Stewart Dobson
Editor

(Oct. 3, 2024) A discussion Sept. 24 between local commercial fishing operators and representatives of the state Department of Natural Resources about how U.S. Wind intends to compensate fishermen for wind farm-related financial losses made one thing clear: the fishing community fears for its existence.

Beyond that, the process, plan and the particulars of the commercial fishing “Compensatory Mitigation Fund” that US Wind has pledged to create remain adrift in a sea of unfinished business.

Speaking before roughly two dozen commercial operators at the Ocean Pines Library, Carrie Kennedy, of DNR’s Data Management & Analysis Division, and Catherine McCall, of its Coastal and Ocean Management office, invited watermen to suggest services and forms of assistance that could be included in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to be executed between the DNR and US Wind by January.

The MOU would spring from a July 8 letter of intent between the department and US Wind in which the company agrees “to provide financial compensation to eligible Maryland fishermen for mitigating direct losses/impacts to commercial and for-hire (charter) fishing from and caused by the construction, operation and decommissioning of the Project in federal waters.”

The project entails planting up to 114 wind turbines in an 80,000-acre offshore tract about 11.5 miles east of Ocean City, according to the company’s letter of intent and BOEM documents.

In the meantime, the department’s goal, Kennedy and McCall said, is to join 10 other states, from Maine to North Carolina, in establishing one set of rules to determine the eligibility for applicants for wind farm-related damage claims and to create a Regional Fund Administrator (RFA) to manage the process.

All this would be done within a framework that follows the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s “Fisheries Mitigation Guidance, which itself is work in progress.

“There’s a lot of moving parts,” Kennedy said.

Also to be determined is how much money US Wind will put into this compensation fund to help commercial harvesters recover from a loss of business because of damaged equipment or other interruptions arising as local vessels fish in and around the spread of turbines.

Although no number is mentioned in US Wind’s letter of intent, one scenario mentioned by the DNR representatives Tuesday was $3.5 million, a figure based on the harvest reports commercial operators turn into the department.

For purposes of the compensation fund, however, the harvest totals are for species caught within the wind farm lease area and that figure is under review.

“The Letter of Intent between DNR and US Wind refers to several forms of financial compensation,” McCall said in an email Wednesday.

“DNR is working to develop the final agreement based on those various forms of compensation. The $3.5M number refers to one of those forms of compensation described in [the letter of intent) – ‘Compensatory Mitigation Fund.’  That figure is not referenced in the LOI as we are in the process of reviewing the fisheries data, applying BOEM’s draft guidance and reflecting Maryland-specific considerations to determine the terms and number that will go in the final agreement.”

While the commercial operators in the room dismissed the $3.5 as laughably low, subsequent comments indicated that their greater concern is whether US Wind’s presence in the commercial fishing harbor in West Ocean City would eventually force them out altogether.

The company’s plan to build a maintenance facility on harborside property owned by Martin’s Seafood and Southern Connection would result in the loss of dockside loading space, the operators said.

“Where are we going to unload our fish?” asked Alexis Mumford, with fisherman Mike Coppa asking where the off-loaded catch would be packed and refrigerated.

That, the DNR representatives replied would have to be worked out. Similarly, Sonny Gwin, of Skilligalee Seafood, said he worries about whether he and other local boat owners who lease dock space in the county-owned harbor will be able to renew their contracts when the time comes. He suggested they could be outbid by U.S. Wind if it brings in more boats to service its installation.

As McCall pointed out earlier in the session, DNR can only do so much because its actions must stay within parameters set on the federal level by BOEM.

Even then, some doubt exists about how far BOEM’s authority extends in establishing ground rules for offshore wind companies’ interactions with seafood harvesters.

Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for frozen seafood distributor Seafreeze Shoreside/Seafreeze Ltd. in Rhode Island, declined an invitation to participate in the RFA process because it was based on BOEM’s “incomplete and unfinalized guidance.”

Lapp said in her July letter of refusal that neither BOEM nor the states have the authority to require wind developers to compensate commercial fishing operators for anything via the RFA route.

“The RFA is purely a creation of policy with no legal authority backing it or, importantly, protecting those impacted by it,” she said. “It is clear that BOEM, developers, and the states collaborated on this approach behind closed doors from 2021 onwards, in order to fill a “gap” that legislation does not address. And since no authorizing legislation exists, there is no way to litigate if the RFA should fail commercial fisheries.”