An independent congressional watchdog organization has agreed to a congressman’s request for an investigation into the impact of offshore wind development in New Jersey amid a surge in marine wildlife deaths.
Rep. Chris Smith issued statement on June 15 that the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—a nonpartisan agency that conducts investigations for Congress—will be examining how the construction of coastal wind turbines is affecting the environment and the fishing industry, as well as military operations and navigational safety.
“This aggressive, independent investigation into the ocean-altering impacts of the 3,400 offshore wind turbines slated for the Jersey Shore will help address the wide-ranging questions and concerns that the Biden Administration and Governor Murphy continue to dismiss as they plow full steam ahead with this unprecedented offshore wind industrialization of our shore,” Smith said. “It is absolutely critical that New Jersey residents understand all the impacts of these offshore wind projects ... before it’s too late.”
“The North Atlantic Planning Area, which encompasses the waters off the eastern coast of the United States, has seen significant activity related to offshore wind energy development in recent years and several offshore wind projects are currently underway in this area,” the letter states.
Smith also introduced an amendment to legislation titled the Lower Energy Costs Act that requested a study to investigate growing concerns, among those concerns being dead whales washing onto the shore.
“Like canaries in coal mines, the recent spate of tragic whale and dolphin deaths and a well-founded suspicion that geophysical surveys including the use of sonar may be a contributing cause, has brought new light and increased scrutiny to the fast-tracking of approximately 3,400 offshore wind turbines covering 2.4 million acres by 2030—more after that by 2040—all embedded into the ocean floor by pile drivers in the North Atlantic Planning Area that includes New Jersey’s coast,” Smith said on the House floor in March.
Absence of Environmental Advocacy Organizations
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), since December, 39 whales and 37 dolphins have washed up on beaches along the East Coast.“I always thought that those groups were there to protect the whales and create bumper stickers that say, ‘Save the Whales,’ and I think that they’re being completely intellectually disingenuous here,” Testa said. “We know that if this were an exploration for offshore oil drilling that if one whale carcass were to wash up on one of New Jersey’s shores, they would be surrounding that carcass, holding hands with tears streaming down their face singing ‘kumbaya.’”
According to Testa, these organizations argue that climate change, not the wind industry, is causing the record number of whale and dolphin deaths.
“If you ever question their green energy agenda, you’re labeled a science denier, a climate change denier, and it just shows how despicable they really can be,” Testa said.
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Interior announced that the Biden administration opened up the U.S. coastline to the offshore wind industry to come in and start building.
According to Secretary of Interior Deb Haalland, the goal is to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.
“The Interior Department is laying out an ambitious roadmap as we advance the Administration’s plans to confront climate change, create good-paying jobs, and accelerate the nation’s transition to a cleaner energy future,” Haaland said in a statement. “This timetable provides two crucial ingredients for success: increased certainty and transparency. Together, we will meet our clean energy goals while addressing the needs of other ocean users and potentially impacted communities. We have big goals to achieve a clean energy economy and Interior is meeting the moment.”
Arlo Hemphill, Greenpeace’s senior oceans campaigner, told The Epoch Times there is no evidence linking offshore wind to whale deaths.
“The manufactured hysteria is the result of fake news promoted by politicians, big oil, and their cronies to save the oil and gas industry, which is fueling the climate crisis, destroying biodiversity, harming people’s health, and hastening social injustice,” he said.
Instead, Hemphill said NOAA has attributed the cause of whale strandings to human interaction as the primary cause of death, which includes “ship-strike injuries, entanglement in fishing nets, and ingestion of marine plastic pollution.”
“We must not allow baseless accusations to stall the transition to green, renewable energy or address the true threats to whale populations,” Hemphill said.
‘A Deaf Whale Is a Dead Whale’
Meghan Lapp, a commercial fisherman in Rhode Island who also works in fishery management, told Fox News that whale deaths caused by wind turbines aren’t unprecedented.“In the UK at the height of their offshore wind activity in 2018, one thousand whales died and washed up dead on UK beaches, and when people started to make the connection between offshore wind and dead whales, the government and the media and the offshore wind industry quashed it and people began to think, ‘Well, this is just normal,’” Lapp said. “It is not normal.”
In 2019, environmental groups in Taiwan began protesting the wind industry because whales were reported to be swimming in circles before washing on shore, where they were found to be deaf, which Lapp said isn’t being investigated as it should be, because “a deaf whale is a dead whale.”
Lapp said that it’s the geotechnical surveying of the ocean floor that is emitting “intense sound” at the floor of the ocean which is disorientating whales.
‘This Is Alarming’
Clean Ocean Action (COA) issued a petition on June 15 demanding that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management extend the public review and comment period for two offshore wind projects from 45 days to six months.“These projects will have serious consequences for the public use and enjoyment of the ocean, as well as significant consequences to marine life,” COA said. “Ample time is needed to carefully and comprehensively review these projects. People who will be impacted most directly by these projects earn their living along the shore during the summer season.”
At a press conference on Funtown Beach in Seaside Park, New Jersey, Kari Martin, an advocacy campaign manager with COA, said that given the unprecedented death of whales and industrial activity in the ocean, it’s baffling that there’s no investigation or transparency.
“Our federal agencies so boldly and confidently contend that offshore wind energy—one of the activities happening offshore now—has nothing to do with the deaths of these marine mammals,” Martin said. “They provided no evidence.”
Despite federal agencies’ claims, Martin said the same agencies have admitted that noise is a major factor contributing to marine mammal harm.
“This is alarming, as the impacts on marine life from noise are only going to grow and intensify with an increased amount of activity related to offshore wind activities as well as other threats,” Martin said.
