Tag Archives: filed a lawsuit
Save LBI lays out evidence for cause of whale deaths
On August 4th, 2023, Save Long Beach Island (LBI) filed a lawsuit seeking to enjoin the ongoing offshore wind energy vessel surveys using high intensity noise equipment until a thorough investigation could be done and new protocols developed for estimating noise impacts from wind energy development activities. On August 14th Save LBI responded to defendant and defendant-intervenor motions, laying out in detail the evidence linking the vessel surveys to the recent whale deaths. Evidence of Causation of Whale Deaths by Vessel Surveys -The federal defendant concludes that the vessel surveys are not the cause of the recent whale and dolphin deaths, and that there is no evidence linking the two. In fact, there is ample evidence leading to a conclusion that the surveys were and are the only plausible cause, as summarized below: >click to read< 12:30
Ocean City, Wind Farm Developer Clash in Legal Fight
The Danish energy company Orsted, which plans to build the Ocean Wind project, filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court on May 4 demanding that Ocean City should grant the permits needed for the underground transmission line. In response to the lawsuit, Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian issued a statement strongly criticizing Orsted. “The lawsuit continues a pattern that Ocean Wind presumes the offshore wind project is a done deal and they will resort to any means to maintain their desired schedule,” Gillian said. >click to read< 14:50
Biden Administration sued by Massachusetts lobstermen for closing waters to protect endangered whales
Massachusetts lobster fishermen have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its closure of fishing grounds done with the intention of protecting an endangered species of whale. The lawsuit stems from the February 1 closure of 200 square miles of the Massachusetts Bay that will prevent lobster fishing until the end of April in a move that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says was necessary to protect the North Atlantic right whales from being tangled in fishing ropes. Video, >click to read< 08:02
Commerical fishing interest file suit against Golden Ray owner and salvager
A group of commercial fishermen filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Brunswick against the owner of the car carrier Golden Ray and the company that salvaged the shipwreck, the action coming a day before the three-year anniversary of the 656-foot vessel’s capsizing in the St. Simons Sound. The Golden Ray overturned in the predawn hours of Sept. 8, 2019, while heading out to sea with a cargo of 4,161 vehicles and an estimated 380,000 gallons of fuel in its tanks. Attorneys filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Brunswick on behalf of several dozen shrimpers, charter boat fishing guides and crabbers, claiming “willful misconduct, malice, fraud” and negligence on behalf of the those named has caused environmental damage to the sound. >click to read< 18:22
Maine Lobstering Union, lobster dealers sue over offshore closure
The union and its co-plaintiffs allege that the closure is “the product of an arbitrary and capricious agency action” and argued that the federal government’s own data showed there has not been an entanglement in Maine lobster gear for nearly 20 years. Instead, the National Marine Fisheries Service made the closure “simply to spread risk reduction responsibility across jurisdictions, without regard to the fact that lobster fishing is far more important to Maine’s economy than it is to that of any other state.” >click to read< 13:26
Common property
Almost four decades ago, a Juneau salmon seiner by the name of Wayne Alex filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking the state of Alaska from taxing commercial fishermen to finance hatcheries. The tax, which the Alaska Legislature obliging called an “assessment” in an effort to avoid an Alaska Constitutional prohibition on dedicated taxes, was intended to benefit private, non-profit aquaculture corporations controlled by commercial fishermen. As the scheme was designed, the hatchery corporations, or “associations” as they were officially called, would run a system of hatcheries to fill the ocean off the 49th state with a bounty of “common property” salmon to benefit Alaskans of all sorts – commercial fishermen, personal-use fishermen, sport fishermen, even subsistence fishermen. Though Alex sued over the tax, it wasn’t his real concern. His fear was that the hatcheries would one day come to replace fishermen like himself. Jump ahead now 39 years and turn your attention north from Juneau for 550 miles to the city of Seward at the head of Resurrection Bay. >click to read< 16:01
