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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 6
February 2009
Fishermen urged to track RI wind farm plan
KINGSTON, RI – Commercial fishermen are organizing to make sure their interests are considered in a fast-tracked process to site a $1.5 billion, multiphased wind farm project off Rhode Island in both state and federal waters.
The Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island, which is a partnership of seven fishermen’s groups, is coordinating an outreach campaign to inform industry members about the project and the urgent need for everyone to understand the proposal and the process now underway for approving it.
Lanny Dellinger, president of the Rhode Island Lobstermen’s Association (RILA), explained that industry leaders from the Commercial Fisheries Center recently traveled to Washington, DC to let the state’s congressional delegation know it was vital that a way be found for the industry to work with energy developers.
“We stressed that our members need to know that their access to commercially valuable species and their ability to earn a living will be recognized as critical to the success of these projects,” Dellinger said. “We know this is the future and that it should be possible … to coexist.”
Fast track
The problem identified by the center is that the state has ambitions to be the first in the nation to get wind turbines on the seafloor – ahead of the Cape Wind project for Nantucket Sound off Massachusetts. Because Cape Wind plans to build in federal waters, the project proposal has been subjected to extensive review for seven and a half years now.
To avoid federal review requirements, Deepwater Wind Rhode Island LLC is working with the state to site phase one of its project – eight turbines located off Block Island – only in state waters. Phase two involves an additional 100 turbines in federal waters.
Rhode Island has launched an Ocean Special Area Management Plan process referred to as “SAMP” to create “ocean usage zones.” These zones are intended to stretch from state waters out into federal waters.
Although the list is not finalized, the plan is likely to create zones for: aquaculture; marine protected areas; liquid natural gas offloading terminals; wind farms; and other offshore energy projects, including wave and tidal.
Streamlined process
According to the center, the first objective of the Ocean SAMP listed in the Coast Resources Management Council (CRMC)/University of Rhode Island (URI) proposal for creating the SAMP is to “streamline cumbersome federal and state permitting processes and establish a more cost-effective permitting environment for investors.”
A streamlined process means the industry needs to find a brand new way to make sure fishermen’s concerns are taken into consideration as the SAMP is developed.
“The ocean zoning process underway in Rhode Island is unique in that it involves a state coastal program agency (CRMC) extending its jurisdiction into federal waters to create usage zones that will go beyond siting a proposed wind farm,” the center said in a Jan. 7 press release. “The exclusivity implied in carving up an ocean area into zones is of concern to the Rhode Island fishing community.”
According to the CRMC web site, a draft “floating zone tool” will be ready to present to the full council for adoption by February. And the Ocean SAMP will be completed and presented to the CRMC for adoption by February 2010. More information is available on the CRMC web site at <www.crmc.ri.gov/samp/ocean.html>.
Center concern
The Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island was founded in 2004 to “preserve commercial fishing as a profession, culture, and way of life through promoting the sustainability of the resource.” It is housed at URI’s East Farm Campus in Kingston.
In addition to RILA, the other center member organizations are: Ocean State Fishermen’s Association; Rhode Island Commercial Fishermen’s Association; Rhode Island Shellfishermen’s Association; Rhode Island Monkfishermen’s Association; Point Judith Fishermen’s Memorial Foundation; and Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association.
One of the center’s foremost concerns about the Ocean SAMP is the lack of scientific information available on which to base zoning decisions.
Specifically, the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation has identified the need to fully understand:
l The potential impacts of wind farm construction and operation on breeding, feeding, and nursery areas;
l The influence of wind farm construction and operation on natural patterns of fish and crustacean behavior;
l How disturbances to the marine environment left behind from construction activities will be repaired; and
l How fishing vessel transit patterns and fishing activities will be curtailed during and after construction.
For more information on the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island’s efforts, e-mail Kate O’Malley, the center’s communication coordinator, at <cfcenterri@gmail.com> or visit the center’s web site at <www.cfcri.com>.
Cape Wind, FERN
In other wind farm developments, the long-awaited final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for the Cape Wind project was release on Jan. 16 by the Minerals Management Service, the lead federal agency in charge of offshore energy projects.
Generally favorable, the FEIS found that Horseshoe Shoal, the proposed site of the project, is “environmentally and economically superior” to alternative site locations and that the project will: reduce regional air pollution emissions and greenhouse gases; not increase energy prices in New England; and will create hundreds of jobs.
“Massachusetts is one major step closer to becoming home to America’s first offshore wind farm and becoming a global leader in the production of offshore renewable energy,” said Jim Gordon, Cape Wind’s primary developer.
Fishermen’s Energy of New Jersey (FERN) also got encouraging news. FERN is a consortium of fishing companies spearheaded by Dan Cohen, president of Atlantic Capes Fisheries in Cape May, to give fishermen a way to participate in and benefit from coastal wind development rather than be hurt by it.
In December, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced it would award rebates of up to $4 million each to three companies, including FERN, to build meteorological towers as a first step toward full construction of their wind farm proposals.
Cohen has been meeting with fishermen all along the East Coast to explain the ideas behind FERN and to assist them in dealing with the challenges of coast energy development.
For more information on FERN, call company spokesman Rhonda Jackson at 609-286-9650, e-mail her at <rhonda.jackson@fishermensenergy.com>, or visit the FERN web site at <www.fishermensenergy.com>. /cfn/
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