WASHINGTON, D.C. — The US Department of the Interior (DOI) had seemed poised to move forward with the environmental impact assessment (EIS) needed for Vineyard Wind to begin building the US’s first offshore wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean as soon as this year.
The New Bedford, Massachusetts-based company, a joint venture between Avangrid, a division of the Spanish wind giant Iberdrola, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, a Denmark-based investment firm with €6.8 billion ($7.6bn) under management, wants to erect more than 80 wind turbines that are 600-to-700-foot-tall – at least twice the height of the Statue of Liberty — in an 118 square mile stretch of the ocean starting some 15 miles from the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. It would contribute to America’s goal of reducing its dependence on fossil fuels by providing at least 400,000 New England homes and businesses with a combined 800 megawatts of power, while reducing carbon emissions by over 1.6 million tons per year.
One problem: Citing concerns expressed by New England’s commercial fishing industry, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) — a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is part of the US Department of Commerce — is not yet willing to give its blessing on the $2.8bn project’s draft environmental impact statement (EIS).
It’s the reason, sources say, DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) notified project officials in early July that the government was “not yet prepared” to issue a final EIS, as expected.
The wind farm and its transmission cables would be right in the middle of a prime area for the commercial fishing of cod, squid, oysters, lobsters and other species as well as a major transit route for scallop and other harvesters, the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) has warned. The group of 160 commercial harvesters and processors, with vessels spread across nine states and operating in about 30 different fisheries, wants DOI to ensure the project has the minimum possible negative effects on those fisheries.
Annie Hawkins, RODA’s executive director, remains upbeat about the federal government’s recent response.
“It is very heartening that both [DOI] and NOAA have listened to the concerns of the fishermen and are seriously considering these issues and trying to come up with a resolution that will minimize the impacts to traditional and historic fishing,” she told Undercurrent News on Thursday.
A map of the future Vineyard Wind farm to be built some 15 miles from the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Why NOAA’s blessing is needed
When it comes to approving Vineyard Wind’s EIS, there is one agency that’s got more say than the others: DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
In case you don’t recall, president Donald Trump, roughly two years ago, used his executive order authority to issue a new policy known as the “One Federal Decision” to accelerate permitting process. It made one federal agency the “lead action agency” and established that separate permits were no longer required from other agencies.
BOEM is the lead action agency for the Vineyard Wind project.
BOEM is still required, under the Trump order, to have Vineyard Wind’s EIS reviewed by other federal agencies with roles in the permitting process for major infrastructure projects, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and NMFS. State and local regulatory bodies such as the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the Cape Cod Commission, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, local conservation commissions also have separate authorities to permit certain components of the project.
Each federal agency is asked to submit a determination that it supports BOEM’s preferred alternative.
However, in a decision led by Michael Pentony, the regional administrator for NMFS’ greater Atlantic office, NMFS has thus far declined. His explanation in an April 16 letter, a copy of which was reportedly secured by Reuters, included many of the same concerns expressed by RODA in a 24-page letter sent in February to BOEM.
In NMFS’ letter, which the agency declined to share with other media, Pentony reportedly said his agency couldn’t support the environmental permit for Vineyard Wind because, among other things, the distance between the turbines was too short at 0.75 nautical miles and it didn’t like the northwest-southeast alignment.
RODA and other fishing groups have suggested a minimum distance of one nautical mile between turbines would be better for at least some commercial fishing vessels (although many could still not operate without wider separation), as would be an east-west orientation. The currently proposed orientation does not align with traditional fishing patterns and would create additional safety and transit risks, RODA’s Hawkins explained to Undercurrent.
Additionally, RODA is concerned about the heat and electromagnetic fields that may transfer to the benthic sediment or the water column from the cable connecting the turbines to the power stations on land.
“Strong tidal currents run through the area where the cable is proposed, which could plausibly result in cable exposure under certain conditions,” RODA warned in its letter.
RODA also wants better baseline surveys done on the squid and other fish populations in the area, something that Hawkins said could take at least three years. Such studies would certainly delay the project, as Vineyard Wind had hoped to put the first turbine into the seabed in 2021 and have all of its turbines operational in 2022.
Raw squid. Credit: ShutterOK/Shutterstock.com
The draft EIS focused most heavily on squid with regard to the noise arising from both the project construction and its potential effects on squid behavior, but it over-relied on assumptions that they will swim away from the disturbance or, if they are sessile or too small, simply die and be replaced by a new population, RODA argued in its letter.
Town Dock, a Rhode Island-based harvester of squid, is one of the 15 companies represented by RODA along with Bumble Bee Foods, the O’Hara Corp., and the Wanchese Fish Company, a division of the Canadian giant Cooke. RODA also represents a wide variety of New England fishing groups, including nine trade associations, and well over 100 fishing vessels.
The group has been working hard to build relations with offshore wind developers and federal agencies, while simultaneously securing funding for regional research, Hawkins said.
Vineyard Wind ‘could happen 10 times over, or even 15 times over’
RODA also focused on Atlantic cod in its letter to BOEM, describing how the species is a “depleted” and “choke stock” in the area known as Georges Bank.
In particular, the group is concerned about a transmission line from the wind farm that would pass through an inshore spawning area for the fish, Hawkins explained to Undercurrent.
“Any further decreases in the Georges Bank cod population that result in lower catch levels will therefore not only jeopardize the recovery of the resource itself, but they will necessarily decrease revenues from all groundfish stocks,” the RODA letter warned.
The consequences of what BOEM does next are much bigger than the Vineyard Wind project, as many other wind farms are being planned that could follow the precedents set, Hawkins told Undercurrent.
The Vineyard Wind project involves only about a half of one of six areas already approved for wind farm leases in New England. There are also 10 other locations on the Atlantic Coast, from as far north as the Gulf of Maine to as far south as the coast of North Caroline, under consideration for future projects.
Whatever happens to Vineyard Wind “could happen 10 times over, or even 15 times over” on the US Atlantic coast, she said.
Whether NMFS ultimately will reach an agreement with BOEM remains to be seen. The agency sent Undercurrent the following statement late last week and declined to comment further:
“For more than a year, NOAA has been working cooperatively with [BOEM] and the project sponsor on the environmental review process for the Vineyard Wind project. As we have been from the start, NOAA is committed to ensuring fishing activities and offshore renewable energy interests can operate in harmony. At this point, the permitting process is proceeding and our agencies are working cooperatively to resolve concerns related to the environmental impact statement.”
Wind farm champions visit DOI
The champions of the Vineyard Wind project were here, in the nation’s capital, last week, lobbying DOI to move forward despite NMFS’ resistance. That included Republican Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker, who told the South Coast Today, a New Bedford-based newspaper, that his July 29 meeting with David Bernhardt, the new Interior secretary, was “really productive and substantive.”
His administration has helped to tout the notion that wind farming will bring Massachusetts some 400 jobs while becoming the main source for 3,200MW (20%) of the electricity consumed in the state by 2035.
Baker said his meeting with Bernhardt was part of an effort to gain “some clarity” in order to “cure whatever the concerns are”.
US Department of the Interior. Photo by Nicole S. Glass, Shutterstock.
Bernhardt, later in the week, also met with executives from Vineyard Wind, sources told Undercurrent, though the agency declined to confirm the meeting and a Vineyard Wind spokesman didn’t return calls.
Another political leader who has previously spoken in favor of the Vineyard Wind project is Democratic New Bedford mayor John Mitchell, though he also has expressed concerns about the welfare of his local commercial fishing industry.
New Bedford is the US’ main landing spot for Atlantic scallops.
“Although Vineyard Wind’s efforts to understand the concerns of the fishing industry have left room for improvement, I believe that the project can move forward in a way that delivers significant job creation in New Bedford, while protecting the interests of our fishermen and shore-side businesses,” he said in a statement sent to Undercurrent.
“Because the project will set precedent for other wind farms, it will be important that Vineyard Wind commit to, among other things, transit lanes of appropriate alignment and width, as well as robust mitigation measures, particularly those that would directly address the cumulative impacts of the wind industry.”
US fishing industry’s wind worries divide Trump camp, slow $2.8bn project