Multiple fishermen expressed concern to a congressional subcommittee on 16 September that a slate of planned offshore wind installations could have drastic impacts to the seafood industry on the East Coast of the U.S.
It isn’t the first time that fishermen on the East Coast have sounded the alarm about offshore wind installations. A lobbying group, called the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), formed specifically to fight against what it saw as a lack of input by the fisheries industry.
“The current, splintered approaches to engaging fishing communities in the offshore wind leasing process are ineffective and inefficient, and the result is that critical fishing industry expertise is not being considered,” Anne Hawkins, who is the group’s legal and scientific counsel, said in a statement last June. “Fisheries need a unified effort to ensure they get the best possible offshore outcomes.”
At the subcommittee hearing, fishermen got a chance to speak out, expressing their concern about the locations of planned wind projects along parts of the East Coast and the potential impacts they could have on the fisheries in the area.
“How does offshore wind energy affect the fishing industry?” Capt. Ed Yates, of Barnegat Light, New Jersey, said according to the Associated Press. “The answer we get from the wind operators is ‘We won’t fully understand the impacts until the facilities are already built.’”
In New England, the Vineyard Wind project has seen opposition from a number of fishermen who fear that the tightly-spaced turbines would render the area unusable by fishermen. Another project in New Jersey, proposed by Ørsted, would be the largest in U.S. waters to date and has created similar concerns.
For New England fishermen, at least, ongoing permitting and construction delays have kept the Vineyard Wind project, which would be located off the Massachusetts coast, from moving forward.
“[We] do not envy the challenges this project and its regulators face,” RODA said in August. “However, the decisions made can either be a model for public-private, interagency, and cross-sector coordination, or result in the perpetuation of conflict between fishing communities and developers and – worse – unnecessary damage to hard-working American citizens and our world-class marine resources.”
Photo courtesy of Shuttestock
