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Ocean City’s elected officials may have an ally in their opposition to offshore wind farms, as commercial seafood industry representatives told the City Council Monday they are concerned about the towers’ impact on fishing.

The session was arranged by commercial fisherman George Topping, who researched the effects of marine-based installations. He was joined by Sonny Gwin and Wes Townsend of the Mid-Atlantic Fish Council for Maryland, and Meghan Lapp, of the Rhode Island seafood company, Seafreeze.

Lapp told the council that 3.6 million acres of ocean between Maine and North Carolina have been slated for offshore wind development. The irony, she said, is that the federal government in 1976 established a 200-mile economic zone off the country’s coast to prevent foreign fleets from depleting fish stocks in U.S. waters.

“Now we have these same fishing grounds being sold right out from under us to the Norwegian [or] Danish government, [as well as] French, Italian, [or] Spanish investors,” she said.

Additionally, Lapp said navigation could be more difficult and, possibly, dangerous near turbines.

Rotating turbine blades could cause malfunctions with marine navigation, communications, airborne radar, sonar and subsurface acoustical monitoring systems, Lapp said.

“False radar signals make navigating through lots of turbines difficult … especially at night or in bad weather,” she said.

“It’s going to be impractical and not safe because many wind farms [are being proposed] close to major shipping lanes,” she said. “When you have [oil] tankers … they don’t stop or turn easily.”

Wind farm areas will also limit critical fishery surveys conducted by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Lapp said.

“That should seriously concern anybody who has any connection to commercial or recreational fisheries,” she said. “If we don’t have a quota, if we don’t have management, we can’t really go fishing. Commercial fisheries cannot relocate, so we don’t have a lot of legal options,” she said. “If they put wind farms on open areas we can’t necessarily legally move, so that means we’re done.”

Lapp also said the Coast Guard has warned that wind turbines can result in a loss of HF radars that are used for search and rescue missions at sea.

Topper said proposed wind farms could also affect horseshoe crabs, whose blue blood is highly valued for medical applications.

In 2001 the National Marine Fisheries Service established a Horseshoe Crab sanctuary in federal waters off the mouth of the Delaware Bay

“We supply the blood for every hospital in this country, Europe and Asia, and also the military,” he said. “If they put the wind farm in the sanctuary area, we don’t have any idea what it’s going to do to the horseshoe crabs.”

Lapp also questioned the introduction of artificial reefs to foster marine life, noting recent studies concluded that sandy, or smooth bottom habitats, provide more biologically productive sediment sites.

“You will reduce overall biological composition of an area and your species composition will also probably decrease,” she said. “Putting in artificial reefs, according to science, is not a good thing in our region.”

Councilman John Gehrig, while offering to support the group’s efforts, asked if they were working to educate the recreational fishing industry about the concerns discussed.

“They’re being persuaded this wind farm is going to be good for them,” he said. “The wind companies are trying to fracture everything and they’re dishing out dollar bills.”

Topper said the effort to inform both commercial and recreational fishermen continues.

“Let’s put a halt to this for the next five years,” he said. “Let’s study … what the effects are going to be on whales, turtles and fish.”

Gwin said more research is needed before embracing offshore wind farms for clean energy production.

“It’s up to our representatives and the people to find the truth behind these things, so they don’t put them out there and destroy the environment for something they say is going to help the environment,” he said.

In hopes of encouraging more detailed analysis about the impact of offshore wind turbines Lapp said the commercial fishing industry has formed the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance

“We want to develop public / private partnerships [and] … start working on interagency coordination,” she said. “We have the oldest industry in the U.S. potentially going to be obliterated and everything is continuing along as planned.”

Mayor Rick Meehan said the wind farm permitting process is far from over, with numerous approvals yet to be met.

“I think each and every time we need to be present [and] maybe a few more people will open their eyes to the big picture here,” he said. “It’s a bigger issue than everybody has really imagined it to be.”

https://www.oceancitytoday.com/news/seafood-industry-no-wind/article_c6086672-8b83-11e8-990c-effdc678bfa8.html

A flurry of planned and proposed offshore wind projects in the Northeastern United States is causing anxiety among fishermen, who are worried that the turbines will disrupt marine life, make fishing more difficult, and harm their livelihoods.

The United States’ nascent offshore wind industry is predicted to grow rapidly in the coming years as states create and follow through on requirements to source a greater portion of their energy from clean sources, such as offshore wind.

The first offshore wind project in the U.S. – just five turbines generating 30 megawatts of electricity – came online in December 2016 near Block Island, Rhode Island. In the years to come, many more turbines are expected to crop up on the horizon.

Some fishermen worry the turbines will be too close together, making navigating difficult and possibly dangerous. Others are concerned the turbines will affect ocean currents, and the larvae that are swept up in them. And still others fret about the possibility that undersea electricity transmission will cause behavioral changes in bottom-dwelling creatures.

Earlier this month, a new lobbying group called the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance formed to represent the East Coast fishing industry in discussions over permitting of offshore wind development.

“The current, splintered approaches to engaging fishing communities in the offshore wind leasing process are ineffective and inefficient, and the result is that critical fishing industry expertise is not being considered,” Anne Hawkins, who is the group’s legal and scientific counsel, said in a statement. “Fisheries need a unified effort to ensure they get the best possible offshore outcomes.”

In May, Massachusetts selected the offshore wind developer Vineyard Wind to deliver 800 megawatts of offshore power, or enough to power more than 375,000 homes every year. Vineyard estimates that the project will lower the state’s carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million tons per year, or roughly the equivalent of removing 325,000 cars from the road.

Construction could start on the project 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard as soon as 2019, and it could be operational by 2021. The project will be built in two 400-megawatt phases.

Since 2016, Vineyard Wind has met with more than 100 fishing groups and individual fishermen, Erich Stephens, the company’s chief development officer, told SeafoodSource. The company has incorporated input from fishermen, for example by laying out the turbines in a grid to provide transit paths out from New Bedford to the Great South Channel, Georges Bank, and other areas.

Different fisheries in the region will face different potential impacts from the project, Jim Kendall, a seafood consultant, fisheries representative to Vineyard Wind and former scalloper, told SeafoodSource.

The full-time scallop fleet doesn’t generally fish in the Vineyard Wind’s project area, while lobstermen generally stay further west, north or further east, in areas with more bottom structure. But squid fishermen have fished the area for years, and are the most concerned, he said.

“They have voiced their fears and concerns about how the wind areas will impact their ability to fish within the array of towers, and they are also concerned about the possible physical impacts that might be caused by the towers and the cables needed to carry the electricity to shore,” Kendall said.

Other companies are also eyeing offshore wind projects.

In May, Rhode Island selected Deepwater Wind, which developed the Block Island project, to provide another 400 megawatts of offshore wind. And in April, the company announced a proposal for a 200-megawatt project between Montauk, New York, and Martha’s Vineyard.

Bay State Wind, a partnership between Ørsted, the Danish developer of 27 percent of the world’s offshore wind capacity, and Eversource, the largest electric transmission company in New England, has ambitious plans for the region. Bay State is aiming to develop 7,000 megawatts of offshore wind in New England and New York in the next 10 years.

Currently, the company is preparing to seek state and federal approval for projects, including by gathering information on the ocean floor, marine environment, and wind speeds. The company is also reaching out to fishermen, and has formed a Bay State Wind Fishermen’s Advisory Panel.

“Offshore wind is a brand new industry for the U.S. and fishermen are understandably wary — and for good reasons,” John Williamson, the fishery liaison officer for Bay State Wind, told SeafoodSource. “However, we are committed to partnering with fishing communities in pursuing strategies which minimize impacts and allow the two industries to coexist and thrive.”

To make offshore wind projects work for everyone, “communication is key,” added Williamson, who has had more than 1,000 individual conversations with fishermen and fishery leaders in the last two years.

“Where Ørsted has been most successful in building offshore wind facilities which are fully accessible to fishermen, and where problems are minimal, have been in communities where fishermen are organized,” he said. “We want to address issues before they become problems.”

https://www.seafoodsource.com/features/offshore-wind-projects-worry-northeast-fishermen