They want company to pay for equipment lost to project survey vessels
CAPE MAY – Several commercial fishermen claim survey boats hired by wind turbine developer Ørsted inadvertently cut their lines causing their lobster and conch traps to be lost in the ocean. At issue: being reimbursed from Ørsted for the lost gear and income
Lobster fisherman Joe Wagner, a second-generation fisherman of lobster, sea bass and conch, said last year he lost 157 lobster traps to Ørsted, which is partnering with PSEG on the Ocean Wind 1 project that aims to bring up to 99 massive wind turbines to an area 15 miles off the coast of Cape May and Atlantic counties.
“They only paid me for a handful of them because they say it wasn’t their boats,” he said.
Wagner said Ørsted made that claim based on tracking data of the survey boats. He said he caught the survey boats frequently turning off their tracking devices.
Last year his father lost 100 lobster pots to Ørsted survey boats, Wagner asserted, again with Ørsted claiming their boats were not to blame. The cost of lobster pots is $180 to $220 each with a possible two-year delay to receive all the replacements due to supply chain issues, he said.
He said Ørsted sends a weekly email to fishermen with a photo of their leased areas stating “our vessels might be in your area” but doesn’t give exact coordinates.
“The leased ground is a pretty big area, and they could be in the far north corner of it, and I won’t ever see them because I’m 10 miles from them,” Wagner said. “We’ve got gear stretched all through there.”
During the last incident of damage by a survey boat, the Coast Guard heard Wagner call the survey craft on radio multiple times and required Ørsted to pull up their tracking records. He said Ørsted reimbursed him for some of the lost lobster pots but refused to reimburse him for all of them due to disparities between GPS tracking and old navigation system numbers based on LORAN signals, which is still used by local fishermen.
“If you don’t have the old electronics, you won’t get the exact pinpoint location on a chart,” he noted.
Newer navigation systems have a cross reference for TD LORAN numbers to GPS coordinates, but locations may be off by a half-mile, Wagner said.
When a survey boat grabs fishing gear, it’s towed until it becomes entangled or sinks, he said.
Wagner claimed a conch fisherman lost $40,000 of gear last year from an Ørsted survey boat. He said a witness at Lund’s Fisheries saw the survey boat crew throw some of the missing gear on a dock.
He said fishermen had concerns about chasing away the fish when construction of the wind turbine towers begin with blasting and pile driving into the ocean floor.
“We tell them where our gear is but the guys that are running, these hired survey boats, they just really don’t care,” Wagner said. “They survey at night.”
He said it was difficult enough to see lobster pot buoys during daylight hours.
To make a claim to Ørsted for lost gear, fishermen must provide the exact coordinates of where it was located.
“But then when I ask them for tracks of where their boats are working, they won’t give me where their boats were working for me to cross reference their tracks with my charts,” Wagner said. “They tell me it’s private information, but they want all my private information.”
He said fishermen had a meeting with BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) and he was told the bureau would warn the survey boats to be more careful.
“I’m still missing all my gear, I’m still out $40,000,” he said.
Fisherman Anthony Mattia, who has worked the sea for 29 years, said he lost 252 conch pots worth $39,000 to survey boats.
“That’s not just the pots, it’s the buoys, the rope, the hardware that goes into them,” he said.
He said he submitted a claim to Ørsted, but the company has requested more information.
Mattia said he could not pinpoint every single time and location.
“I’m not even submitting a claim for lost wages, I probably could have put a claim in for $100,000 just in lost wages,” Mattia said.
“Every time I give them information, they need more information,” he continued.
He said he has photos of his buoys being dragged by a survey boat taken by a person who worked on the boat. Mattia said he supports his wife and five children with his fishing boat.
He said he captained a fishing charter boat over the summer to raise money to replace his lost gear.
Third-generation conch fisherman Carmen Conti said he was reimbursed for the loss of gear. He lost about 80 conch traps to survey boats. His family owns Carmen’s Restaurant in Sea Isle City where a meeting of local fisherman was held last month.
Conti said Ørsted does whatever it’s permitted to do by the government and does not worry about the fishermen.
Ørsted: Committed to being good partner with fishermen
In a written statement, Ørsted Stakeholder Relations Manager for New Jersey Tom Suthard stated: “Ørsted respects and recognizes the importance of the commercial fishing industry in New Jersey. We are committed to being a good corporate partner and to continue to explore ways to co-exist with ocean users as the offshore wind industry develops and matures. Our practices today were developed with commercial fishermen feedback.”
“We are taking specific and additional steps to further increase communication and reduce encounters with fishing gear. For instance, we distribute via email Mid-Atlantic mariners’ briefings for all mariners ahead of survey activities on our Mariners Briefing webpage. Beginning in April, we will utilize a scout vessel with individuals with commercial fishing experience onboard that will go out ahead of the survey vessels to help reduce interactions with fishing gear,” he continued. “Further, we will place a Fisheries Liaison Officer (FLO) onboard a survey vessel itself. The FLO is an ex-commercial fisherman and will be responsible for radio communications with fishermen and keeping watch for fishing gear.”
Suthard requested fishermen share their gear coordinates with Ørsted to help prevent encounters, whether it’s a general GPS location, marked chart, or picture of a chart plotter with dates and descriptions of the gear. He stated this strategy had proven effective in their Northeast wind projects. The information should be sent via email to either: Ross Pearsall, ROSPE@orsted.com or Rodney Avila, RODAV@orsted.com.
“While we make every effort to alert fisherman ahead of time to help avoid encounters with fishing gear, we recognize situations do occur that require fair and timely responses,” Suthard stated. “We created a robust gear reimbursement program modeled on a similar process designed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with input from members of the fishing industry. If a commercial fisherman believes an offshore wind survey vessel has damaged a piece of equipment, they should visit Ørsted.com/gear-loss-claim-.
“We look forward to continued, productive, and meaningful conversations with the commercial fishing community in New Jersey.”
Calls for comments to Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay were not returned. A request for comments by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management was acknowledged but not answered in time for the newspaper’s deadline.
By JACK FICHTER/Sentinel staff