said Vineyard Wind’s proposed project of some 60 turbines 14 miles (22 kilometers) south of the island is located in a crucial area for foraging and nursing for the species, which researchers estimate number less than 400.

Mary Chalke, a Nantucket resident and member of the opposition group, said the lawsuit isn’t just about Vineyard Wind, but other turbine projects also in the pipeline up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

Bob Vanasse, who heads the fishing advocacy group Saving Seafood, said Vineyard Wind and other projects proposed in the region could impact a range of significant fisheries, including squid, clams and scallops.

“There are a number of groups in various fisheries who have raised concerns about the insufficiency of the planning and review effort,” he said Wednesday. “This group is far from alone in that.”

Vineyard Wind also comes years after the infamous Cape Wind project, which failed after bitter litigation from another group that included Nantucket property owners.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

BOEM reaches out to RODA, acknowledges need to improve communication

August 16, 2021 — Four months after fishing industry leaders wrote a letter to the head of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management about the then-pending decision on the Vineyard Wind project, the federal agency finally responded and agreed to work on improving communications between the two sides.

In a release, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) said it received the five-page letter from BOEM Director Amanda Lefton on Tuesday, 10 August. In that letter, Lefton acknowledged the industry’s “serious concerns” regarding the decision-making process on Vineyard Wind and whether fishing interests were being considered in the agency’s decisions on the permitting of other wind-turbine arrays along the U.S. East Coast.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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

Lawsuit seeking to stop Vineyard Wind claims NOAA Fisheries opinion was faulty

July 22, 2021 — The Vineyard Wind project, an 800-megawatt offshore wind energy installation slated to be built off the coast of the U.S. state of Massachusetts, is now facing a federal lawsuit.

The suit is challenging the permit for the Vineyard Wind offshore energy. It was filed by a solar energy generation company, but the potential impact on the commercial fishing industry is a cornerstone of the suit’s argument against the project.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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

Fishing Industry Feels Stranded As Offshore Wind Gathers Momentum

July 6, 2021 — On a clear morning in early June, cotton sacks filled with shucked scallops hit the scale at Gambardella’s dockside warehouse in Stonington, Connecticut. They’re being offloaded from the Furious, a scallop boat just back from a 12-day trip.

Owner and longtime fisherman Joe Gilbert runs four scallop boats out of this dock. Up in the wheelhouse of the Furious, he indicated on a chart where in the future, this same trip might be a lot more difficult to navigate.

“This entire area here is slated to be a wind farm,” he said. “It’s an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.”

In its pursuit of green energy, the Biden administration has given strong backing to the nascent offshore wind industry in the U.S. While Europe has 20 years of experience developing offshore wind, it’s relatively new in North America.

Last month saw the final approval for the very first commercial-scale project, Vineyard Wind, off the coast of Massachusetts — just one of 14 projects being considered off the Atlantic coast.

But these aren’t empty seas. Plenty of other ocean users have concerns about the massive steel turbines being erected offshore, not least commercial fishing, which is a multimillion-dollar industry in New England.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance has taken the lead in advocating for the fishing industry. Its major concern is that fishing vessels could strike one of the massive wind farm turbines in bad weather. In addition, the spinning blades interfere with the radar vessels use to find their catch. And fishermen like Gilbert worry that the structures will alter the ocean ecosystem as they change current patterns and cause formerly distinct layers of water to mix.

“We’re racing forward without the proper science to evaluate if this is good or if this is bad,” said Gilbert.

Read the full story at WNPR

Offshore wind projects line up for federal review

June 30, 2021 — The pipeline of offshore wind projects is coming into clearer view with federal officials this week planning to start their official review of a development that could offer as much as 2.3 gigawatts of power to northeastern states.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans on Wednesday to publish a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for Vineyard Wind South, a project of up to 130 turbines that the company, which is separately developing a project solely for Massachusetts utilities, plans to build out in phases. The first phase, 804 MW of power, is earmarked as Park City Wind and is under contract with Connecticut.

The notice of intent will kick off a 30-day public comment period during which BOEM will hold three virtual meetings to identify issues it should consider as it prepares a draft environmental impact statement which will then be subject to further review and its own approval. Earlier this month, BOEM began a similar process for Equinor’s 816-megawatt Empire Wind project that’s expected to deliver power to New York.

The Vineyard Wind South project is planned for the remaining southwestern portion of the 260 square mile lease area that will host the Massachusetts-contracted Vineyard Wind I project at the northeastern end. If the Vineyard Wind South project is fully developed, BOEM said it could include “up to 130 wind turbine generators, two to five offshore substations, inter-array cables, and up to five export cables connecting to the onshore electric grid in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, at up to three onshore substations.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Sen. Shaheen Backs Plan To Split Offshore Wind Lease Revenue Among Coastal States

June 25, 2021 — A new bill backed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) would share the revenue from offshore wind development with coastal states like New Hampshire.

The bill proposes new uses for revenue generated by the sale of leases that allow developers to build wind farms in federal waters.

The federal government has sold hundreds of millions in offshore wind leases. Right now, the money goes back to the U.S. Treasury.

This plan would send half of it to states that are adjacent to approved wind projects. They could use the money for coastal resilience and climate change adaptation projects, fisheries research and conservation work.

Most of the remaining revenue would go to a similar existing grant program for coastal and Great Lakes communities.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

MASSACHUSETTS: Baker, guvs urge Biden to keep offshore wind a priority

June 7, 2021 — Gov. Charlie Baker and governors from eight other states poised to benefit environmentally and economically from the emerging offshore wind sector sent President Joe Biden a letter on Friday outlining their thoughts and recommendations for keeping the momentum going in the fledgling field.

Biden’s administration has moved quickly to advance offshore wind projects, namely the Vineyard Wind I project that last month got the federal go-ahead it had been waiting about two years to receive, and Baker’s administration has cheered the president’s swift action.

Vineyard Wind, which is expected to deliver 800 megawatts of wind-generated power to Massachusetts by 2023, is on track to be the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the United States. Mayflower Wind, an 804-MW project, is also under contract to deliver power to Massachusetts. And an upcoming state solicitation seeks a project of up to 1,600 MW that can come online by the end of the decade.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times