Tag Archives: Kris Ohleth
NC joins pact to cover offshore wind farm related fisheries losses
North Carolina has joined nearly a dozen other East Coast states to create a financial compensation program that would cover economic losses within the fisheries industry caused by Atlantic offshore wind development. The Fisheries Mitigation Project aims to establish a regional administrator to oversee the process of reviewing claims and making payouts collected through a fund paid for by wind developers to commercial and for-hire recreational fisheries industries to mitigate financial loss associated with offshore wind farms. The goal first and foremost of the states is to ensure wind energy areas and the cable systems that will run from wind farms to land are developed in way that would result in minimal impacts to the fisheries industry. >click to read< 10:22
Offshore wind farms threaten New Jersey’s shellfish industry. Should fishing communities be compensated?
Earlier this month, New Jersey announced it would join eight other states that are seeking a regional approach to compensate fishing communities for the impending losses. “Are we going to be allowed to fish inside of them (the wind turbine fields)?” asked Kirk O. Larson, a scallop fleet owner and mayor of Barnegat Light, New Jersey. “Why did (the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) put a wind farm right inside of a scallop area, the most productive scallop area pretty much on the East Coast, not counting Georges Bank.” Shellfish harvesters like Larson are expected face serious financial damage from offshore wind development projects. “I’m not looking for compensation,” said the scallop fleet owner. “I’m looking for work, so I’m not really looking for welfare.” >click to read< 07:43
Markey, Moulton push for national fund to compensate fishermen for losses due to offshore wind >click to read<
Markey, Moulton push for national fund to compensate fishermen for losses due to offshore wind
With both offshore wind development and dissent from fishing groups ramping up along the East Coast, Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Seth Moulton announced a plan Wednesday to establish a national fund to compensate potential economic loss suffered by the fishing industry. Currently there is no federal framework that requires offshore wind developers to compensate fishermen for potential damages. Those include gear loss, habitat degradation, loss of historic fishing grounds and new fishing restrictions in areas leased for wind farms — all of which compound, fishermen say, to spell serious economic challenges to their industry. >click to read< 19:31
Offshore Wind Farm: Clean, Green…Profitable?
In most lifetimes, there are only a few chances to participate in the birth of an industry,,, Ohleth is the senior manager for stakeholder engagement of Orsted, the Danish energy firm that has the contract to build Ocean Wind,,, According to Ohleth, big opportunities are on the way. Not everyone was as sanguine about the proposal. Jeff Kaelin, of Lunds Fisheries, presented a slide that showed the overlap of the project area for Ocean Wind with the path of fishing boats in the region. “The clam guys fish inside of there,” Kaelin stated that the fishing industry would face a disproportionate impact from the wind energy proposal. He described commercial fishing as a $6-billion industry that employs about 30,000 people in a half-dozen different ports, including the Lunds facility, near the Middle Thorofare Bridge, just in from Cape May Inlet. >click to read< 17:27
