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NEW BEDFORD — The city’s Port Authority published a letter to offshore wind regulators Wednesday, raising “grave concerns” over a 13.4 million acre tract of ocean recently opened to wind farm developers in the Central Atlantic that could put up to $2 billion in commercial fishing revenue at risk.
“BOEM has painted with too broad a brush,” New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell wrote in the letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). “We believe that the new Mid-Atlantic call areas must be cut back from existing scallop and other fishery access areas, which still would leave ample room for nearby states to achieve their offshore wind capacity goals.”
In August, BOEM began soliciting proposals for offshore wind developers to lease 13.4 million acres of ocean off New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. It is the second of such sales in the Central Atlantic and the fifth offshore wind lease sale held during the Biden-Harris administration. The first lease sale in the Central Atlantic was completed also in August, yielding nearly $93 million from developers Equinor Wind US and Virginia Electric and Power Company.
The new area outlined for offshore wind development overlaps with “vital” scallop fishing areas, the Port Authority wrote. That includes iconic fishing grounds like Elephant Trunk, Hudson Canyon and Delmarva, all of which fall within the boundaries of the proposed lease area. In the last 16 years, commercial fishermen have harvested just under $2 billion worth of seafood from the region — about $1.5 billion of which was sea scallops, New Bedford’s top commercial fishery — according to data from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
“It would take only a cursory look at the available fisheries data … for anyone to see that the Northern and Northeast portions of the proposed call area contain significant commercial fishing conflicts,” the Port Authority wrote.
The Biden administration has outlined a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. While the Port Authority supports offshore wind development, the letter emphasized the importance of balancing the industry’s growth with the protection of established industries like commercial fishing.
“Our grave concern about this CA2 call area is that it unnecessarily includes some of the most critically important scallop fishing areas on the East Coast,” wrote Gordon Carr, NBPA executive director. “What is stunning to us is that all that data is and was available to BOEM prior to setting the boundaries of the proposed call area.”
Carr noted that the call area “could have been set approximately 150 miles to the south, avoiding these critical scallop grounds, while still leaving more than 400 miles and millions of acres of call area down to the South Carolina state line.”
In its letter, the Port Authority outlined a “cynical interpretation” that BOEM included the fishing grounds in the initial lease area only to remove the fishing grounds later in the next iteration of the plan so that BOEM would “appear diligent in their stakeholder responsibilities” by making a feigned effort to avoid conflict with the fishing industry.
BOEM noted in its proposal the 13.4 million acre call area is broad to allow for flexibility to minimize conflicts with other uses, like commercial fishing, military activity and vessel traffic.
“Such an approach would have the added benefit of making the remaining fisheries conflicts seem smaller in comparison and therefore more palatable,” the Port Authority wrote. It added the approach “invites rancor and frustration from the commercial fishing industry … It also risks diluting the credibility of BOEM as an agency that claims to have heard the concerns expressed in the past.”
The letter continued: “It is long past time for BOEM to take seriously its responsibility towards the other users of the [Outer Continental Shelf], some of which, like commercial fishing, have been using the same areas for hundreds of years … People’s livelihoods are based on these actions.”
Email fishing industry reporter Will Sennott at wsennott@newbedfordlight.org.
We’re screwed on the climate either way. I’d at least like to be able to enjoy some scallops on the way out.
Somebody missing something? I’m not a scalloper but I know that scallops migrate. These Wind Farms add protection for an area for scallops to incubate and migrate from. This ‘grave concern’ is nothing more than greed and a potential shakedown for money handouts. If they were smarter they could have petitioned the government long ago to license areas just for fishing, but they didn’t!
The UN just announced that the earth is going to warm 3 degrees centigrade if nothing changes, which will be absolutely catastrophic. Excuse me if I don’t feel bad for an industry as environmentally harmful as fishing.
WIND FARMS= Not sound from an engineering standpoint, consume energy to operate, prep and installation of them kills whales and marine mammals by definition of the HUGE increase in mortality of these creatures AND it is written in the “permitted take” of them by government entities, WILL NOT effect “global warming” in any measurable way, will increase power bills, Are not green as wind power production is NOT reliable and or consistant so quick turn up start up replacement power is required to cover peak power on the grid, bottom disruption by towers and cables is destructive, Blade failures are already a problem even before extreme winter weather, No quick response capability exists in case of blade failures, oil spills from them (each holds thousands of gallons of oil), etc
the government netted 93mil for the lease, if u calculate a 5xs multiplier of economic activity and benefit,taxes excetra to the 1.9BILLION of product landed by the fishing industry it seems like a no brainer as to which benefits society more.ofshore wind farms and commercial fishing are not compatible!!! i 1st time I’ve commented
Correct me if I’m in error. The $1.9 billion, after expenses, goes to the fishing industry, only. The $93 million goes to running everyone’s government, along with electrical power that is environmentally safer than oil, diesel, natural gas or coal! No brainer, Wind for the Win! Welcome to the Comments!