A fleet of 25 fishing boats gathered Sunday off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, to protest Vineyard Wind, an offshore wind turbine project under investigation after turbine blades broke off, sending sharp fiberglass shards into the ocean.
“Vineyard Wind is a threat to our fisheries,” Jerry Lehman, CEO of the New England Fishermen Stewardship Association (NEFSA), told Fox News Digital. Lehman joined a group of New England fishermen protesting the wind projects.
“More than a month after the blade incident, floating fiberglass debris still poses a risk to navigation and the safety of mariners, and we have no idea what impact this industrial waste will have on the local food chain. Even worse, we have no idea if something like this will ever happen again,” Lehman said.
“Fishermen understand better than anyone the volatility of the North Atlantic and, given the devastation in July, we have no confidence that these turbines and blade components will withstand a winter storm or hurricane,” he continued.
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New England fishermen rallied to protest Vineyard Wind. (New England Fisheries Management Association)
“The Vineyard Wind Project is evidence that offshore wind will devastate fishermen and maritime communities,” he added.
The fleet included vessels catching lobster, tuna, squid, and scallops. Fishermen came from Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
Vineyard Wind did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Last month, Nantucket’s harbor master announced the temporary closure of six of the town’s beaches after pieces of fiberglass washed up on shore, and said beachgoers should wear footwear to protect themselves from sharp debris.
Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between foreign companies Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners that built the wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts, announced on July 18 that a turbine blade had broken and that power generation from the turbine had immediately ceased.
In October, Vineyard Wind boasted that it had closed a $1.2 billion “first-of-its-kind tax incentive package” for commercial-scale offshore wind with three U.S.-based banks, calling it “the largest single-asset tax-advantaged loan and the first for a commercial-scale offshore wind project.”
Vineyard Wind 1 is scheduled to begin on-site construction in late 2021 with completion of the nation’s first offshore substation in July 2023. Located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, the 800-megawatt project is the first commercial-scale offshore wind project in the United States.
“The scariest thing is that it could happen again,” Lehman said when the blade fell last month.
“The cause of the failure is currently unknown. GE, the manufacturer of the turbine and blades and the installation contractor for the project, will conduct a root cause analysis of the incident,” Vineyard Wind said at the time.
Biden administration rushes to investigate whale deaths, accuses offshore wind farms of ‘hypocrisy’
Last month, the port master of Nantucket, Massachusetts, temporarily closed six of the town’s beaches after sharp pieces of fiberglass washed up on shore. (New England Fisheries Management Association)
Vineyard Wind also said the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued a stop-work order when it stopped producing power.
“Vineyard Wind is in full compliance with the order and is working with BSEE to assist with evaluations and ongoing critical safety response and debris removal efforts,” the company said.
“Our primary focus is removing blade components that pose a risk of introducing additional debris into the ocean,” Roger Martella, GE Vernova’s chief sustainability officer, said in a statement Aug. 13. “We thank our stakeholders, partners and the skilled professionals working on-site and behind the scenes for their tireless work in safely executing these plans and working to make progress and mitigate risks over the past few days.”
Blue-state lobster fishermen say Biden’s ‘destructive’ green energy plan could threaten their livelihoods
Offshore wind has been a controversial push by the Biden administration as it seeks to meet aggressive green energy goals by 2030. Agencies within the Biden administration have been accused of moving too quickly to approve wind projects at the expense of both the environment and marine life.
Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, testified before a House committee last March:[w]”While some offshore wind projects may be promising, they are being pursued without transparency, strong, sound science, or proper governance at the federal and state levels.”
Zipf testified that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has previously found that offshore winds increase ocean noise, which can affect whale behavior and generate electromagnetic fields that can affect whale navigation, predator detection and communication, as well as alter species composition and survival rates.
A prototype of the first offshore wind turbine developed by the University of Maine is seen in this file photo taken on Sept. 20, 2013, near Castine, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
“NMFS concludes that ‘offshore wind is a new use of marine waters and requires scientific and regulatory review of substations,'” Zipf testified. “So where is the substantive review? Where is the commitment to the precautionary principle?”
“An alarming number of whales are dying,” Clean Ocean Action said in a statement after a ninth whale died in the Northeast last February. [whale] “The death toll is unprecedented in the last half century. The only factor that is different from previous years is the sheer scope, scale and scale of offshore development. Wind power plant The group noted activity in the area.
Zipf stressed that “climate change is real” and “the Earth’s living resources are at risk,” but said offshore wind projects should only be approved once pilot-scale projects have proven successful and the science supports industrial-scale plants.
In April, fishing industry advocacy group NEFSA Wildlife collectors in the fishing industry They criticized the New England-wide Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) recently announced plan to lease 2 million acres of Maine waters for offshore wind development — an unprecedented amount of leased acreage that could house enough wind turbines to produce 32 gigawatts of energy.
NEFSA, along with the Alliance for Responsible Ocean Development, said the administration is “rushing” to make a green energy plan “politically safe” that won’t be affected by a possible change of administration in November.
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BOEM told Fox News Digital in July that it will use a phased leasing approach and will not lease the entire Final WEA (wind energy area), but will consider proposed leasing areas within the Final WEA based on certain criteria.
They said the WEA was finalized “after extensive consultation with local lobster fishermen” and “avoids several other important fishing areas and habitats, including important groundfish areas.”
