Most profitable US fishing port voices concerns over offshore wind projects

The New Bedford Port Authority, which oversees the nation’s most profitable commercial fishing hub, is voicing concerns over new offshore wind developments that could impact critical scalloping grounds. Generating over $400 million annually, around 80% of the region’s fishing industry revenue stems from its scallop harvests.

Over the next 16 years, the most impacted fisheries from these renewable energy projects have an estimated catch value of $2 billion at stake, with $1.5 billion of that total coming from scallops. Officials worry that expanding offshore wind could disrupt an industry that many coastal communities rely upon.

In response, the New Bedford Port Authority has sent a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the federal agency overseeing offshore wind leases. The letter expresses the group’s apprehensions over the 13,476,805-acre area off the U.S. East Coast that has been designated for offshore wind projects.

“It unnecessarily includes some of the most critically important scallop fishing areas on the East Coast,” Gordon Carr, New Bedford Port Authority executive director, wrote in a statement. “What is stunning to us is that all that data is and was available to BOEM prior to setting the boundaries.”

While the Port Authority says the group does “recognize and support the need for offshore wind development,” officials argue that BOEM’s decision to include critical scalloping grounds in the proposed lease area disregards the established industries dependent on these waters. They suggest that shifting the boundary 150 miles to the south could have prevented this overlap.

“We have become more and more concerned that development must only be accomplished in a responsible manner by protecting established industries that share our waters,” Carr wrote. “In particular, ‘responsible manner’ must include learning from mistakes made in failing to avoid and address the interaction and conflicts between offshore wind and commercial fishing in connection with previous BOEM actions. People’s livelihoods are based on these actions.”

Some local fishers have also reported changes they believe correlate with increased offshore wind activity, such as more frequent sightings of dead whales, declining scallop catches and empty shells. Meanwhile, the Port Authority says it expects BOEM will ultimately modify the leasing area to exclude these key scalloping grounds.