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A program aimed at compensating fishermen for lost income during the construction and operation of the first offshore wind farm south of the Vineyard will be based on the island, according to representatives of the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen Conservation Trust. It is said that it will not bring any profit to the fishermen who put it there.
On Monday, March 4, Vineyard Wind’s parent company Avangrid announced it was accepting applications for the Fisheries Compensation Fund, which is available to fishermen who have operated in the area, about 22 miles from the island, where 62 offshore wind turbines are currently being constructed. announced the start.
The fund, run by a third party, has $19.1 million available to Massachusetts fishermen, with $7.5 million set aside for other affected states.
“By launching this program, we are demonstrating our commitment to working with the fishing industry to address the economic impacts associated with the development of this project,” Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra said in a statement. It is fulfilling its purpose.”
But John Keene, president of the Martha’s Vineyard Fisherman’s Preservation Trust, said the strict requirements to qualify for the fund will put local fishermen in a bind.
“Unfortunately, there are no island fishermen eligible for mitigation,” Keene said in an interview with the Gazette.
According to Avangrid, fishermen will need to prove they fished in waters leased to Vineyard Wind for at least three years from 2016 to 2022.
“[The lease areas] You know, these are all nice and orderly parallelograms on the chart. But obviously fish don’t swim in parallelograms, and ecosystems don’t survive in parallelograms,” said Keene, who represented the island’s fishermen in negotiations with Vineyard Wind.
Although island fishermen do not operate in these waters, building a fish farm could affect their livelihoods in other ways, Keene said. Competition could increase as fishermen from other states begin to move into the island’s waters, while fishermen operating near the boundaries of leased areas would be left without compensation.
Keene also noted that while funds from the fund will go to ship owners/operators, ship owners/operators are not obligated to distribute funds to crew members. Therefore, island fishermen who work on New Bedford-based vessels for part of the season may also be ineligible for coverage, even if they work on vessels within the leased area.
“It’s a very complex process and problem,” he says. “Vineyard Wind has been very active on this issue as a company, but we don’t have all the answers.”
For now, the island has been excluded from this round of funding, but Keene said he plans to use the experience to prepare for future offshore wind energy projects planned in waters frequented by Vineyard fishermen. Stated.
“There will be a lot of wind companies that haven’t activated their lease areas yet,” he says. “It won’t matter this time. But next time, maybe we’ll set up a template that people can follow.”
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