November 27, 2023 — A proposal to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission considering whether to reopen a winter crab dredge fishery in the U.S. state on an experimental basis is intended to help watermen in the area, according to the proposal’s sponsor
If repopened, it would be Virginia’s first winter crab dredge since 2008, when the VMRC closed the fishery due to low crab survey results.
November 23, 2023 — Back in the October 2021 issue of National Fisherman, the 96’ x 24’ x 7’ Hopeful Harvest was featured as a converted Oil Supply Vessel (OSV) arriving from Bayou La Batre, Ala. to work as a Chesapeake Bay oyster planter.
“The 7-foot draft just did not make the boat workable for us,” says Jeff Kellum of W.E. Kellum Seafood of Weems, Va. “We have a lot of shallow oyster grounds that the boat simply could not get on. Since the boat would not work, this meant another year of me going back and forth to the Gulf to find and convert another boat.”
Kellum found a 66’ x 26’ x 5’ deck lugger tug boat that had been used in the inland oil business, and named it Replenisher. Cobra Management and Dry Dock Services (CMDDS) in Houma, La. was hired to convert it into a Chesapeake Bay oyster planter.
When Kellum found her, the boat had not left the dock in five years and parts had been taken off her and used on other boats. “We really did not have to do a lot of work on the hull,” says Kellum. “There was some steel work done in the bow and we replaced the bulwarks,” he says.
November 21, 2023 — Detroit is known for automobile manufacturing. San Francisco is known for technology. Hampton Roads hopes to be known for offshore wind development.
In 2020, the Virginia Clean Economy Act, an ambitious roadmap to decarbonize the state’s electric grid by midcentury, was signed into law with provisions encouraging the development of thousands of megawatts of offshore wind. The landmark legislation paved the way for the approval of Dominion Energy’s 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm off Virginia Beach earlier this year. That project in turn raised hopes that the industry would bring economic stimulation to the region. In October 2021, the announcement that the Spanish-German engineering company Siemens Gamesa had chosen Portsmouth for the site of the East Coast’s first turbine manufacturing facility seemed to bear out those hopes.
“Today’s announcement will help position Hampton Roads as the offshore wind development hub for the nation,” said Dominion CEO, President and Chair Bob Blue at the time.
However, on Nov. 10, Siemens Gamesa announced it was canceling those plans, saying that “development milestones to establish the facility could not be met.”
The loss of the turbine manufacturing facility, with its associated jobs and tax revenue, is a blow to Hampton Roads, one that has raised questions about whether the region’s dreams of becoming an offshore wind hub can be realized. But Dominion, local officials and environmental and economic development groups aren’t giving up hope: They say the ongoing work on CVOW, the region’s maritime infrastructure and workforce and burgeoning nationwide calls for a more renewables-focused grid keep them optimistic that Hampton Roads can still be an East Coast
November 13, 2023 — A European company has canceled plans to build blades for offshore wind turbines in coastal Virginia, the latest sign of struggle within the U.S.’s nascent industry.
Siemens Gamesa confirmed the cancellation in a statement Friday. The company’s proposed $200 million factory at the Port of Virginia in Portsmouth would have created more than 300 jobs and aided the state in its aspirations to become a hub for offshore wind projects as part of the nation’s efforts to tackle climate change.
The change in plans by the Spain-based firm comes at a time when inflation, raised interest rates and supply chain issues have cut into the profitability — and even the viability — of some offshore wind projects in the U.S.
November 2, 2023 — Executive director Shauna McCranie and Save Festival Halle committee chairman Diane McGuire recently announced the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum has received a $250,000 donation pledge from the Cooke family and Omega Protein for the restoration of Festival Halle. The challenge grant will match dollar for dollar all donations received from supporters up to $250,000.
Cooke Inc. is a vertically integrated, family-owned seafood company based in New Brunswick, Canada. Omega Protein joined the Cooke family of companies in 2017. Omega Protein originated in 1878 in Reedville and has continued to be a large supporter of the museum and community for many years.
November 1, 2o23 — A federal environmental review gives a green light to Dominion Energy‘s $9 billion offshore wind farm, located about 25 miles into the Atlantic from Virginia Beach’s Oceanfront.
The approval includes requirements aimed at reducing harm to the endangered North American Right Whale and at easing the impact of construction and operation of the wind farm on fisheries and ship traffic in and out of the world’s biggest Navy base and one of the nation’s busiest ports.
The review “weighed all concerns in making decisions regarding this Project and has determined that all practicable means within its authority have been adopted to avoid or minimize environmental and socioeconomic harm,” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said.
It said pulling the plug on the wind farm “would still be expected to result in moderate, long-term, adverse impacts on regional air quality because other energy generation facilities would be needed.”
Those plants would be powered by fossil fuels which would emit pollutants and contribute to climate change.
November 1, 2023 — The Biden administration announced its approval Tuesday of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, the largest to date in U.S. waters with a planned maximum rating of 2,600 megawatts.
Eight steel monopile foundations arrived in Portsmouth, Va., Oct. 19, the first components for the planned 176 turbines in an $9.8 billion array starting 23.5 miles east of Virginia Beach, Va. It’s the fifth utility-scale wind project approved through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, following the Vineyard Wind 1, South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind projects off southern New England, and Ocean Wind 1 off New Jersey. Together the projects will collectively generate more than 5 gigawatts of maximum potential.
But the CVOW approval also arrives amid broader turmoil in the renewable energy industry, beset by rapidly escalating costs and financial losses for developers and turbine manufacturers. Most recently four developers that sought bigger subsidies for projects off New York were rejected by New York State energy regulators, leaving the future of their plans in doubt.
Biden administration officials and CVOW developer Dominion Energy portrayed the approval Tuesday as a milestone. The project “is expected to provide about 900 jobs each year during the construction phase and support an estimated 1,100 annual jobs during the operations phase, generating vital economic development for Virginia’s Hampton Roads area and supporting investments in the Virginia coastal region as a hub for offshore wind development and support,” according to a prepared statement from BOEM.
October 30, 2023 — After a seemingly endless stream of bad news for the U.S. offshore wind energy industry, elected officials, executives from Dominion Energy, the Port of Virginia, and their partners, gathered today to mark a key step forward for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project. The wind farm, which is still waiting for its final approvals and permitting, is already the largest offshore wind project under development in the U.S. and is gearing up for construction to begin after years of planning.
The first eight monopile foundations, built in Germany, arrived last week in Virginia at the staging site at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal. The massive steel constructions, each weighing around 1,500 tons, took nearly two and a half weeks by ship to reach Virginia. They are the first of the foundations for a total of 176 wind turbines that are planned for CVOW.
October 26, 2023 — A black unmarked truck is rumbling across Chain Bridge, its back seat piled with camo, firearms, coolers, and gear. Up front are two game wardens with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.
“The water is so low,” one says, eyeing the Potomac out the window. “The lowest I’ve ever seen it in my career.”
Over the bridge, on the Virginia side, they stash their truck in a gulch by the woods, hike a deer trail, then split up. One descends the hill toward the river. The other climbs a steep bluff, stopping by a stand of oaks. Beneath him, a small stream empties into the Potomac, and he trains his binoculars on its mouth. There, he sees it: white glimmers on the water, the surface churning with fish. The herring are here, leaping into the tide pools. The spawning run is on.
Each spring, from the depths of the North Atlantic, millions of herring migrate up coastal rivers in vast schools, often crossing hundreds of miles to spawn. For weeks, they battle the currents, the predators, the pollution, the storms, drawn irrevocably to their natal waters—the streams and creeks where they were born—where they’ll shoot clouds of roe and milt into the water, then ride the current back out to sea. For many of them, Chain Bridge is the finish line; beneath its concrete piers is the mouth of Pimmit Run, a small creek choked with rocks and industrial rubble, one of the best herring hatcheries around.
With one hand, Sergeant Rich Goszka holds his binoculars to his face, and with the other, he grabs his phone. “There’s fish in the eddy and they’re trying to spawn right now,” he tells his partner, Mark Sanitra, who’s camouflaged somewhere below. “I can see them flashing from up on this hill.” Just then, a man in a gray shirt wanders a few dozen feet up the creek and sticks his hands into the water. “Yeah, I see him,” Goszka says, his voice testy. “Hang on—just hang on. Yeah, he’s trying to catch them by hand.”
October 25, 2023 — The U.S. state of Virginia is reportedly considering whether to reopen its winter blue crab harvest – fifteen years after the fishery was closed.
In 2007, Virginia closed its winter blue crab dredge fishery season for the first time to rebuild the Chesapeake Bay’s crab population. The drop in population was enough that in 2008 the U.S. Department of Commerce declared a commercial fishery disaster for the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery – the first time the crab fishery had received such a designation.