U.S. fishermen are pushing back against plans to construct offshore wind farms along the East Coast, claiming the large clusters of turbines affect navigation, regulation and fish behavior, The Associated Press reports.
“You ever see a radar picture of a wind farm? It’s just one big blob, basically,” Massachusetts fisherman Eric Hansen told the AP. “Transit through it will be next to impossible, especially in heavy wind and fog.”
Proposals for offshore wind farms never amounted to more than ideas before the first U.S. wind farm was constructed off the coast of Rhode Island in the fall of 2016. It was made up of five turbines. The push for wind energy overcame the high cost and regulatory hurdles that had saddled development, The New York Times reported.
Now, as new proposals stack up, East Coast fishermen fear what the encroaching turbines will mean for the future of the fishing industry. A trade group has sued the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to stop a 200-turbine wind farm from being built off New York’s Long Island.
“Fishermen are losing ground one a nibble at a time,” Connecticut fisherman Joseph Gilbert, who’s boats work an area from Virginia to Maine. “Eventually, it adds up to a very large piece of the pie.”
Wind farm advocates say the fishermen have more to gain from the energy produced by the new wind farms than what is lost through the new development and activity. They point to studies of Europe’s and Rhode Island’s wind farms to say fishermen are exaggerating the effects.
New Bedford, Mass., port executive director Edward Anthes-Washburn says the wind farms will create more jobs and opportunities for fishermen, like support the construction of a new shipyard.
“There’s a lot more in common between these industries than pulling them apart,” Anthes-Washburn told the AP.
Read more at Daily Caller
Wind turbines are like claim stakes pound in the ground by enviro’s. They are very much ” in your face “.
Many of these people are already being given the bums rush thanks to Obama’s Ocean Policy, and its Pew Charitable Trust architects. There are reports in the press of Deepwater Wind paying compensation for disruptions in fishing operations, including damages, but the first claimant has gotten the cold shoulder of denial. Its starts with this, then ocean fish farm feed lots, ocean mining for rare earth minerals, oil and gas rigs, and every Rube Goldberg idea the popular mechanics crowd can figure out what the next big ocean thing. A lot of this controlled by NOAA. If you doubt NOAA data in climate stuff, you must understand they control the fishery science too, and its not always pretty.
Wind Energy Is Not Enviromentaly Friendly its hazerdous for Birds,Bats,Whales,Neighborhoods and Fishermen so do the Greens still support them the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds do and probibly so dose Greenpeace