Tag Archives: Gov. Phil Murphy
Ocean City not relenting in battle against offshore wind farm
Ocean City is not giving up its fight against a proposed offshore wind energy farm seeking state permission to run an underground transmission line through town to connect with the land-based power grid, Mayor Jay Gillian told local residents Saturday. “We still have a long way to go with this,” City Council President Bob Barr said he is beginning to sense that the project’s developer, the Danish energy company Orsted, may be growing concerned about the money it will ultimately have to spend to build the wind farm. “Right now, they’re burning through money like it’s nobody’s business,” Barr said of Orsted. “Eventually, they’re going to have to fish or cut bait on this.” Barr also said that Orsted does not want to have to spend a lot of time bringing the project online. He suggested that the longer Orsted has to wait, the more it may have second thoughts about developing the project. > click to read < 13:27
New Jersey – Coastal towns go to court seeking more input on offshore wind
The suit alleges that the Biden administration’s plans to lease 480,000 acres off the coasts of New Jersey and New York for offshore wind development violate two key environmental protection laws, the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act and the U.S. Endangered Species Act by essentially bypassing them. As a result, the projects are moving forward without consideration for their impact on endangered species living in the area of the proposed turbines, as well as the state’s commercial fishing industry and local tourism along the Jersey Shore, according to the suit. >click to read< 10:30
OC residents worry offshore wind farm will destroy coastline without easing climate change
“When I first heard about it, in my imagination, it was just going to be one or two, similar to what they have off Block Island [in Rhode Island],” Hornick said. “And I thought, well, if it’s good for the earth and it’s going to be good for the environment, then we should think about doing it. And then I started to research it, and I found out that it’s not what it’s promised. And the magnitude of the project is such that I believe it will devastate our coastline.” The Biden administration has opened up the East Coast to massive commercial offshore wind farms, stretching from Massachusetts down to North Carolina,,, >click to read< 09:29
New Jersey fishing industry wonders if it can coexist with Biden’s planned massive wind farms
Clammers like Charlie Quintana are back from two days at sea on the Christy. Quintana worries about climate change: He says he’s noticed a change in the fisheries because of warming oceans. But he also worries that the hundreds of thousands of acres of wind farms planned for the East Coast will limit where he can catch clams,,, Surf clams were the first seafood to be regulated by the federal government, leading the way for what has become one of the most regulated industries in the nation. Where, when, how and how much are harvested is strictly monitored and enforced.,, “We are literally fighting for the existence of the clam industry to remain in the port of Atlantic City.” >click to read< 10:36
100s of offshore wind farm turbines greenlighted for New Jersey coast – Groucho Marx is all in!
Two wind farm projects were approved, and would provide enough power for 1.1 million homes,,, sure they will! The two projects are a 110-turbine wind farm by Atlantic Shores, which is owned by European power companies Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America, and a 82-turbine farm by Ørsted called Ocean Wind 2. Atlantic Shores’ farm will be located about 10.5 miles off the coast of shore towns north of Atlantic City. Ørsted’s Ocean Wind 2 will be nearly 14 miles off Cape May. >click to read< – If Wind Farm Is Constructed You May Soon Forget It Is There – I’m going to have to buy Groucho Marx glasses, complete with a large nose, mustache and huge eyebrows, to dare show my face on LBI after writing this column. But stupid or brave, here I go. I support the Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind proposal,,, Better wind than fossil fuels or nuclear. Natural gas pipelines can blow up; as for nuclear, I have only six words – Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Do you remember when the Ocean County Health Department used to distribute potassium iodide pills in case of an incident at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station? Stupidity abounds. >click to read< Bill Gates says you’re all wrong! Game Changer: Bill Gates Backs Safe & Reliable Next Generation Nuclear Power Plants – >click to read<
“They just took our democracy away, folks,” – Heroic Ocean City BLASTS Bill to Fast Track Offshore Wind Farm
City Council on Thursday night blasted state legislation that would speed up development of a proposed offshore wind energy farm as a blatant power grab that strips Ocean City and other local communities of New Jersey’s longstanding tradition of home rule. “Essentially, they’ve taken our right to home rule away from us,” said Councilman Michael DeVlieger, the governing body’s most outspoken critic of the wind farm project. In the latest salvo by Ocean City opposing the wind farm, Council voted 7-0 to approve a resolution that denounces state legislation that would make it easier for the Danish energy company Orsted to build the project off the South Jersey coast.,, “A foreign entity is driving the political machine,” >click to read< 19:34
New Jersey: Local Lawmakers Criticize Legislation to Fast-Track Offshore Wind Farm
“Suddenly, we’ve got a private, foreign company that is determining our position here. For the Legislature and governor to consider taking away home rule is shameful,” Cape May County Board of Commission Director Gerald Thornton said. Thornton and other critics of the wind farm proposed by the Danish energy company Orsted are also troubled by its possible harmful impacts,, Ocean City Council President Bob Barr said the legislation is “eliminating” decades of years of home rule for New Jersey towns in favor of Orsted. “It’s not even an American company”. “This unholy alliance was formed to steal sovereign U.S. territory in our 200-mile exclusive economic zone off our beloved Jersey Shore to build risky, unreliable, unwanted, unnecessary industrial wind farms,” said Tricia Conte, founder of Save Our Shoreline. >click to read< 09:46
N.J. commercial and recreational fishing groups aligning against coming offshore wind farms – ‘This is our farmland’
Capt. Hank Lackner docked a 100-foot trawler in Cape May on a recent day after unloading a catch of squid that might end up as calamari on someone’s plate just about anywhere in the United States. Lackner fears that offshore wind farms coming to the waters off the New Jersey coast in the next few years could threaten his business. Other commercial and recreational anglers, along with the Recreational Fishing Alliance, a political action organization, share his concerns. Jim Donofrio, founder of the RFA, and one of the most outspoken critics of offshore wind, says the industry creates too many issues for fishing that haven’t been fully addressed. “We want them gone,” Donofrio said. >click to read< 07:55
Offshore wind farms will damage New Jersey’s economies and ruin it’s ocean views
The hundreds of wind turbines due to be built up to 20 miles off New Jersey in the next five years or so will spoil ocean views, undermine local economies and hurt wildlife while boosting the profits of overseas developers, critics say. These opponents reject claims by wind farm builders and their enthusiastic supporters, including Gov. Phil Murphy, that the clusters of turbines are emissions-free. The manufacture and maintenance of the massive steel structures will require huge amounts of fossil fuel-powered energy,,, Jim Donofrio, executive director of the nonprofit Recreational Fishing Alliance, rejected Murphy’s argument that offshore wind is good for the environment, the economy and the future. >click to read< 08:33
Coronavirus relief: N.J.’s sinking fishing industry nabs $11M life raft from state
Nearly a year after being approved by federal lawmakers, financial relief is being handed out to New Jersey’s battered fishing industry. Gov. Phil Murphy and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced Friday that $11.3 million in grants are being distributed to Garden State fishermen, and the businesses that support them. The relief money was part of the $2 trillion CARES Act which was passed by Congress and signed by former President Donald Trump in March. >click to read< 09:47
N.J. just gave the green light to build the nation’s largest offshore wind farm
The nation’s largest offshore wind farm is one step closer to reality off the Jersey Shore. On Friday, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities granted the state’s first award for offshore wind to the Danish energy company Ørsted and Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) for the proposed 1,100-megawatt Ocean Wind project. Gov. Phil Murphy declared this will “revolutionize” the offshore wind industry along the East Coast. >click to read< 11:32
It’s Raining Ratepayer Money! Wind Goes A’Wooing in $70 Billion Race for Offshore U.S. Market
Want to spruce up your downtown, or maybe get $10 million to support workforce training at the local college? How about investments to help rebuild aging ports and establish trust funds for your fisherman? A U.S. unit of Denmark’s Orsted A/S is now dangling all of those perks in its push to be an early developer of offshore wind in a potential $70 billion East Coast market. The target of the largesse: Community groups with political muscle, the ability to shape public sentiment and access to lawyers. “We’re over the moon,” said Michael Passero, the mayor of New London, Connecticut. The package drawing Passero’s raves: $93 million to upgrade the State Pier in New London,,, >click to read<13:12 Cape Cod Community College, Vinyard Wind partner to offer ‘Offshore Wind 101: Energy, Climate and Jobs – >click to read<14:35
New Jersey: Offshore-wind developers and officials won’t reveal key details of proposals
There’s a lot at stake for utility customers who may end up subsidizing projects to the tune of billions of dollars. Three developers are vying to build offshore-wind farms aimed at achieving the Murphy administration’s goal of building 1,100 megawatts of capacity off the Jersey coast in a process that is emerging as increasingly opaque. Details of the projects, to be subsidized by potentially billions of dollars from electric customers in New Jersey, were not forthcoming from either the state Board of Public Utilities nor the developers. The lack of transparency about the offshore-wind projects is not a new development. >click to read< 14:22
Offshore wind energy: fishermen ask for relief
Offshore windmills may be the future of energy here, but they’re presently a source of agitation to commercial fishermen. A vocal group of them, who aren’t necessarily opposed to windmills but just the placement of them on or near fishing grounds, which if you ask them is anywhere the water is salt, gave the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management their two cents at a public meeting Thursday. “All of these areas are prime scallop grounds. We’re not going to take any of this lying down,” said Arthur Osche, a member of the Point Pleasant Fishermen’s Dock Co-operative. Osche was referring to fishing grounds in Hudson North and Hudson South, two designated wind farm lease sites that start about 17 miles east of the coastline here. Fellow co-operative dock member Jim Lovgren said if their access to the grounds is restricted then they should be paid for the economic loss. “Mark off the area and then compensate us,” said Lovgren. >click to read<
New law ‘turns on the spigot’ at old plant that treats wastewater on Delaware River
A South Jersey company could soon again be processing millions of gallons of hazardous wastewater and dumping the residue into the Delaware River thanks to a bill signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy. The measure updates the definition of what an existing hazardous waste facility is under state law, basically grandfathering in Chemours’ wastewater treatment plant in Carneys Point, enabling it to possibly resume again accepting outside waste to treat. During the multi-step process, solids are removed and the cleaned water is dumped into the nearby Delaware River. >click to read<08:58
Wind Turbine Development and the future of fishing? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet USA
Let’s start with commercial fishing perspectives on wind farms in the North Sea: Seventeen fishing vessels docked in the centre of Amsterdam, a city that built its wealth and prosperity on the herring fishery. Between 600 and 700 fishermen from Holland and Belgium arrived in the city for a peaceful but highly visible protest that was followed by dozens of journalists.,,, In spite of the fact that in the U.S. our experience with producing electricity with offshore wind turbines is virtually nonexistent, we are apparently well on the way to committing billions of dollars to the effort – and most of that effort is going to be in the waters off New England and the mid-Atlantic. How much experience do we have with offshore wind turbines in the United States? >click to read<12:23
Public comments of residents and officials reiterate concerns about Ocean Wind offshore wind farm off Atlantic City
Rick Robinson likens the idea of building up to 98 wind turbines on the ocean horizon to placing them on the rim of the Grand Canyon.,,, Saying offshore wind farms will “forever reshape our Eastern Seaboard,” U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd, joined representatives of the fishing industry and tourism interests in asking for changes in the way wind farms are approved. “I have spoken with many fishermen, and they continue to feel disenfranchised in this process by both their government and the corporations that now own their established fishing grounds,” >click to read< 11:26
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