Virginia Archives - Page 19 of 64

Chesapeake Bay Foundation ordered to stop work on 3 Virginia Beach reefs after inspections find asphalt chunks, metal wire

July 14, 2022 — The Virginia Marine Resources Commission mandated that Chesapeake Bay Foundation projects at Pleasure House Creek Oyster Reef, Brown Cove Reef and Keeling Drain Reef be halted due to public safety and environmental issues, according to a letter from the agency dated today.

Inspections of work sites this year, including by dive teams, found material not meant for use on the human-made reefs — such as asphalt and metal wire — was being used, according to the letter.

Commission staff confirmed an “undetermined” amount of concrete rubble had been put on top of a 25-year old oyster broodstock sanctuary reef at Keeling Drain Reef, according to the letter.

At Brown Cove Reef, May inspections found concrete outside the permitted area and asphalt and metal wire at the site, which was also found at the Pleasure House Creek Oyster Reef site. The human-made reef at Pleasure House is also taller than permitted, according to the letter.

Read the full story at MSN

Opinion: Menhaden fishing is a lifeline for Virginia workers

July 7, 2022 — The following is an excerpt of an op-ed by Ken Pinkard, a 38-year, third-generation menhaden fisherman in Virginia’s Northern Neck region. It was published yesterday by the Daily Press and the Virginian-Pilot.

The Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association’s Mike Avery inaccurately claims that the Chesapeake Bay’s menhaden fishery is hurting striped bass (“Advocates call for limits of menhaden fishing in Virginia”). In reality, menhaden fishing is not only sustainable, it’s a critical economic engine for Virginia’s Northern Neck.

For decades, menhaden fishermen have worked in the Chesapeake Bay alongside crabbers, oystermen and other watermen. The menhaden fishery is currently the largest employer of minority and union workers in rural Northumberland County, and Virginia will not attract “good-paying” jobs by destroying it. The proposals Avery promotes would have a devastating impact on hardworking Virginians whose families rely on the fishery for their livelihoods.

The economy of the Northern Neck depends on Omega Protein and affiliated companies, just as Detroit depends on GM and Ford. Omega Protein and its fishing partners offer the highest blue-collar wages with the most generous benefits in the Northern Neck. These are union jobs. Every worker has a voice. Some 98% of our Reedville-based employees live in Virginia and 90% live in the Northern Neck.

Read the full op-ed with a subscription at the Daily Press

Virginia urges caution to avoid wind power conflicts with fishing, shipping industries

July 6, 2022 — Virginia state officials cautioned the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that its proposed opening of 4 million acres off the Mid-Atlantic coast for wind energy development must include early steps to avoid conflicts with commercial fishing and navigation to the state’s ports.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s top cabinet officials sent a June 27 letter to BOEM stating support for wind power, but urging that planning “balance the competing interests of all stakeholders.”

The letter notes a potential for “millions of dollars of negative impact to Virginia’s commercial fishing industries.”

“While supportive of the growth of the offshore wind industry and the opportunities for the commonwealth to provide critical support to the offshore wind industry supply chain and become a key hub for future development, we must ensure any future leasing areas do not detrimentally impact or restrict maritime commerce or commercial navigation,” the letter states.

Virginia is heavily invested in offshore wind with a goal of making the Norfolk and Hampton Roads ports a major hub for the U.S. wind industry. Under former Democratic governor Ralph Northam the state committed to offshore wind in its future energy planning.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

VIRGINIA: Youngkin administration warns feds new wind areas could hurt commercial fisheries

July 1, 2022 — Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration told federal officials that large areas of ocean off Virginia being considered as potential offshore wind sites could cause “millions of dollars of negative impact to Virginia’s commercial fishing industries.”

The letter was signed by Acting Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources, Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick, Secretary of Transportation W. Sheppard Miller, Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs Craig Crenshaw and Secretary of Labor Bryan Slater.

The administration’s comments came in response to a BOEM proposal for a 4 million acre Central Atlantic call area where the federal government could auction off lease areas to offshore wind developers. The public comment period on the draft call area closed Tuesday.

The Central Atlantic proposal is far larger than the expansion initially envisioned by former Gov. Ralph Northam. In a November 2020 letter to then-Acting Director Walter Cruickshank, Northam formally requested that the federal agency auction off “two additional 100,000-acre wind lease areas off the coast of Virginia.” The state also sent the federal government two potential scenarios for additional lease areas near the existing ones held by Dominion Energy and the state’s energy agency. One of the proposals was identified as having “the least conflict possible with shipping, fishing or marine mammals,” and the other had “minimal conflicts with military operations and shipping” but some conflicts with fisheries.

Read the full story at the Virginia Mercury

Chesapeake Bay Dead Zone Smaller Than Previous Years Due To Mild May Temperatures

June 29, 2022 — Researchers are predicting this summer’s dead zone in the Chesapeake Bay will be smaller than the long-term average taken between 1985 and 2021, according to environmental staff.

The change in size is due to the below-average amount of water entering the bay from the watershed’s tributaries this past spring, Chesapeake Bay Program staff said.

Program staff made the announcement alongside researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the University of Michigan, and U.S. Geological Survey.

Decreased nutrient and sediment pollution from jurisdictions within the watershed also contributed to the smaller dead zone, staff said.

The dead zones consist of areas of low oxygen, known as hypoxic regions. This is where there are dissolved oxygen concentrations of less than two milligrams per liter— primarily caused by excess nutrient pollution flowing into the bay, staff said.

Read the full story at CBS Baltimore

Study: Offshore wind development could reduce surf clam catch revenue by as much as 15%

June 28, 2022 — Offshore wind farms could reduce the catch of Atlantic surf clams in the mid-Atlantic, according to a new study from Rutgers University.

The research published last week was funded by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Rutgers associate professor Daphne Munroe found that the leases for wind projects could reduce surf clam revenue by 3-15% in the area from Virginia to Massachusetts. The fishery is worth more than $30 million annually.

The study did not include Maine, but adds to a sparse but growing body of research about potential conflicts between offshore wind and fishing.

Read the full story at Maine Public

As feds eye more wind leases off Virginia, fishing industries fear losses

June 23, 2022 — Today, two wind turbines turn off Virginia’s coast. But by the middle of the next decade, hundreds more may have joined them.

With a major push underway by President Joe Biden’s administration to develop 30 gigawatts of offshore wind as a way to reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels, federal officials are looking to dramatically expand the areas where wind farms can be built in U.S. waters.

Virginia is an epicenter of interest: Of 4 million acres of ocean identified as potential wind energy areas in a new Central Atlantic call area, most lie off the Virginia coast.

For the commonwealth’s fishing industries, already wary of what their business will look like once Dominion Energy’s 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is constructed, the prospect of a much more expansive buildout of wind power throughout the rich fishing grounds off Virginia is sparking fears that the new industry will drive out the old.

“We know that when these lease areas are built out, it is going to be displacing fishermen, who are then going to be working smaller and smaller areas with more and more boats, which is going to lead to localized depletion,” said Tom Dameron, government relations and fisheries science liaison for Surfside Foods, a New Jersey-based commercial clam fishing company that last year landed roughly 10 percent of the East Coast’s entire surf clam harvest in Cape Charles.

Read the full story at the Virginia Mercury

A shifting climate may be bringing a new commercial fishery to the Mid-Atlantic

June 10, 2022 — Whenever a new commercial fishery starts up anywhere in the USA – it is news!

With green-tail or white shrimp (Litopenaeus setiferus) moving north into Virginia and Maryland waters, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) and Maryland’s state legislators are cautiously laying the groundwork to establish commercial shrimp fisheries in areas of the bay and waters of the two states.

Virginia has had an experimental ocean shrimp season since 2017 and in 2021 VMRC approved regulations to establish an official season from Oct. 1st to Jan. 31st off Virginia Beach; established the fishing grounds out of Virginia Beach from Cape Henry Lighthouse south to the North Carolina line and eastward to the Three Nautical Mile Limit; set catch and size limits, reporting requirements, and approval of gear used to harvest shrimp.

There are currently 12 licensed watermen working in the Atlantic Ocean off of Virginia Beach. Information from the Eastern Shore of Virginia has been limited and as such remains under an experimental permit presently with four participants.

Maryland’s 2021 legislature is in the process of creating a shrimp fishery through state Senate Bill 537 sponsored by state Sen. Mary Beth Crozza and House Bill 1149 sponsored by Delegate Jay Jacobs. The general assembly has approved legislation that allows the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to establish parameters for a shrimp fishery “pilot program” for certain commercial licenses. It is hopeful that a pilot program will be in place by July 1, 2022. The Maryland Waterman’s Association is endorsing the legislation, said MWA president Robert T. Brown. “They are already doing it down in Virginia and it looks like it is working down there,” says Brown.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

At Dominion wind hearings, continued disputes over ratepayer protections

May 20, 2022 — After two and a half days of testimony in Richmond, consumer protection advocates continue to disagree with Dominion Energy over whether regulators should require further safeguards for ratepayers as the utility seeks approval for its plans to build a massive wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach.

“There is no blank check for this project,” said Joseph Reid, an attorney from McGuireWoods who represented Dominion in the case before the State Corporation Commission, on Tuesday.

But Senior Assistant Attorney General Meade Browder told the SCC that the office’s Division of Consumer Counsel remains concerned that customers face significant risks from the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

“Our position is that approval should come with meaningful protections that mitigate the risk to ratepayers, who are currently set up to bear the financial risk if the CVOW project proves to be more costly to construct and operate than is projected or if the performance of the project does not meet the level projected by the company,” he said.

If built, CVOW will be the largest wind farm in the United States, producing 2.6 gigawatts of power — more than what is generated by the state’s nuclear units and its largest gas plant combined — from 176 turbines sunk into the Atlantic Ocean 27 miles off Virginia Beach.

The project is both a key component of Dominion’s plans to decarbonize its fleet by midcentury in line with the Virginia Clean Economy Act and, with an estimated price tag of $9.65 billion, the most expensive endeavor the utility has undertaken to date. If approved by regulators, the average residential customer, defined as someone who uses 1,000 kilowatts of power every month, would see their monthly bill initially rise by $1.45. SCC staff have estimated that figure could rise to $14.21 by the time the project enters operation in 2027.

Read the full story at the Virginia Mercury

VIRGINIA: Dominion makes its case to SCC for $9.65 billion from customers to build wind farm

May 18, 2022 — Acknowledging the risk of cost overruns but saying it doesn’t anticipate any, Dominion Energy made its case Tuesday to state regulators for approval of $9.65 billion from its Virginia customers to build the country’s largest offshore wind farm.

Dominion representatives touted the project’s job creation and reduction in carbon emissions. They promised in a hearing before the Virginia State Corporation Commission to promptly notify the commission if costs are expected to exceed current estimates.

The attorney general’s office, the advocacy group Clean Virginia and others told commissioners they’re concerned about the potential for even higher costs on such a large construction project and in an economy with supply chain disruption and inflation.

No party in the case, in which the SCC is considering approval of the 176-turbine project and its costs, asked the commission to reject the request. A 2020 state law essentially directs the commission to approve the project if Dominion meets certain parameters, which the company said it had.

Dominion’s $9.65 billion capital cost estimate was down from a previous $9.8 billion estimate, which itself was up from an earlier estimate of $7.8 billion.

Read the full story at the Richmond Times-Dispatch