Saving Seafood

Offshore Wind Projects Challenge Trump Administration’s Order to Stop Work

January 5, 2026 — Developers of five offshore wind farms that were ordered last week by the Trump administration to halt construction are suing to restart work on at least three of the projects.

The Interior Department on Dec. 22 ordered companies to halt work on five wind farms in various stages of construction along the East Coast. They were: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind, both off the coast of New York; Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut; Vineyard Wind 1 off the coast of Massachusetts; and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off Virginia.

The administration cited unspecified national security concerns about the projects.

On Thursday, Orsted, the Danish energy giant that is building Revolution Wind, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. On Friday Equinor, the developer of Empire Wind, did the same.

Both companies said they are seeking preliminary injunctions that would allow construction to continue as the litigation proceeds. Orsted is also building Sunrise Wind and said it was considering a similar legal challenge to restart work on that project, too.

Read the full article at The New York Times

 

Virginia offshore wind developer sues over Trump administration order halting projects

December 29, 2025 — The developers of a Virginia offshore wind project are asking a federal judge to block a Trump administration order that halted construction of their project, along with four others, over national security concerns.

Dominion Energy Virginia said in its lawsuit filed late Tuesday that the government’s order is “arbitrary and capricious” and unconstitutional. The Richmond-based company is developing Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, a project it says is essential to meet dramatically growing energy needs driven by dozens of new data centers.

The Interior Department did not detail the security concerns in blocking the five projects on Monday. In a letter to project developers, Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management set a 90-day period — and possibly longer — “to determine whether the national security threats posed by this project can be adequately mitigated.”

Read the full article at The Associated Press

The Trump administration pauses wind projects off New England, New York and Virginia

December 23, 2025 — The Trump administration said Monday it is pausing leases for five large-scale offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast due to what it said were national security risks identified by the Pentagon.

The pause, effective immediately, is the latest step the administration has taken to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful.

The administration said the pause will give the Interior Department, which oversees offshore wind, time to work with the Defense Department and other agencies to assess the possible ways to mitigate any security risks posed by the projects.

“The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. “Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers.”

The statement did not detail the national security risks.

Wind proponents slammed the move, saying it was another blow by the administration against clean energy.

The administration said leases are paused for the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island and Connecticut, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, and two projects in New York: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind.

Read the full article at KDLG

Chesapeake Bay region leaders approve revised agreement, commit to cleanup through 2040

December 4, 2025 — State and federal leaders from around the Chesapeake Bay have given the final stamp of approval to an agreement that sets the tone for the next 15 years of cleaning up the nation’s largest estuary.

The Chesapeake Executive Council, which directs the massive restoration effort, met in Baltimore Tuesday to celebrate the latest iteration of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.

“It is not just a renewal of commitment, but it is a redoubling of our efforts to make progress that is not only aspirational, but progress that is fast,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said at the meeting, his last as a member of the council. “The huge effort that we have made over many years is the foundation.”

Virginia and other states in the region signed onto the most recent agreement in 2014. It set benchmarks for participants to voluntarily achieve by 2025, such as cutting pollution and boosting seagrass and crab populations. Officials failed to meet about a third of the targets by this year’s deadline.

Read the full article at VPM

VIRGINIA: Virginia’s 2.6 GW offshore wind project remains on schedule for late-2026 completion despite rising costs

November 13, 2025 — The US wind sector has faced some troubling times as of late, with US President Donald Trump rolling back permits and forcing wind operators to cancel planned projects. Despite that, Virginia’s 2.6 GW offshore wind project remains on track for a late-2026 completion date. The project is being developed by Dominion Energy and has been subject to some problems due to rising costs, but it remains on schedule. Virginia is set to become the home of the US wind sector once the project has been completed and is feeding clean, renewable energy to the millions of Virginia households.

Dominion has stated that the project will be the largest by capacity in the United States

The planned 2.6 GW offshore wind project will easily be the largest by capacity in the United States, once it has been completed. Dominion Energy is an exceedingly large energy company that provides electricity to over 3.6 million customers in Virginia and the Carolinas. Additionally, the firm also provides regulated natural gas services to about 500,000 customers in South Carolina.

Dominion’s quarterly performance for Q3 has been a sight for sore eyes in the American energy sector, boasting operating earnings of $921 million, which is significantly higher than the same period last year. In Q3, Dominion’s regulated electric sales rose 3.3% year over year, marking an important milestone in the company’s future in the United States.

Read the full article at Energies Media

Stakeholders nearing update on Chesapeake Bay Agreement with multiple goals for fisheries

November 6, 2025 — Federal and state stakeholders are getting close on an update to the Chesapeake Bay Agreement – a voluntary accord that sets goals for conservation and clean water – laying out desired outcomes for some of the region’s fisheries.

First established in 1983, signatories to the agreement include the governments of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, New York, and the District of Columbia, along with the Chesapeake Bay Commission and federal agencies.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Coastwide Menhaden Catch Limit Cut by 20% as Potential Bay Cuts Loom

October 29, 2025 — In a marathon four-hour fishery management meeting on Tuesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC)’s Menhaden Management Board grappled with menhaden catch limits up and down the East Coast. Under pressure from environmentalists to cut catch limits and from menhaden fishermen to protect their livelihoods, board members for the ASMFC voted to reduce the coastwide menhaden catch by 20% in 2026, allowing fishermen to land 186,840 metric tons. The total allowable catch will be revisited in time for the 2027 and 2028 seasons. This motion passed 16-2, with only Virginia and Pennsylvania voting against it.

Inside the Chesapeake Bay, however, the rules are different. The Virginia menhaden reduction fishery, led by purse seine operator Ocean Harvesters, adheres to its own limit, known as the “Bay Cap”, which is currently set at 51,000 metric tons of fish. But environmentalists argue that a much lower Bay Cap is needed to protect the environment. They want to cut the reduction fishery’s limit by 50%. Groups like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation believe menhaden are in trouble, and since menhaden are an important forage fish, that there isn’t enough food to go around for predators like osprey and rockfish. The Virginia menhaden fishing industry disputes the claim that menhaden are in trouble, or that the Bay’s osprey and rockfish population struggles are directly related to a lack of menhaden.

The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) just funded a new project that will pull together all of the existing research on menhaden in the Bay, identify gaps in the research, and propose new study methods to fill these gaps. This would lead to solid research for setting a meaningful Bay harvest cap for that is based on data and is scientifically defensible.

Scientists from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Maryland, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and NOAA, will lead the project to develop a “research roadmap” for Bay fishery managers.

Since that future research won’t be available for some time, the ASMFC Menhaden Management Board moved to initiate a new addendum that would potentially change how the Bay Cap is used, or lower the limit. This addendum would “develop periods for the Chesapeake Bay Cap that distributes fishing effort more evenly throughout the season” and it would also develop “a range of options to reduce the Bay Cap.” These options could be anything from keeping the cap at its current level to a 50% reduction. The hope is to have a draft of the addendum ready to present at ASMFC’s next meeting this winter.

Read the full article at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine 

Virginia, Maryland spawning surveys spell trouble for prized Atlantic coast gamefish species

October 24, 2025 — The most recent Chesapeake Bay striped bass spawning surveys are in and the news is not good.

A young-of-the-year survey done by the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences shows spawning recruitment just below historical averages in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries. A survey conducted by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay waters shows numbers significantly lower than historical averages.

That makes seven straight years of poor Chesapeake Bay spawns. Because 70% to 90% of all Atlantic striped bass are spawned and reared in the Chesapeake, the numbers are even more alarming. Striped bass numbers are declining. The fish has a billion dollar sport and commercial fishing impact on the economy of every state from North Carolina to Maine.

Read the full article at WAVY

VIRGINIA: America’s biggest offshore wind farm will be online in 6 months

October 22, 2025 — About 30 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, workers have been building America’s largest offshore wind farm at a breakneck pace. The project will start feeding power to the grid by March — the most definitive start date provided by its developer yet.

“First power will occur in Q1 of next year,” Dominion Energy spokesperson Jeremy Slayton told Canary Media. ​“And we are still on schedule to complete by late 2026.”

In an August earnings call, Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue provided a vague window of ​“early 2026” when asked when the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, or CVOW, project would start generating renewable power for the energy-hungry state.

As of the end of September, Dominion had installed all 176 turbine foundations — ​“a big, important milestone,” per Slayton. That accomplishment involved pile-driving 98 foundations into the soft seabed during the five-month stretch when such work is permitted. Good weather helped the work move along quickly, as did the Atlantic Ocean’s unusually quiet hurricane season.

Speed is key when building wind projects under the eye of a president who has called turbines ​​“ugly” and ​​“terrible for tourism” — and who has followed up with attempts to dismantle the industry.

Had CVOW not finished foundation installation by the end of this month, turbine construction would have been delayed until next spring. Federal permitting restricts pile-driving to a May-through-October window to protect migrating North Atlantic right whales. Such a delay would have made CVOW more vulnerable to the wrath of the Trump administration, which has already issued stop-work orders to two offshore wind farms under construction.

Read the full article at Grist

Seven years of bad luck for striped bass, survey shows

October 22, 2025 — Striped bass reproduction has remained below average in parts of the Chesapeake Bay since 2018, and this year is no different.

The annual juvenile striped bass surveys from Maryland and Virginia give insight as to how the next generation of striped bass will sustain the population. With continuing poor results, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering stronger catch limits.

Striped bass are top predators in the Bay and support commercial and recreational fishing. They are found along the East Coast from Canada to Florida, but they spawn and spend the first few years of their lives in the Bay.

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science has conducted its annual survey on striped bass since 1967. This year, scientists caught more than 1,000 juvenile striped bass at 18 sites in the Rappahannock, York and James rivers with a 100-foot seine net. Fish are captured, counted, measured and thrown back.

Read the full article at Bay Journal