By Gloria Stravelli
BELFORD – Federal and state officials are celebrating the success of an auction held online last week for the rights to close to half a million acres of ocean waters off the coast of New Jersey and New York slated for development of wind turbine sites.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), wind turbines in six lease areas totaling more than 488,000 acres on the Outer Continental Shelf in the New York Bight have the potential for producing enough “green” energy to power close to 2 million homes and help minimize dependence on fossil fuels.
Six bidders – which include both U.S. and European energy providers – placed as provisional winners for the lease areas in the competitive New York Bight Wind Lease Auction, which took place over three days, Feb. 23, 24 and 25.
Winning bids totaled a record $4.37 billion, according to BOEM, ranging from $285 million for an area of 43,056 acres, to $1.1 billion for 125,964 acres. A complete list of winning bidders and a map of the lease areas can be found on the website boem.gov.
The offshore wind lease auction had a high-profile introduction last month, with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Gov. Phil Murphy touting the economic and environmental benefits of wind farms.
Haaland, speaking remotely by phone, said offshore wind projects like the New York Bight present an “opportunity to fight climate change and create good-paying jobs,” a statement Murphy seconded.
According to BOEM, New York and New Jersey collectively have set the nation’s largest regional offshore wind target of installing over 16 GW of offshore wind by 2035.
While plans move forward on the federal and state levels, local ocean advocates and members of the commercial and recreational fishing communities continue to raise concerns about the potential impacts of masses of wind turbines on the ocean and its marine life.
Clean Ocean Action (COA) responded to the lease auction loud and clear: “A half-million acres off NY/NJ was auctioned today, Feb. 23, by BOEM and leased to and privatized by Big Energy for massive offshore wind industrialization,” the Long Branch-based environmental group posted online with characteristic candor. “It is the largest offshore wind sale in U.S. history and too much, too fast.”
According to COA, the lease sale, together with 425,000 acres of ocean already leased in the waters off New Jersey, brings the total area leased for the industrial development of offshore wind to nearly 1 million acres.
“The ocean is far more valuable as an ecosystem, so we must minimize industrialization and be sure it is protective of marine life,” said Cindy Zipf, who founded COA in 1984 and serves as executive director.
“COA supports responsible and reasonable offshore wind energy, but this is reckless privatization,” she warned in a press release, “and will not ensure protection of… whales, dolphins, turtles and the hundreds of other species that call the ocean home.”
Zipf added not enough is known about the impacts of wind turbines and related infrastructure on marine species and their habitats and called for pilot projects.
“COA maintains that the leasing of these half-million acres is too premature given the current gaps in scientific literature concerning the impacts of offshore wind turbines and related infrastructure on marine species and their habitats,” she said, calling for caution to ensure “the very ecosystem which has buffered the impacts of climate change is not destroyed and that the very soul of this region’s economy – the clean ocean economy – continues to have the support it needs to thrive.”
Zipf also is critical of the rush to wind energy while other renewable energy sources are not being further developed.
“COA remains deeply disappointed that there is not an equal or greater rush to build-up onshore renewable energy, such as solar and wind, as they are able to come online faster and allow for direct use,” she said in the release.
“The ocean has already buffered climate impacts, but to her own demise with sea-level rise and ocean acidification. A healthy ocean is key to helping reduce impacts from climate change,” she cautioned.
“However, this lease sale and the current fast-tracked scope and scale of offshore wind energy development off the NY/NJ coast are neither reasonable nor responsible given all the unknowns. This industrialization and privatization is too much, too fast, and puts the ocean at risk.”
David Tauro, dock manager at the Belford Seafood Co-operative, is a fourth-generation fisherman but sees the future of his vocation dimming in light of plans to locate wind turbines within local fishing grounds.
“I’ve been a fisherman since I can remember,” Tauro said. “I grew up on the water, but nobody in my family stayed. I stayed in Highlands and Belford. My family is from Highlands, my grandfather owned the oldest hotel, we’re all rum runners,” he said, chuckling at the description.
“I’m definitely against (the turbines). It’s going to screw us up. It’s an existential threat.
They’re feeding us this story, but it’s not going to be benefitting us.”
Tauro said he and other members of the co-op had been to meetings about the plans to auction off leases and erect wind turbines in the local waters off Belford.
“They’re putting them right in the prime area where we fish. That’s where they land and stay for a while. Once they put those windmills up, are they going to allow us to fish there? They say they will,” he said, but sounded doubtful.
Tauro said he fears once the turbines are up, the Coast Guard will prevent fishermen near them. “So if you can’t fish by them, they shut down the whole area so where are you gonna fish at? They have to start doing something else for the fishermen because if they don’t, there’s not going to be no commercial fishermen.”
Asked if the co-op has retained an attorney, he responded: “An attorney? Fight it? We don’t have the money to fight it, with all these regulations, we’re regulated to death. A thing like this will put you out of business. It’s one blow after another.”
“We told them we’re against it. We go to the meetings, we testify at the meetings and I don’t even know if they listen to you,” he said.
“It’s hard for a fisherman to keep up with it, because a fisherman’s life ain’t like an ordinary life. I mean, you’ve got your boat to take care of, you’ve got nets, rigging. You’ve got to go fishing, you can’t take a day off.”
He points out many of his fellow fishermen are retiring. “They see the handwriting on the wall,” he said.
The article originally appeared in the March 3 – 9, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
