Tag Archives: Brian Hooker
Fed Official: Offshore Wind Will Adversely Impact North Atlantic Right Whale
Ahead of his March 16 hearing on offshore wind at the Wildwood Convention Center, Congressman Jeff Van Drew is challenging the federal government and offshore wind companies to prove they have nothing to hide when it comes to negatively impacting the environment. “Hearings are critical,” he said in a statement released last week condemning President Joe Biden’s administration for “its continual lack of transparency with the American people – this time about the correlation of offshore wind development and the death of endangered whales.” Van Drew’s latest comments follow the release of a May 13, 2022 missive from Sean Hayes, chief of protected species for NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. In the letter to Brian Hooker, lead biologist for Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Office of Renewable Energy Programs, Hayes laid out how offshore wind development in New England would negatively affect the North Atlantic right whale. >click to read< 08:04
Ocean Industrialization: Fishing regulators fear wind turbines could threaten spawning area for Atlantic cod
It is the largest offshore HAPC designation in the region. Yet a main concern is cod spawning grounds in a smaller region within the designation, just east of Block Island. That area, known as Cox Ledge, overlaps with some 250 square miles currently leased to developers Ørsted and Eversource for their joint wind energy project: South Fork Wind. It is one of only two offshore wind projects that have completed the federal permitting process. “We are really going about the wind farm development very quickly,” said Kevin Stokesbury, a fisheries science professor at UMass Dartmouth, who studies cod in the Gulf of Maine. “It’s going to be quite a dramatic change to the ecosystem out there.” “We’ve all made sacrifices so cod can recover,” said Capt. Tim Rider, who fishes for groundfish and scallops. “Now they’re going to put a wind farm there,” he said of the cod spawning grounds. “How about they put it somewhere that might not be as intrusive.” >click to read< 11:05
Montauk Trying To Save Long Island Shore From Wind Farms – Residents are against it and need more support.
July 11, at the Montauk Playhouse just beneath the Montauk Manor there was an open town hall meeting featuring representatives of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management concerning a project to produce 2,400 megawatts of power by 2030 (12 years from now.) The plan is to construct “eventually” clusters of wind farms along the 100-mile south shore of Long Island from 3 to 200 miles out. The project is to start off Montauk. The large hedge fund putting up a reported $560M has tried to frame the debate as “commercial fishermen worried about their fishing grounds versus clean wind power energy,” but that just is not the case. >click to read<07:53
Now We’re Talking!! BOEM dressed down, wind farm companies get an earful at a meeting
Federal officials in charge of leasing ocean bottom land to offshore wind farm companies got an earful at a meeting with commercial fishermen Wednesday – and much of it was R-rated. There isn’t merely significant opposition to offshore wind farms; there is 100-percent agreement among the fishermen that the wind turbines will eventually put them out of business.,, Deepwater Wind, which has a project slated off the coast of Montauk called South Fork Wind and runs the Block Island Wind farm, was the subject of much of the ire and criticism,,, Ryan Fallon said he has spent his life on the water. “Everyone is against [the wind farms]. This is my life, my daughter’s life. I almost brought her here so you could look her in the eyes,” said Fallon, whose father was a commercial fisherman and bought him his first boat. “I’ve been doing this since I was 12. I’ll die before I let you take it away.” >click to read<20:37
How fishermen could thwart Cuomo’s offshore wind master plan
In the mist off New England’s coast, towering alien monoliths pierce the surging waters, soaring 600 to 850 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. Hundreds of these titans, rising up to 200 feet taller than Trump Tower, chop the air with massive blades that are taller than Albany’s Capitol building. Offshore wind turbines like these, Gov. Andrew Cuomo says, are a critical part of his clean energy mandate to generate 50 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable energy. But those humble fishermen are threatening to derail the governor’s goals with a federal lawsuit they believe is their last best shot to save their livelihoods. >click to read<21:41
