Saving Seafood

Rutgers, Offshore Wind Company Investigates Clams Off New Jersey

June 29, 2021 — Atlantic Shores is a partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America. The joint venture plans to develop more than 183,000 acres of land between Atlantic City and Burnegat Light, 10 to 20 miles from the New Jersey coast.

When fully developed, the region could generate over 3,000 megawatts of wind energy, which is sufficient to power about 1.5 million households.

Jennifer Daniels, Development Director at Atlantic Shores, said: “By applying tools like this simulator, we can responsibly develop leased areas and provide renewable energy to the New Jersey community with minimal impact on the fishery.”

New Jersey power regulators may decide to approve the company’s proposal later this month.

Read the full story at Pennsylvania News Today

Feds to begin review of wind farm off Long Beach

June 25, 2021 — A $3 billion proposal to build what would be New York state’s largest offshore wind farm is taking shape, with plans to run an underground cable through Long Beach to a substation near the E.F. Barrett Power Station in Island Park. A precise location for the cable has not yet been determined.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will soon begin an environmental review of the construction and operation of what would be called Empire Wind, off Long Island’s South Shore. The review is expected to take two years, and the project would need state approval as well. Work on Empire Wind would begin no sooner than 2023. Long Beach would not be involved in the approval process, but would help determine the location of the underground cable.

The wind turbines would be about 15 miles offshore.

The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association is strongly opposed to the project, claiming that fish, and fishermen, will be adversely affected.

Equinor, a company based in Norway, has been awarded contracts by New York state, the first in 2019, to supply 816 megawatts of power to the state grid, connecting in Brooklyn. A second contract, for 1,260 megawatts, was awarded in January, for Long Island’s South Shore.

Read the full story at the LI Herald

Sen. Shaheen Backs Plan To Split Offshore Wind Lease Revenue Among Coastal States

June 25, 2021 — A new bill backed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) would share the revenue from offshore wind development with coastal states like New Hampshire.

The bill proposes new uses for revenue generated by the sale of leases that allow developers to build wind farms in federal waters.

The federal government has sold hundreds of millions in offshore wind leases. Right now, the money goes back to the U.S. Treasury.

This plan would send half of it to states that are adjacent to approved wind projects. They could use the money for coastal resilience and climate change adaptation projects, fisheries research and conservation work.

Most of the remaining revenue would go to a similar existing grant program for coastal and Great Lakes communities.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

Impact of Offshore Wind on Commercial Fishing Industry Discussed

June 24, 2021 — Four-decade scallop fisherman and Viking Village fleet owner Jim Gutowski laid out the scope in size of one offshore wind farm turbine as a backdrop to his talk on “The Impact of Offshore Wind Farms on Our Commercial Fishing Industry” at the June 19 meeting of the Barnegat Light Taxpayer’s Association.

“They’re going to be a little over five times the height of the (Barnegat) lighthouse. The tripod that that’s going to sit upon is about a block (in size). So, we’re talking about massive structures. The span of those blades on those turbines, they’re going to be about two football fields from tip to tip.”

Gutowski voiced concern about impact on commercial seafood catch and other sea life of a proposed 200- to 250-turbine array in an area of the ocean stretching from Barnegat Light to Atlantic City. The project is awaiting final approval.

The Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind lease is located on 183,353 acres in what he noted is a “flourishing fishing ground that you’ve had fishermen for the last 20 years break their backs to sustain.” He was referring to research and alterations that the scallop industry has made to successfully preserve a harvest for future years.

The Joint Council of Taxpayers Associations of Long Beach Island compiled a Frequently Asked Questions summary of the wind farm project 10 miles east of Long Beach Island, which is on the website barnegatlighttaxpayer.org under the subheading “Weather and the Environment.” The BLTA has 573 member households, but the website is accessible to the public.

Read the full story at The Sand Paper

VIRGINIA WIND TURBINE PILOT PROGRAM EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS

June 23, 2021 — The two-turbine pilot program of Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind venture has yielded better results than expected.

The pilot is Dominion’s precursor for plans to install 180 wind turbines in a leased block on the Atlantic’s continental shelf roughly 27 miles off Virginia Beach, at a cost currently projected at $8 billion. In doing so, Dominion is following a General Assembly directive to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

Running since October, the two 600-foot tall pilot turbines, each driven by three 253-foot-long blades, are giving Dominion’s engineers a real-world education in the potential for Virginia coastal wind power. The turbines’ efficiency over winter and spring is beating the forecasts, and their downtime for maintenance is less than expected (about two percent).  Automated controllers that turn their mounts to “aim” them and adjust the blade angles to “harvest” the wind have proven more effective than human operators.

Still to be determined, though, is how well they perform in the summer months when winds drop below the 5–8 knots needed to start the blades. Scientific field studies are showing fish using the area and minimal interactions with birds, according to cameras on the towers.

The news may be encouraging, but the project still faces many challenges. The immediate one is the environmental impact statement needed for the full 180-turbine wind farm. Dominion plans to have a draft out for public comment next year and a final version in the fall of 2023.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine

Federal bureau, US Army Corps of Engineers look to support more offshore wind energy

June 23, 2021 — Two federal agencies are partnering to pursue more offshore wind energy along the Atlantic Coast, though much of North Carolina’s coastline doesn’t seem to be involved.

Meanwhile, state officials are pursuing similar plans.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued an announcement June 14 they’ve entered into an agreement to support planning and reviewing renewable energy projects on the outer continental shelf. The partnership is made in an effort to pursue President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14008, which commits to creating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

In an action mirroring President Biden’s executive order, Gov. Roy Cooper issued June 9 his own executive order, E.O. 218. According to a press release from his office, the order highlights “North Carolina’s commitment to offshore wind power.”

“Offshore wind power will help North Carolina create jobs and generate economic development while helping us transition to a clean energy economy,” Gov. Cooper said in the release. “North Carolina’s national leadership in clean energy and manufacturing, plus our highly trained workforce, create a strong business environment for offshore wind supply chain and manufacturing companies.”

BOEM public information officer Stephen Boutwell said in an email June 15 to the News-Times the bureau is “in the planning stages for potentially issuing additional wind leases offshore (of) North and South Carolina.”

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

NEW YORK: Video Simulation Shows What Empire Wind Project, Off Long Island And N.J., Will Look Like From Shore

June 23, 2021 — Offshore wind power is coming to New York for the first time, and it would be the largest wind farm in the nation to date.

As CBS2’s Carolyn Gusoff reports, a video simulation of what’s called the Empire Wind Project, off Long Island and New Jersey, shows what it will look like from shore.

Winds of change off Long Island, where offshore wind turbines will one day bring clean energy. To visualize the nation’s first large scale offshore wind farm, with its 174 turbines, the developer created a simulation from Jones Beach, which has some relieved they’re further offshore than first proposed.

The scallop industry objects to its placement.

“Fishermen can’t fish in a wind farm, and so building a wind farm on fishing grounds takes those fishing grounds out of play for the fishermen,” said David Frulla, an attorney for the scallop industry. “You are looking at people losing their livelihoods.”

“Frankly, the biggest threat to our fishing industry is climate change,” Esposito said.

The Bureau of Energy Management invites comment before impact studies are launched.

The Empire Wind Farm would be some 19 miles off Long Branch, New Jersey.

Read the full story at WLNY

Kathryn Ford To Manage Lifeblood of Ocean Science: Data Collected Directly from Nature

June 22, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Kathryn Ford is now leading the center’s Population and Ecosystems Monitoring and Analysis Division. She is replacing Wendy Gabriel who retired in 2021 after 38 years with NOAA Fisheries.

This division executes a massive data acquisition, management, and analysis effort. It includes scientific ecosystem surveys on vessels operated by NOAA, universities, other national oceanographic laboratories, and fishing vessels. The team also analyzes biological trends in important fishery species. It conducts biological studies to understand how a range of ecosystem factors influence the growth and health of important fishery species.

Ford comes with a great respect for the work she will manage. “I believe in the science that this particular team brings to the table,” said Ford. “This division’s data collection and analysis are central to what the center does. They are the basis for all the other analyses.”

Ford comes to NOAA Fisheries after a career filled with multidisciplinary work in coastal and ocean science at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.  Initially hired there to pilot a remotely operated towed vehicle in a conservation engineering study, she eventually rose to lead the division’s fisheries habitat program.

Trained as an oceanographer, Ford has applied those skills to coastal and ocean planning, artificial reefs and eelgrass restoration, aquaculture, and offshore wind energy development. She served on:

  • The first state joint task force to work with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on wind energy areas off Massachusetts and Rhode Island
  • The Northeast Regional Ocean Council
  • The New England Fishery Management Council’s Habitat Plan Development Team

Read the full release here

CALIFORNIA: Will offshore wind hurt the Morro Bay fishing industry? ‘We’re basically screwed’

June 22, 2021 — Bill Blue has been commercially fishing Dungeness crab and black cod near the shores of Morro Bay for 47 years.

It’s a business that he got into when he was 19 years old.

“That’s all I know. That’s what I do,” he said.

Blue’s business has survived in an industry that has faced growing regulations and shrinking territory during the nearly five decades he’s operated off the Central Coast.

Now, proposals to develop a massive floating offshore wind farm in the Pacific Ocean near Cambria may diminish Blue’s fishing grounds by 399 square miles — an area more than twice the size of Lake Tahoe.

The proposed offshore wind farm got a green light from Biden administration officials with support from California Gov. Gavin Newsom on May 25, after years of negotiations between federal, state and local governments.

Along with Newsom, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl announced the advancement of the proposed offshore wind farm in a call with reporters, touting the economic benefits of the project and clean energy it will generate.

The wind farm would be located northwest of Morro Bay, about 17 to 40 miles offshore.

Read the full story at The Tribune

With Sale, Feds Push Wind Energy

June 18, 2021 — The federal Department of the Interior announced on Friday a proposed sale for offshore wind development on the outer continental shelf in the New York Bight, an area of shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.

The sale would be the first competitive offshore wind lease sale of President Biden’s administration, which previously announced a goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

The proposed lease areas have the potential for seven gigawatts of wind energy, sufficient to power more than 2.6 million residences and support thousands of new jobs, according to a statement from the Interior Department.

The proposed sale notice includes eight lease areas in the New York Bight that could be auctioned for commercial wind energy development. A proposed sale notice published in the Federal Register on Friday opened a 60-day public comment period and provides information about potential areas that could be available for leasing, proposed lease provisions and conditions, and auction details. Comments received will be made available to the public and considered before a decision is made as to whether to publish a final sale notice, which would announce the time and date of a lease sale.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star