IN-DEPTH: New Jersey Residents Push Back Against Offshore Wind Farm

Whale deaths, visibility, and costs associated with the project worry New Jerseyans

Republican Congressmen Jeff van Drew and Christopher Smith of New Jersey convened a March 16 hearing on the impact of offshore wind farms on marine life, the environment, and the economy.

Bob Stern of Long Beach Island, New Jersey, is no absolutist on wind energy.

He told The Epoch Times that his organization, Save Long Beach Island, is “not necessarily opposed to all offshore wind development.”

Yet, like many others who live and work near the Garden State’s scenic bays, beaches, spits, and sounds, Mr. Stern fears large-scale offshore wind farms are coming too quickly and without enough scrutiny.

Who and what stands to lose?

The body of a humpback whale lies on a beach in Brigantine, N.J., after it washed ashore on Jan. 13, 2023. Wayne Parry/AP Photo

Everything and everyone from endangered North Atlantic right whales, to the tourism-dependent local economy, to New Jersey ratepayers—according to Mr. Stern and others who spoke with The Epoch Times.

“We’re conducting a very dangerous experiment here. We’re a coastal ecosystem, and we may regret this five or 10 years from now,” Mr. Stern said in a July 18 interview.

He certainly seems to know whereof he speaks. The trained engineer formerly led the Office of Environmental Compliance in the U.S. Department of Energy.

“I think I have some skill in figuring out when I’m seeing a good, full, objective presentation of environmental impacts and when I’m not,” he said.

He doesn’t believe the federal government is doing enough to scrutinize projects such as Atlantic Shores, a development that could see 200 wind turbines, some more than 1,000 feet high, sited as close as roughly nine miles from New Jersey’s shoreline.

In late June, his organization responded to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s draft environmental impact statement on Atlantic Shores.

They called the Ocean Wind proposal “extreme and unreasonable.”

Mr. Stern explained some of his core objections to The Epoch Times.

He thinks the statement underestimates the turbines’ visibility from shore. He also believes it understates the risk to right whales and other marine mammals.

According to his organization’s estimates, even after the noise surveying and construction phases, the turbines’ sound may impinge on a migration corridor for the endangered species.

“We can’t figure out how the whales are going to migrate past this noise,” he said.

A troubling surge in whale and dolphin deaths along the New Jersey coast has already accompanied offshore wind development, which involves using of sonar known to harm whales and other marine mammals.

The trend helped trigger an ongoing investigation by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Wind turbines in the Baltic Sea offshore wind farm on April 29, 2011, near Zingst, Germany. Joern Pollex/Getty Images

Stefan Gsanger, secretary general of the Germany-based World Wind Energy Association, defended the ecological impact of offshore wind, saying turbine construction was more hazardous to whale populations than turbine operation.

“After the construction phase is over, areas with offshore wind farms show even higher biodiversity because such turbines offer shelter for certain species,” he wrote to The Epoch Times in a July 19 email.

Lisa Linowes, director of the WindAction Group, voiced skepticism about the biodiversity benefits Mr. Gsanger ascribed to those installations.

“Those fish that are typically going to move in because of the change in habitat are invasive,” she told The Epoch Times in a July 19 interview.

While Mr. Stern and others in New Jersey are concerned about the visibility of wind farms from their oceanfront communities, Mr. Gsanger offered a different perspective on the aesthetic impact of large-scale wind farms.

“Whether you attribute beauty to something really depends on your attitude, in the sense of understanding what the benefits of wind turbines are.

“Many people love wind turbines. At the end of the day, wind turbines help to [stabilize] economies, secure income and wealth, and thus they may even become a precondition for people to afford houses,” the wind industry advocate wrote.

“The issue that the wind industry has never been able to get around is the highly impacting visual effect of those turbines,” said wind skeptic Ms. Linowes.

Foreign Firms Meet Tax Credits

Mr. Stern isn’t alone among his neighbors in objecting to offshore installations, set to blossom like megalithic, artificial stands of clover across the Eastern seaboard.

Many worry Atlantic Shores and similar wind farms will cut into local property values. In addition to altering the landscape, they may dent tourism and fishing.

In Long Beach Island alone, a June survey of local taxpayer associations showed broad opposition to the Atlantic Shores plan.

Save Long Beach Island has a Facebook group with hundreds of members—one of many to have emerged in opposition to offshore wind in the state.

Others target the Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 projects, which are being led by a U.S. affiliate of a Danish energy company, Orsted.

Atlantic Shores, meanwhile, is a joint venture between a U.S. LLC of the British energy firm Shell and a subsidiary of EDF Renewables North America, itself a subsidiary of France’s state-owned EDF.

The logo of EDF on the headquarters building in Paris, on Feb. 15, 2019. Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images

For those who have followed the Biden administration’s suspension of tariffs on some Chinese-sourced solar panels, the involvement of foreign interests in American renewables is a familiar story.

“We’re at a point where we’re really turning our energy over to other countries,” said Rep. Jeff van Drew (R-N.J.), who represents much of coastal South Jersey, in a July 21 interview with The Epoch Times.

Mr. Van Drew is a former Blue Dog Democrat.

He explained that climate and energy issues, like the push for offshore wind affecting many of his constituents, were far from the only things motivating him to walk away from the party.

“As time went along, it became more and more apparent that you couldn’t have your own ideas. The party became much more Left,” he said.

Just weeks ago, New Jersey’s Democrat governor, Phil Murphy, approved a tax break for Ocean Wind 1.

“We know war in Europe, inflation, supply chain—these projects have gotten a lot more expensive, and we’re not the only place that’s dealing with that. Either we get this bill done and the industry thrives here, and the jobs that are associated with it, or it goes somewhere else,” Mr. Murphy said at the time.

Orsted could benefit to the tune of $1 billion, according to Republican state senator Edward Durr.

A June 26 letter from the state’s Division of Rate Counsel, an independent advocate for utility consumers, had urged a Senate committee not to advance the bill.

“Statements claiming that this bill will not cost ratepayers additional costs are inaccurate,” wrote the division’s director, Brian Lipman.

The bill, signed one day after Ocean Wind 1 cleared a key federal hurdle to start construction, means the firm will gain from federal tax credits made available by last year’s Schumer-Manchin bill, sometimes known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

The state’s ratepayers would have otherwise benefited from them.

The people behind Atlantic Shores want a similar deal.

Ms. Linowes said Orsted’s project was “probably totally viable” before the state government agreed to award them the tax credits.

“What they’re upset about is that their investors and stakeholders are not going to walk away with the level rate of return that they were expecting because of inflation and other issues,” she said.

By June 2019, when the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved Ocean Wind 1, the federal investment tax credit for wind had phased down from 30 percent. The Schumer-Manchin bill raised that credit back up to 30 percent.

Orsted didn’t want to leave that money on the table—and lawmakers obliged.

“I’ve seen the New Jersey legislature, quite frankly, do some pretty bad stuff. But this is unbelievable,” Mr. Van Drew said.

“They literally said, ‘You know what, we really are greedy pigs. We’re going to take that away from the taxpayer,’” he added.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy greets supporters during an election night party in Asbury Park, N.J., on Nov. 3, 2021. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP Photo

When asked about the wind industry’s requests for taxpayer money in New Jersey, Mr. Gsanger didn’t comment on the specifics in that state.

He instead made the case that wind and other renewables are economically stabilizing, particularly in light of the Russia-Ukraine war’s impact on global fossil fuel prices.

“The higher the share of renewables, the more stable the economy will be. Of course, this is also a matter of the market rules which are in place—if they are smart, the price advantage of renewables will reach consumers,” he wrote.

Optimism on Federal Watchdog

Mr. Van Drew, one of the advocates of a GAO investigation into offshore wind, said the independent watchdog had been responsive to his concerns, ranging from the effect on whales to the likely economic toll for beachside towns set to face a long, distant row of turbines.

He and others also worry the installations could interfere with military radar, jeopardizing the United States national defense.

“I had a very thorough conference call with them [the GAO], and they had all their main people on,” he said.

“I have confidence that they’re going to really dig into this,” he added.

Giant wind turbines are powered by strong winds in front of solar panels in Palm Springs, Calif., on March 27, 2013. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

He doesn’t want the projects to move forward until the GAO releases its report, saying the appropriations process would provide leverage on that matter. He declined to share more details.

“I don’t want to jump the gun and say something that’s not 100 percent accurate but believe me, something’s going to happen,” he said.

Mr. Van Drew predicted litigation from fishermen, local communities, and other interest groups will “hold things up, thank God, for a while.”

Mr. Stern’s Save Long Beach Beach Island is also poised to fight Atlantic Shores through the courts.

“I would expect they'll be approving the project in about maybe five months, at which time we will probably file a number of lawsuits,” the Department of Energy veteran told The Epoch Times.

For some wind industry advocates, opposition to wind power—even on a case-by-case basis—apparently equates to opposition to both technological and moral progress.

“If we want to build an energy system that will serve [our] children and grandchildren, the choice is clear. We have also never heard about a war for sunlight or wind,” Mr. Gsanger wrote.

Skeptics have a different view of the saga now unfolding off the coast of the Garden State.

“The people of New Jersey are right to be fighting back and, at this point, they have leverage,” Ms. Linowes said.