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Gulf of Maine

    IN THE DEEP

    $2M Grant to Fishermen’s Alliance Means More Boats Gathering Ocean Data

    Center for Coastal Studies will install sensors to expand a measurement network

    By

    CHATHAM — Strange things have been happening in recent years in the Gulf of Maine, the 36,000 square miles of relatively enclosed ocean stretching from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. Low-oxygen zones have become annual occurrences, a large brown algae bloom in summer 2023 grew from Maine to northern Massachusetts, and looming over it all is the accelerating warming of surface waters. The Gulf of Maine is warming three times faster than the global average, according to the Maine Climate Council, which is faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans.

    Truro lobsterman Mike Rego is already gathering scientific data about the ocean depths from his F/V Miss Lilly. It’s science that is expanding through a $2 million grant to the Cape Cod Fishermen’s Alliance. (Photo by Nancy Bloom)

    Understanding these phenomena and their effects on fisheries is difficult, said Owen Nichols, Director of Marine Fisheries Research at the Center for Coastal Studies, because of the lack of data available on the ocean water below the surface — at the depths where most fish live.

    There is one group of people, however, who regularly put equipment deep in the ocean: fishermen. And many of them are already working with scientists to gather data on the water.

    But on Oct. 31, Gov. Healey’s administration announced a nearly $2 million grant to the Chatham-based Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance that will significantly expand fishing vessel-based measurements. The grant is from the quasi-public Mass. Technology Collaborative.

    Since 2001, a Northeast Fisheries Science Center project has partnered with local fishermen to try to fix the lack of data about the depths. The project, called eMOLT (Environmental Monitoring on Lobster Traps and Large Trawlers), has so far installed sensors on about 100 fishermen’s gear to gather data on stratification of water temperature, dissolved oxygen levels, and other parameters.

    The sensors then either relay the information back to the fishermen and scientists in real time or store it on the sensor to be collected at the end of the season.

    The Alliance plans to put 450 sensors on 150 boats and their gear over the next two years. Fifty of those will be boats working on the Lower and Outer Cape and will have their installations done by the Center for Coastal Studies, said Nichols. Currently, there are around 12 vessels on the Outer Cape equipped with sensors, only about half of which are fishing at any one time, he said.

    This project, Nichols said, will help scientists develop their understanding of Cape Cod Bay and how it’s changing. “So much of what we know about warming temperatures in the Northeast comes from surface observations,” he said. “Having more bottom temperature observations will really help us better understand these processes.”

    Surface temperatures can be gathered with satellites, he said, but deeper data require either trips on an oceanographic vessel or maintaining a bottom mooring, both of which are very expensive.

    Participating fishermen get a $500 stipend to participate and will have access to all the data in real time onboard their boats. It’s information that can be useful to fishermen in choosing where to fish, especially for lobsters and clams, according to Melissa Sanderson, the Alliance’s chief operating officer.

    When the boats are all equipped, the project will constitute the largest cooperative network of environmental sensors on fishing boats anywhere in the U.S., according to the Mass. Technology Collaborative’s announcement.

    The data loggers, which were designed by East Falmouth-based Lowell Instruments, will be installed on fishing gear like trawls and lobster traps and will record temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen content down the entire water column.

    That the data will be available in real time will also allow the system to work as an early-warning system, Nichols said. “If we’re seeing some oceanographic phenomenon, it lets us respond to it very quickly to get more observations,” he said.

    Nichols added that installations are already underway. “We’re going to be putting them out as fast as Lowell can make them,” he said.

    He said that fishermen have been enthusiastic about getting involved in the project. “Fishermen are oceanographers in their own right, and they pay a lot of attention to wind and temperature and things like that,” Nichols said. The project, he said, “really creates an opportunity for us to learn and study the ocean together.”

    Truro-based lobsterman Mike Rego of the F/V Miss Lilly, who first got involved with the project four years ago when it was much smaller, has five sensors on his gear. “I’m always moving gear every day trying to find the lobsters,” he said. “I cover a lot of area in the course of the summer.”

    Rego said he first got involved because of the stipend and the chance to do some science but has stuck with it because of the need to examine the local effects of climate change. “I think it’s something that needs to be addressed, and the best way to do it, I believe, is the guys that make their living on the water,” he said.

    Rego said that he can use the sensors to identify areas with the right bottom temperature for lobsters and avoid low-oxygen areas. But with only five sensors, it is not an all-encompassing system. “It’s not like those sensors are giving me a gangbuster year,” he said.

    Jeff Souza, a Truro-based fisherman on the F/V Crash, is also participating. He took over a set of sensors from his father, William, though those sensors do not show him the data in real time — he still measures bottom temperatures for his own work by taking the temperature of freshly caught lobsters with an infrared laser thermometer. Nichols installed a real-time sensor on his scalloping boat last week.

    Souza sees the program as a way that fishermen can help guide management decisions. “If someone says, ‘Well, this is what’s happening on the bottom,’ ” he said, “we can all guess what we think is going on, but without data, there’s no way to prove it.”

    Sanderson agrees. She thinks that by correlating temperature observations with catches, the project can help guide management decisions, for example, as warmer water species arrive.

    “If black sea bass and golden tilefish are the future of Cape Cod,” Sanderson said, “we need to figure out how and when that’s happening and then work with the managers to figure out how we’re going to make sure that Cape Cod fishermen are allowed to catch those species.”

    ENVIRONMENT

    Against the Wind: Questions About BOEM’s Fisheries Analysis

    Maine-based anti-wind advocate Jerry Leeman leads a forum at the Truro library

    By

    TRURO — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced the final sale notice for the Gulf of Maine offshore wind project lease areas on Sept. 16. The agency shrunk the overall area by 120,000 acres, removing significant portions of the two northern leases off the coast of Maine, carving a transit lane between the two farthest-offshore southern areas, and shaving small portions off other southern areas.

    In an email to the Independent, BOEM spokeswoman Alison Ferris said her agency made the changes to avoid North Atlantic right whale areas, establish a barrier around Jeffrey’s Bank Habitat Management Area off Maine, and respond to feedback from at least three different fisheries working groups.

    This decision did little to satisfy Jerry Leeman, a Harpswell, Maine-based former commercial fisherman and founder of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), an organization that opposes the Gulf of Maine offshore wind area.

    NEFSA “remains steadfast in its opposition,” wrote Leeman in a press release, “despite the shrinking of the original areas.”

    Four days earlier, on Sept. 12, Leeman gave a talk he called a “wind energy informational” at the Truro Public Library. Leeman drew on his own experience and described what he sees as BOEM’s lack of good baseline data for the offshore wind project.

    “From a sea captain’s perspective, if you don’t know where you are, then surely you don’t know where you’re going,” Leeman told his audience.

    BOEM’s work so far concerns only the impact of identifying possible areas for leasing. The final environmental assessment (EA) for each lease, which it will use to evaluate potential environmental impacts and suggest mitigation measures, will not be completed until leases are auctioned. A lease will not permit construction but will allow only the right to submit project plans.

    BOEM solicited comments from the public on the draft EA in June and July and input from the Outer Cape community specifically in a forum held on July 17 in Eastham.

    Elena Rice, who has operated Reel Deal Fishing Charters in Truro with her husband, Bobby, for 25 years, spoke at the Eastham forum, but she says BOEM didn’t hear her. “We went to that meeting,” Rice said. “We said our piece. It had no effect on the final EA.”

    Truro Select Board clerk Nancy Medoff, who was at the BOEM forum, contacted Rice afterwards, because, Medoff said, she thought it was important to support fishermen who are concerned about the potential risks of wind energy projects.

    Medoff wouldn’t say what she thinks about the proposed offshore wind project or about Leeman’s advocacy against it. She said she had heard Leeman speak at BOEM’s forum and was “interested in what he was saying.”

    “I think BOEM needs to either address the questions that have been asked in a very clear, succinct, and easy to find manner or hold more forums on the Outer Cape,” said Medoff.

    Truro marketing coordinator Katie Riconda also reached out to Rice after BOEM’s Eastham forum. Riconda told the Independent that Rice offered to help organize a local event, and it was Rice who invited Leeman to be the speaker for the session.

    Riconda added that the event was not organized by the town of Truro or the Truro Select Board, and that neither has an official policy position on wind energy development.

    Rice said that she is particularly concerned about the populations of striped bass and bluefin tuna that sustain her small business and her family. She included this in her comment to BOEM, which did not consider recreational bluefin tuna data in the draft EA.

    Rice criticized BOEM at its forum for using data on highly migratory species like bluefin tuna without using latitude and longitude, and BOEM renewable energy program specialist Zachary Jylkka conceded this was “a known issue.”

    “This is the sentiment in the fishing community: a complete distrust of the system and the fact that our voices are completely ignored,” Rice said.

    “There’s a huge rift between the scientific community and the fishermen,” said another audience member. “They won’t listen to what we try to tell them.”

    At his talk at the library, Leeman said many outstanding questions remain on the potential impact of the project on the fisheries.

    For example, Leeman pointed out that vessel trip report data, which BOEM uses to determine the value of fishing areas, includes only an average depth for the trip and which broad “chart area” fishing was performed in, so the specifics of where fish are caught is not captured in mapping efforts.

    In BOEM and NOAA’s siting analysis report, commercial fishing data are only part of the information used to determine suitability. The agency also uses large boat vessel monitoring system data, Northeast Fisheries Science Center trawl data, seafloor mapping of vulnerable habitat, data on right whales, and recommendations from the wind industry for deciding where to locate turbines.

    Some of Leeman’s criticisms of wind projects took up issues scientists have also raised. For example, he described substations that heat seawater to keep themselves cool and trenchers to bury undersea cables as possible problems. “We know we’re changing the ocean, but to what extent, we have no idea,” he said. Many scientists agree there are still unknowns to be studied, especially when it comes to floating turbines.

    Operational turbines, Leeman said during his talk, can interfere with ship radar, which could make navigating in inclement weather particularly dangerous. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine stressed similar findings in a 2022 report.

    Some of Leeman’s points, however, contained inaccuracies.

    He argued that electromagnetic fields from undersea cables would cause mutations in lobsters, but as reported previously by the Independent, this claim is based on a study using electromagnetic fields that were 10 to 100 times stronger than the kind found around turbine cables.

    Leeman’s remarks on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution experiment involving releasing sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine are not supported by the institution’s preliminary results. While those show the experiment would not harm plankton populations, Leeman claimed it would kill so much wildlife as to render an environmental assessment invalid.

    The U.S. Dept. of the Interior set an Oct. 29, 2024 auction date for the eight offshore wind energy leases in the Gulf of Maine.

    Editor’s note: Because of a reporting error, an earlier version of this article, published in print on Sept. 19, incorrectly identified Brendan Adams as a fisherman who commented on the wind power controversy. Adams was not present at the Truro forum.

    WIND ENERGY

    BOEM Hears Mostly Opposition at a Meeting in Eastham

    Local worries focus on possible effects of offshore turbines and cables on fishing

    By

    EASTHAM — Local officials on the Outer Cape have for a month been calling for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to hold a public information session here about one of eight proposed wind energy areas in the Gulf of Maine — the one sited about 20 miles off Cape Cod’s back shore — before its size and shape are approved.

    Approximately 200 people came to the Four Points by Sheraton for a meeting with BOEM on the Gulf of Maine wind energy area proposed off the outer shores of Cape Cod. (Photo by William von Herff)

    BOEM, the agency of the Dept. of Interior that is charged with managing the development of offshore wind, finally did that on June 17, and some 200 people turned out at the Four Points by Sheraton for it.

    BOEM announced the meeting only six days before it was held. The agency’s renewable energy program specialist Zachary Jylkka said that it was spurred by requests from local officials here and that, despite the planned public comment period being over, BOEM would take comments from the meeting into account.

    The Independent spoke to eight people on their way into a packed conference room. Four said they had come to the session because they supported wind development, two said they were against it, and two said they had come to learn more. During the meeting, however, that straw poll did not appear to hold up. Of the 32 people who spoke, 25 opposed the wind energy area proposal or criticized BOEM’s management of it so far, and rounds of applause followed their criticisms. One person speaking in favor of the plan was booed.

    Statements about possible negative effects of the development on commercial fishing dominated the meeting. Many of those who spoke identified themselves as fishermen or the wives of fishermen and said that they feared their livelihoods would be lost because of the construction of wind turbines.

    Jylkka said that in designing the lease areas BOEM had tried to exclude the most productive fishing areas, since fishermen would be “effectively excluded” from those areas once construction begins. But several fishermen said that the vessel transit route data that BOEM used do not portray precisely enough where they fish.

    The data that BOEM used are based on averages of fishermen’s routes, said Jerry Leeman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association. “It was never designed for that kind of analysis,” he said. His association opposes offshore wind development.

    Jylkka said that the lack of precise data is “a known issue” for BOEM. He said the agency wants to hear from fishermen who have worked in the proposed lease areas to help refine their plans.

    A few people pointed to research suggesting that the electromagnetic fields emitted by undersea transmission cables would affect the lobster fishery. Truro lobsterman Dana Pazolt said he believes the cables would serve as a barrier to lobster migration. “You run the wires across the seabed, our industry is dead,” he said.

    No study has yet been done on how lobster migration might be affected by undersea cables. A study led by Petra Harsanyi from the St. Abbs Marine Station in Scotland, however, found that lobsters and crabs are worse at swimming and three times more likely to develop visible birth defects when they are exposed to electromagnetic fields during development.

    Another claim was that offshore substations, which are used to facilitate long-distance electricity transmission, might use seawater to cool their machinery and in doing so warm the water and kill the plankton in it.

    The Independent was unable to locate any studies on the large-scale effects of offshore substations on marine ecosystems. Luke Feinberg, an energy program specialist at BOEM, said that the bureau has received “a lot of good questions” about substations but that the agency will not be able to assess their impact until there are specific plans from energy companies.

    Fishermen’s safety while navigating through the wind field was raised as another concern. Eastham groundfisherman Michael Russo described how difficult it can be to navigate in heavy weather with low visibility.

    Feinberg agreed, saying that, despite the five-nautical-mile-wide traffic corridors that BOEM established between the leases, “in heavy weather, these lines don’t really mean a lot.”

    Fishermen and nonfishermen alike said they opposed possible plans to lay transmission cables in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Kathleen Bacon of Wellfleet said, “I want you to stand with me and demand that they stay away from Stellwagen Bank,” which got a loud round of applause. Then Wellfleet Select Board chair John Wolf and Chatham Select Board member Jeffrey Dykens both said they doubted that the project would be possible without laying cable there.

    BOEM does not have authority over leasing there, Jylkka said. That responsibility falls on the sanctuary itself, which is undertaking its own evaluation.

    Some claims made at the meeting were unfounded. Leeman said that offshore wind turbines would drive whale strandings, a myth that is not supported by evidence. And when Eastham fisherman Brendan Adams alleged that Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary was being paid off by wind companies to let a cable run through it, Richard Delaney, who is a member of the sanctuary advisory council as well as director of the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, refuted his claim: “We are not bought off, we have not been paid, the decision has not been made,” he said.

    Delaney was one of the six people present who spoke in support of offshore wind. Three of them cited the need to fight climate change but called for further environmental review before the lease areas go out to bid.

    Another contingent was trade union members. John Dunderdale, representing the United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America, said Vineyard Wind had created jobs and that this project could drive a similar economic boom here.

    The recent turbine breakage at Vineyard Wind, which left Nantucket beaches strewn with foam and fiberglass and forced beach closures, loomed large in the evening’s conversation.

    “Every time it blows easterly over 60 miles an hour, we’re going to have these things busting apart and blowing up off our national seashore?” asked Adams. Elena Rice, co-owner of Reel Deal Fishing Charters in Truro, said boating amid such debris would be dangerous.

    Vineyard Wind reported on Saturday that debris from the turbine was spotted east of Chatham, and Truro Town Manager Darrin Tangeman said he was informed by Vineyard Wind that debris might wash onto Truro beaches in the coming days, though so far no Outer Cape towns have reported turbine debris here.

    As the meeting drew to a close, several speakers said they did not believe BOEM was taking their complaints seriously: “You’re not really looking for participation, you’re just checking off the boxes,” said Sandy Jones from Barnstable.

    “I hope we’re not wasting time here tonight,” said Falmouth Select Board member Doug Brown.

    “There’s checking boxes, and there’s really doing something,” said Provincetown Select Board member Leslie Sandberg. “You’re listening to us, but are you hearing us?”

    ENVIRONMENT

    U.S. Proposes 8 Wind Energy Areas in Gulf of Maine

    Local fishermen’s alliance will question effects of offshore turbines

    By

    The U.S. Dept. of the Interior announced last week the proposed auction of eight offshore wind lease areas in the Gulf of Maine. The areas selected by the department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for potential leases for the development of wind farms encompass nearly a million acres and include one area approximately 23 miles off the back shore of Outer Cape Cod.

    The locations of eight new areas proposed for leasing to energy companies for developing wind farms in the first offshore wind energy auction in the Gulf of Maine. (Map courtesy BOEM)

    The eight areas in the gulf could generate up to 15 GW of electricity, enough to power 5 million homes, according to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland’s April 30 announcement.

    “It’s a big milestone for clean energy,” Nick Krakoff, senior attorney with the Boston-based nonprofit Conservation Law Foundation told the Independent. “Every pathway says we need offshore wind,” he said.

    Offshore wind is key to Massachusetts meeting its decarbonization goals, particularly the state’s Clean Energy and Climate plan, which commits to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Mass. Clean Energy Center, a state agency established to boost the clean energy sector, anticipates that nearly 60 percent of all electricity in the state will be generated by wind by that year.

    Cape Cod fishermen are watching the developments closely, according to Aubrey Ellertson Church, policy manager at the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. In an email to the Independent, she said that local fishermen’s primary concern is whether the location of the wind farms would push them out of their traditional fishing areas and into other already-fished areas, increasing competition among boats.

    In selecting the eight Gulf of Maine areas that would be offered, BOEM worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to avoid areas that are prominently used as offshore fishing grounds or serve as popular vessel transit routes, according to the Interior Dept.’s announcement. As a result, Ellertson Church said, BOEM established three corridors between the proposed lease areas for ships and boats to travel in.

    According to a WBUR report by Nicole Ogrysko, BOEM did not place lease areas in Lobster Management Area 1, a popular site for Massachusetts lobstermen.

    Ellertson Church said fishermen were also worried about how future wind farms might affect collision risks or cause navigation difficulties or loss of fishing gear, and that laying offshore wind cables might affect bottom-dwelling fish. “We want to make sure we have a seat at the table as these discussions take place with BOEM and wind developers,” she wrote.

    “This is an exciting opportunity for the Outer Cape to be on the front line of solving the climate crisis,” said state Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro, who represents the Cape and Islands. Cyr told the Independent that he views the wind farms as a potential economic opportunity for the Outer Cape. “I can see opportunities for an operations and maintenance facility based in Provincetown harbor,” he said. “Also, potentially, activities out of Provincetown Airport.”

    He pointed to Martha’s Vineyard as an example of how host communities can benefit from offshore wind, as he said the Vineyard Wind project had created 40 year-round union jobs. He thought that the Outer Cape could benefit financially from a host community agreement with the companies that build and operate the turbines.

    Cyr also said the turbines are not likely to be visible from shore. A 2013 study on the visual impact of wind farms led by Robert Sullivan of the Argonne National Laboratory in the United Kingdom found that, while wind turbines can be visible to casual observers at a distance of up to 18 miles, at over 25 miles they were visible only “with extended or concentrated viewing.”

    Cyr said he would want to ensure there would not be light pollution from the turbines. He also said he’d want to be sure that experts were involved to prevent important marine habitats from being affected.

    Krakoff said that the Conservation Law Foundation is concerned about the placement of the northernmost lease area off the coast of Maine because it includes waters regularly used by right whales. So, while he said of the proposal that “on the whole, it’s a good thing,” he added that his organization plans to encourage BOEM to adjust that area during the public comment period now underway.

    The 60-day comment period on the proposed areas runs from May 1 to July 1. Individuals can comment on the website Regulations.gov by searching for BOEM-2024-0026 or by attending (in person or online) one of three public meetings set for this later this month: in Portsmouth, N.H. on May 23; in Portland, Maine on May 28; and in Danvers on May 30.

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