Saving Seafood

Top climate hawk bashes first big offshore wind project

November 15, 2019 — For the past seven years, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has given a weekly address about the dangers of climate change. Increasingly, some greens wonder if he is full of hot air.

The Rhode Island Democrat, one of the Senate’s top climate hawks, has emerged as a leading critic of Vineyard Wind, an 84-turbine offshore wind project proposed in federal waters 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Whitehouse has questioned the federal government’s review of the project, the first large-scale development of its kind in the United States, and criticized Vineyard Wind for failing to adequately consult fishermen.

His barbs have raised eyebrows in climate circles and in Massachusetts, where Vineyard Wind has the enthusiastic backing of the state’s political establishment, and comes as the Trump administration weighs the future of the project.

In August, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt called for an additional round of environmental review of the project (Climatewire, Aug. 12). A division of Interior, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, is currently conducting a cumulative impact study of other offshore wind projects proposed for the area.

In an interview, Whitehouse said he was simply pushing for improvements to BOEM’s permitting process to better accommodate the concerns of fishermen and other ocean users.

He argued that Vineyard Wind had already settled on the design of its project with investors before taking input from fishermen. And he cited the Block Island wind farm, a five-turbine project built by Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind, as an example of how wind developers should approach fishermen’s concerns.

Keating said he appreciates the difficulty Whitehouse faces in balancing the concerns of fishermen next to the economic potential of offshore wind. He represents New Bedford, Mass., America’s largest commercial fishing port, and has heard similar concerns about offshore wind from some constituents. But he added: “I really feel an urgency and I feel an imperative that we have to go forward on this. This is gonna be great for our economy.”

Read the full story at E&E News

SARAH E. HUNT & CHARLES HERNICK: Trump’s Environmental Legacy Could Be the Rise of U.S. Offshore Wind

November 8, 2019 — The appetite for renewable energy is growing and the East Coast is a top target for companies looking to invest in wind energy. Sarah E. Hunt, with the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, and Charles Hernick, with Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, explain how wind could end up being President Trump’s environmental legacy if the administration stays true to its all-of-the-above approach to energy.

When President Donald Trump took office, he pledged to make America a powerhouse by embracing an all-of-the-above approach to energy. While the president has criticized wind energy, ironically, it may be his administration that green-lights Vineyard Wind and substantially unlocks America’s offshore wind potential.

While dozens of offshore wind projects have been developed over the past two decades from the U.K. to China, only one project has come online stateside. That is about to change.

The U.S. East Coast is a top target for energy companies interested in investing in offshore wind and will bring with development a substantial boon for workers and the economy while also accessing a previously untapped source of emission-free energy.

Read the full opinion piece at Bloomberg

Vineyard Wind Appoints Fisheries Liaison For CT

October 29, 2019 — Offshore wind developer Vineyard Wind has appointed Caela Howard its fisheries liaison for Connecticut.

Howard has spent the last decade working closely with fisheries in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and in this role, she will serve as the primary point of contact for fishing industry representatives in Connecticut. She will report to the company’s lead fisheries liaison, Crista Bank.

“Vineyard Wind is excited to welcome Caela Howard as our first Connecticut fisheries liaison,” states Lars Pedersen, CEO of Vineyard Wind. “Caela brings extensive experience working closely with fishermen across southern New England, and we look forward to the insight she will provide as we continue building strong relationships with fishing communities throughout the region.”

Read the full story at North American Wind Power

Two Months Later, Vineyard Wind’s Delay Still Clouds US Offshore Picture

October 24, 2019 — Two months after the U.S. government abruptly delayed Vineyard Wind’s 800-megawatt offshore wind project, the industry is still looking for answers.

It’s not exactly clear when Vineyard will get its final go-ahead, let alone what effect the government’s unexpected “cumulative impacts analysis” will have on the pathbreaking $2.8 billion project or the broader American offshore wind market.

If anything, the timeline for a resolution has slipped. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management initially said it anticipated completing Vineyard’s supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) in late 2019 or early 2020, delaying the project by about six months. But BOEM Acting Director Walter Cruickshank said this week that the Interior Department agency now expects to have the supplemental draft EIS “out for public comment early next year.”

Read the full story at Green Tech Media

MASSACHUSETTS: Edgartown, Vineyard Wind Settle Undersea Cable Dispute

October 2, 2019 — Vineyard Wind and the Edgartown conservation commission have comes to terms in a dispute over the construction of two heavy-duty underwater cables, as the nation’s first industrial-scale offshore wind farm moves through an extensive permitting and construction process.

A settlement signed off on by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) this week will allow the conservation commission to play an active role in closely monitoring the project to run an undersea cable from the offshore wind farm past the eastern shore of Chappaquiddick on its way to mainland Cape Cod.

Although the settlement clears one of the last of a long line of local and state permitting hurdles for the massive, 84-turbine ocean infrastructure project, a construction start date remains stalled until at least early 2020 because of delays at the federal level.

In 2018, Vineyard Wind submitted a notice of intent to install two, 220 kiliVolt undersea cables that would connect turbines on its wind-lease area 14 miles south of the Vineyard to mainland Massachusetts, with a landing point in Barnstable on Cape Cod. Because the proposed cables would run approximately one mile off the Chappaquiddick’s eastern shore through Muskeget Channel, it partly fell under the jurisdiction of the Edgartown conservation commission by order of the state Wetlands Protection Act.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Why It’s So Hard to Build Offshore Wind Power in the U.S.

October 1, 2019 — For years, the mighty wind blowing off the Massachusetts coast has beckoned developers with visions of clean, emission-free electricity. The latest to be seduced, Vineyard Wind LLC, aims to install 84 Statute of Liberty-size turbines about 15 miles off the state’s shoreline, which would together generate enough electricity to power 400,000 homes as soon as 2022.

The project hit a snag in August, when the U.S. Department of the Interior ordered additional analysis of how the wind farm—and potentially 14 others that have been granted leases across almost 1.7 million acres of Atlantic waters—would affect the $1.4 billion fishing industry along the Eastern seaboard. U.S. regulators had sought to fast-track Vineyard Wind and could still sign off on the project by their self-imposed deadline in March, but the additional review is a blow to the companies behind Vineyard Wind, Avangrid Inc. and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which had hoped to begin construction this year.

Analysts predict the U.S. will swiftly catch up with foreign competitors. According to BloombergNEF, even with additional Vineyard Wind scrutiny, the U.S. is on track to become fourth in offshore wind capacity by 2030. The rapid buildout is beyond what anyone expected when Cape Wind was struggling earlier this decade. “There is a gold rush mentality in this right now,” says Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney with the Fisheries Survival Fund, which has battled Equinor’s Empire Wind project. “We’re not saying no. We’re just saying, can we please be wise and realistic in what we are going to develop?”

The Interior Department’s additional environmental scrutiny is critical, Minkiewicz says. Had the government approved Vineyard Wind without deeper analysis of fishing impacts, its opponents would have won an easy victory against it in court. “I get that it’s a renewable energy project, and I get that people are excited about it,” he says, “but would you allow a nuclear reactor or a coal plant to write its own environmental impact statement?”

Read the full story at Bloomberg

Trump aide offers no guidance on Vineyard Wind

September 30, 2019 — A Trump Administration official attending a conference in Boston on Friday repeatedly refused to say when the agency’s review of the Vineyard Wind project would be completed.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management put the offshore wind farm on hold indefinitely in early August while it tries to gain a better understanding of the cumulative impact of the many East Coast wind farm projects currently in the pipeline. With the project in danger of being canceled if the delay lasts too long, James Bennett, the renewable energy program manager at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, gave no indication of when the agency’s review will be completed.

“It’s going to take some time, longer than we expected for this project,” said Bennett, who was asked about the agency’s timetable by Attorney General Maura Healey’s chief of staff, Mike Firestone. Bennett was at the Sheraton Boston Hotel taking part in an offshore wind panel at an eastern region meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

After the panel was over, Bennett again refused to elaborate.  “We’re working on a schedule to complete whatever we have to do to keep the project moving forward,” he said.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

Trump move to delay Mass. wind farm concerns NY officials

September 19, 2019 — New York State is “watching closely” the federal government’s decision to stall a Massachusetts offshore wind project to review environmental and fishing impacts, a top state official said Wednesday, adding there’s no sign yet that the scrutiny will affect New York’s ambitious offshore wind plans.

“That concern does exist,” Alicia Barton, president and chief executive of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, told business leaders at a Long Island Association meeting in Melville Wednesday. She called the federal review a “significant setback” in the permitting schedule for that project, called Vineyard Wind.

Vineyard Wind in August said it was “surprised and disappointed” by the federal Bureau of Energy Management’s decision to scrutinize the “cumulative impacts [of offshore wind] driven by rapid growth of the industry beyond our project.”

For now, Barton said she had “no reason to believe” New York projects, which are slated to be in service in 2024, would be affected by the federal review. Nor does it appear to delay her expectation that additional leasing areas off New York will be offered by the federal government soon.

Read the full story at Newsday

Fishermen unsatisfied with wind turbine plans

September 16, 2019 — When Rhode Island commercial fishermen sat down a year ago with offshore wind developers, they say they made it clear that for the sake of navigational safety the minimum spacing of any turbines installed in ocean waters needs to be at least one nautical mile in every direction.

That meeting in July 2018 at the East Farm Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island, in South Kingstown, with Vineyard Wind and Deepwater Wind (which has since become part of Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind) wasn’t the first time that fishermen say they argued their demands for spacing and for the orientation of wind farms from east to west in a symmetrical grid pattern.

But, with Vineyard Wind and Ørsted both moving forward since then with layouts that fall short of what the fishermen want, it wouldn’t be the last.

Again, on Monday night, in a meeting with Ørsted and its partner Eversource Energy to discuss the companies’ 130-megawatt South Fork Wind Farm, members of the state’s Fishermen’s Advisory Board reiterated what they say is needed to allow them to fish within and transit through the project of up to 15 turbines that would be built in Rhode Island Sound.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times