Saving Seafood

Gina Raimondo nomination rekindles fish vs. turbine fight

February 12, 2021 — In 2019, long-simmering differences between Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) and the state’s fishing industry boiled over.

The dispute concerned a plan to limit fishermen’s financial losses associated with a proposed $2 billion offshore wind project. Many boat captains felt the deal undervalued their catch, and they directed their ire at Raimondo, an outspoken offshore wind advocate, accusing her of freezing the fishing industry out of negotiations with Vineyard Wind, the project developer.

At a meeting of the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council that February, many lined up to blast the package. Council members, who are appointed by the governor, expressed sympathy for the concerns but argued that it represented the best offer. They ultimately signed off on the deal.

Fishing companies, incensed by the decision, turned their attention to NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency tasked with assessing the project’s impact on fish stocks. One outspoken critic wrote an email to NOAA staffers the next day calling the deal “an absolute roll over of the fishing industry” (Climatewire, Oct. 25, 2019).

A NOAA official wrote back a week later saying that many at the agency shared the concerns, foreshadowing a decision from the agency two months later not to sign off on a draft environmental study conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the lead federal permitting agency.

Read the full story at E&E News

NEW YORK: Cable Landing Simmers While Federal Wind Farm Review Is Just Heating Up

February 11, 2021 — While the public debate over the South Fork Wind Farm cable landing in Wainscott has shifted to court filings and the village incorporation effort, the public stage of the federal application for the wind farm itself is just getting started — and advocates for local fishermen say that the most important aspects of the project have yet to be settled.

Whether turbine foundations will be hammered into the heart of one of the most fabled fishing regions off Montauk and whether commercial fishermen will be compensated for lost fishing time or damaged fishing gear are both still up in the air as the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and a dozen other federal agencies continue their examination of the project as proposed by Danish wind farm developer Ørsted and it’s American domestic partner, Eversource.

The federal regulators on Tuesday held the first of three public comment sessions on the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, the 800-plus-page main outline of the project and the various considerations for its design. The will be additional comment sessions on February 11 and 16. The meetings are being held via Zoom and registration and the full details of the project are available at www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/south-fork-wind-farm-virtual-meetings.

Read the full story at the Sag Harbor Express

MASSACHUSETTS: Charlie Baker’s embattled climate undersecretary targets fishing industry

February 11, 2021 — The Baker administration’s embattled climate change undersecretary David Ismay is again being called out for his questionable comments — this time against fishermen.

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, that broke the first video on the $130,000-a-year official’s rhetoric, says he also told climate activists that in order to obtain enough wind power, “something has to give” in regard to the fishing industry.

“We need offshore wind, and yes there is fishing out in the ocean too, but you know, there’s, we can’t have no offshore wind, no transmission, no solar, and have clean energy. Right. Something has to give,” Ismay is quoted telling Vermont climate advocates last month. He goes on to discuss transmission lines that will be placed in the ocean.

Massachusetts is home to some of the nation’s most productive commercial fishing ports, the state Division of Marine Fisheries states. The agency adds they are “happy to help commercial fishermen learn about permits, regulations, and the other commercial fishing resources.”

Read the full story at The Boston Herald

Offshore Wind Plans Will Drive Up Electricity Prices And Require ‘Massive Industrialization Of The Oceans’

February 8, 2021 — The regatta for setting the loftiest targets for offshore wind energy development has set sail.

Today, South Korea announced plans for 8.2 gigawatts of offshore wind. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently called for 40 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity to be built in UK waters by 2030. If achieved, it would be one of the biggest British maritime deployments since the Battle of Trafalgar. Meanwhile, the European Union has targeted some than 300 gigawatts of offshore capacity by 2050.

Joe Biden’s climate advisors are calling for the immediate approval of a slew of pending offshore wind projects. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo is calling for 9 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity to be built by 2035. Other East Coast governors are also floating multi-gigawatt offshore plans. In all, according to a report issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management last June “approximately 22 gigawatts of Atlantic offshore wind development are reasonably foreseeable along the East Coast.”

Here’s some advice: Take all of these offshore plans with a large grain of sea salt.

One of the leases will put dozens of wind turbines smack on top of one of the best scallop and squid fisheries on the Eastern Seaboard. Numerous groups, including the Fisheries Survival Fund, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, as well as the Bonackers, a small group of fisherman whose roots on Long Island go back centuries, are adamantly opposed to the wind projects slated for the region. On Friday morning, Bonnie Brady, the executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, and a board member of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, told me that the long-term environmental impact of the proposed projects isn’t well understood. “We know these giant machines change wind patterns and they could change marine migration patterns. Let’s do the science before we destroy the ocean and our ocean food supply.”

Read the full story at Forbes

MASSACHUSETTS: Gov. Baker irked by undersecretary’s climate remarks

February 8, 2021 — David Ismay, the Baker administration’s undersecretary for climate change, got into hot water with the governor on Friday after a video surfaced in which he appeared to say Massachusetts residents are going to be squeezed financially as the state tries to reduce emissions.

In a panel discussion with the Vermont Climate Council on January 25 that is available on YouTube, Ismay said the numbers facing the state are daunting. He said 60 percent of the state’s emissions come from residential heating and passenger vehicles. To meet the state’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050, Ismay said, 3 million homes need to transition to clean energy and 5 million vehicles need to be replaced with zero emission cars.

Ismay said Massachusetts doesn’t have many big sources of emissions left to target, and is left with changing the lifestyles of ordinary people. “There is no bad guy left, at least in Massachusetts, to point the finger at, turn the screws on, and break their will so they stop emitting,” he said. “That’s you. We have to break your will. I can’t even say that publicly.”

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

Vineyard Wind Back on Track Under Biden’s BOEM

February 5, 2021 — Vineyard Wind appears to have regained its place at the front of the offshore wind project permitting line and is back on track to becoming the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the United States.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced Wednesday afternoon that it will resume its review of the 800-megawatt wind farm planned for 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and will “proceed with development of a Final Environmental Impact Statement,” one of the last steps before the project can truly get underway. The decision could help ensure Massachusetts starts getting clean power from the project by the end of 2023.

“We’re very pleased that BOEM has decided to move forward with the permitting process for our Vineyard Wind 1 project,” a Vineyard Wind spokesperson said. “We look forward to working with the agency as we launch an industry that will create thousands of good paying jobs while also taking meaningful steps to reduce the impact of climate change.”

Following a string of permitting delays imposed on the project by the Trump administration, Vineyard Wind on Dec. 1 announced that it was pulling its project out of the federal review pipeline in order to complete an internal study on whether the decision to use a certain type of turbine would warrant changes to construction and operations plan. The Trump administration declared the federal review of the project “terminated.”

Read the full story at WBSM

Biden administration gives boost to offshore wind

February 5, 2021 — The Biden administration’s announcement this week of a plan to resume an environmental review of a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast and accelerate green-energy development was welcomed by developers and proponents of projects for Long Island.

Biden on Jan. 27 signed an executive order calling for the Interior Department to “identify steps to accelerate responsible development of renewable energy on public lands and waters,” a stark change from the Trump administration, which had slowed federal approvals. Trump himself was a vocal opponent of wind energy, saying it killed birds, was unreliable and even caused cancer.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Wednesday released a statement saying it would restart the environmental review and work to develop a final environmental impact statement needed to approve the project’s construction and operations plan. The project, called Vineyard Wind, a company based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, had withdrawn its application for the construction plan for the 800-megawatt project, one of the first expected to come online, to review the prospect of using larger turbines.

Read the full story at Newsday

Biden administration puts Vineyard Wind energy project back on track

February 4, 2021 — The long-delayed Vineyard Wind offshore project has been put back on track by the Biden administration.

In one of her first actions as the new director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Amanda Lefton pledged on Wednesday to conduct a “robust and timely” review of Vineyard Wind and essentially resume the permitting process where it left off in December. That’s when the developers of Vineyard Wind withdrew their proposal for a wind farm that could generate 800 megawatts of electricity, enough power for more than 400,000 homes, to be built about 12 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Soon after Joe Biden became president last month, the developers rescinded their withdrawal and requested that BOEM resume its review.

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, was to be the first major offshore wind farm in the United States. It would be financed through contracts with three major Massachusetts electric utilities. But the project ran into delays under the Trump administration, after commercial fishermen raised concerns that the giant turbines would be hazardous to their work.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Biden administration to restart permitting for major U.S. offshore wind project

February 4, 2021 — The Biden administration said on Wednesday it would restart permitting for the first major U.S. offshore wind farm, reversing a Trump administration decision that canceled the process late last year.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said in a statement it would resume an environmental review of the Vineyard Wind project as part of the administration’s broad plan to speed renewable energy development on federal lands and waters.

“BOEM is committed to conducting a robust and timely review of the proposed project,” Director Amanda Lefton said in the statement.

The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a fishing industry group, said it hoped the resumption of the permitting process would provide new opportunities for the public to weigh in on the project.

Read the full story at Reuters

Biden calls for doubling offshore wind power generation by 2030

February 3, 2021 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden aims to accelerate development of offshore wind energy, with a new goal to double planned renewable energy production at sea by 2030. The announcement came on the heels of a Biden executive order requiring the U.S. Department of Interior to pause new leasing for oil and gas on public lands.

“The Department will immediately begin a review of processes and procedures to date as it reinvests in a rigorous renewable energy program,” according to a Biden statement issued Wednesday, 27 January.

Read the full story at Seafood Source