“A MAN IS ONLY AS GOOD AS HIS WORD” By Jim Lovgren
When Donald Trump ran for election in 2024, to recapture the Presidency that he lost in the 2020 elections, many people voted for him because he promised to stop offshore wind projects on day one. We are still waiting. Granted, he promised to also end the Ukraine war on day one, but people are still dying there every day. Politicians say many things when they are running for office, and voters must distinguish between reality and fantasy regarding a politician’s promises. In the case of the Ukraine war, I think everybody took Donald’s “end the
Ukraine war on day one”, with a grain of salt, as this war is complex in its causes, participants, and the interwoven economic and international politics’ driving it. We can forgive him for his campaign bluster. When it comes to his promise to end offshore wind on day one, well that’s another story.
An old proverb states, “A man is only as good as his word”. Right now, President Trump’s word in regard to stopping offshore wind, is not good. As a matter of fact, it SUCKS. The President is well aware of the problems that have occurred all along the east coast since 2022 when the wind companies really ramped up their geological surveys using high powered sonar and seismic devises that left a trail of dead sea creatures in their wake, especially marine mammals, including the critically endangered Northern Right Whale. The deaths are continuing as the projects started construction of the thousand-foot-tall behemoths by pile driving the monopile stanchions into the sea bed. The government agency in charge of managing and protecting our living marine resources, the National Marine Fisheries Service, sat on their proverbial hands while another government agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy, highjacked their job. BOEM fast tracked every wind lease area sale, and green lighted as many projects as they possibly could in a four-year period. They ignored the growing numbers of dead whales that were washing up on the beaches, just like they ignored the endangered species act, the Marine Mammal Protection act, and NEPA regulations, especially in regard to cumulative impacts.
The NMFS hid behind the best science available mantra to claim there was no relationship between the sonar/seismic testing and all the whales that washed up near the research vessels that were blowing the hell out of the ocean bottom, creating sound waves crisscrossing for hundreds of miles throughout the east coast waters. Sound waves that were loud enough to cause NMFS to issue incidental take permits to these vessels, although there should be no reason to issue them if there is no harm being caused by the noises being created by these projects. There has been no best available science in regard to sonar/seismic testing because it is not in the interests of the energy companies that profit from using these devices. When a whale strands itself on the beach, it does so for a reason, usually because its sick, or now more common, because its eardrums have been destroyed by Sonar/Seismic or piledriving noises. The U.S. government claims that to prove that a whale’s eardrums have been damaged they must be necropsied within four hours of the animal’s death. The governmental authorities always claim the animal was dead for too long to examine the inner ear of the whale, even when many animals were alive for hours on the beach or in the surf, and rescuers were present. They don’t want the truth to be known. Unfortunately for them, the truth is coming out drip by drip, or death by death. Recently, Maria Morell, an international scientist, presently researching
in Germany, who is an expert on the effects of loud noises on Dolphins, has revealed the ability to be able to accurately examine inner ears from marine mammals dead for up to 30 hours.
Don’t count on a U.S. government scientist to do the same, they will instead attack anybody who tries to prove a correlation between offshore wind activities and marine mammal
strandings.
This has been the case in regard to Professor Emeritus Apostolos Gerasoulis who last year presented his preliminary findings to NMFS and had them promptly dismissed by their
scientific team, which had no idea about what was causing the strandings, the only thing they knew for certain, was that it wasn’t related to the cacophony of extremely loud noises
produced by offshore wind activities. The professor’s two yearlong research endeavor involved creating a computer model that used the AIS, [Automatic Identification System] that every
vessel over 65 feet long is required to have and tracked each vessel on the east coast that was engaged in sonar/seismic testing and each marine mammal stranding that occurred during this period. Not surprisingly he found a direct correlation between the research vessel operations and many of the marine mammal strandings. The marine mammal strandings that seem to take place wherever there is sonar/seismic testing around the world can no longer claim to be coincidental. The professor’s work has proven that it is now the best science available. Another recent study performed by Robert Rand measured the sound level created by the seismic/sonar vessels and found the decibel levels much louder than they were claimed to be, which would result in more marine mammal injuries than were projected or approved by NMFS. OOPs. Totally honest mistake. Of course, it was also a totally honest mistake to ignore the decades of work performed by the U.S. Navy, and the National resources defense council, {NRDC] that proved the direct correlation between loud sonar noise and marine mammal strandings. U.S. government agencies have been engaged in recklessly ignoring valid science to advance the wet dreams of the Biden administration and the international investors whose fortunes are tied to offshore wind and the money laundering that has gone on in pursuing that expensive boondoggle.
Unfortunately, President Trump has not kept his word in stopping the offshore wind boondoggle. Right offshore of his hometown, New York City, a Norwegian company, Orsted, has started construction on Empire Wind, a large wind turbine complex about fifteen miles from both the N.Y and N.J. shores. This area presents so many problems if it is allowed to continue it boggles the mind. The site is sandwiched between two of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, with a third lane, coming up the Jersey shore within a few miles. The site is also critical historical fishing grounds for both commercial and recreational fishermen, who catch fluke, sea bass, porgies, squid, clams and the most valuable of all, scallops. Once these monstrosities are put in place, those fishing grounds are lost forever to the commercial industry, they will not be removed after they prove worthless and fall apart in a few years after being exposed to the harsh north Atlantic weather. The government has not been requiring that there is decommissioning money for all these wind factories put aside up front, as they were supposed to. Orsted will milk the project for a few years until most of the subsidies are stolen and then sell it to a shell company that will declare bankruptcy a few years later, leaving the mess there as a hazard to navigation, and an environmental catastrophe as thousands of gallons of oils spill from the rotting turbine carcasses.
Speaking of carcasses, the shores from Monmouth County to Fire Island will be subjected to the rotten carcasses of Fin whales, Humpback Whales, and Northern Right Whales, along with other marine mammals and creatures, as the project is sited in the middle of many of those animals’ annual migration routes. They will attempt to avoid the construction area, but will suffer hearing damage, and stumble blindly into one of the shipping lanes, where it will at that point be mercifully killed, because a deaf whale, is a dead whale.
Another over looked aspect of these offshore wind projects is their damaging effects on marine radar, they create so much clutter on the screen that it is impossible to safely transverse
through a project site in the dark, or fog. But there is something else that needs to be considered about the effects on radar by these turbine installations. They will cripple the U.S. military’s own radar, and our ability to track potential incoming aircraft and missiles. What if a bad actor, such as Iran secretly converts a freighter into a missile launching platform, with
ready to launch cruise missiles hidden within cargo containers on deck. The ship enters into the Hudson to NY shipping lane and from 25 miles away, suddenly launches a swarm of cruise
missiles into New York city. These missiles will be lost in the radar clutter, and they will strike our very vulnerable cities within minutes. Maybe it will be an attack on Washington D.C. or our Norfolk Naval base, which is a possibility due to the enormous Dominion Wind project. This possibility cannot be ruled out. With all the negatives surrounding offshore wind development, the President must stand his ground and embrace his word and stop offshore wind now. These sites were approved in a slapdash manner ignoring so many environmental safeguards, it’s hard to believe that his administration cannot use lawfare to put a halt to these projects and ultimately end them, before it’s too late. Remember, Mr. President, “A man is only as good as his word”.
If Trump is :only “as good as his word” he is most biblically Satanic (identified by Christ as the “father of lies”) person that has ever risen to this American political pinnacle. The only absolute campaign claim he has come close to fulfilling is the imposing of across the board tariffs that is tanking the world economy and eroding the foundation of this Nations position as the leader of the Free World.
It’s too late to “un-elect him”, impossible to undo his dishonest, self-interested and illegal actions now, since he controls all legislative and enforcement arms of government; the one thing you can do is save yourself. Find something and someone else to believe in.
Thoughtful and well written Jim but I think, and hope that Trump will address the windmill debacle soon.
I do think that Charles F. Is a little over the top with his reply. (Catch’em up)