FISHERMEN WANT SAY IN OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY DECISIONS

The situation

Fishermen in New Jersey insisted Monday to a congressional subcommittee looking at offshore wind energy that they be consulted when crucial decisions are being made on the development of such projects, including where they are located and the level of access to the waters near them.

Fishermen should have been brought into the planning process from the start, Peter Hughes, of Atlantic Cape Fisheries, told U.S. House members from New Jersey and California who were holding a hearing at the Jersey Shore.

“Look at these slides,” he said, referring to diagrams of where proposed wind projects would be built.“They’re right smack dab where we are fishing. This is going to put people out of business.”

Why it’s happening

The purpose of the hearing was to gather input from the fishing industry and its advocates to be considered in future regulation of the nascent wind energy market. So far, a single five-turbine wind farm off Block Island, Rhode Island, is the only operating offshore wind farm in the U.S., but states up and down the East Coast are readying plans for similar projects.

Capt. Ed Yates, a fisherman from Barnegat Light, New Jersey, said flounder, cod and other species have moved away from underground cables at a wind project off Denmark.

“How does offshore wind energy affect the fishing industry?” he said. “The answer we get from the wind operators is ‘We won’t fully understand the impacts until the facilities are already built.’”

Listening to fishing industry

Frederick Zalcman, head of government affairs for Orsted, the European wind farm operator planning projects on the U.S. East Coast, said the company has met with fishing interests and will continue to do so.

Orsted recently changed plan specifications in Massachusetts and New York, he said,

“at considerable time and expense to the company” to address concerns from fishermen.