July 18, 2018 — Federal officials in charge of leasing ocean bottom land to offshore wind farm companies got an earful at a meeting with commercial fishermen Wednesday — and much of it was R-rated.
There isn’t merely significant opposition to offshore wind farms; there is 100-percent agreement among the fishermen that the wind turbines will eventually put them out of business.
The anger is palpable, and representatives from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management took the brunt of it, enduring a tirade of complaints. “This is how we talk on the docks,” one salty speaker exclaimed.
At issue is a federal directive — fueled in part, some say, by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo — to award leases for two more tracts of ocean bottomland that will eventually be home for wind farms. So far, 13 leases have been awarded to developers.
Brian Hooker, a fisheries biologist, David Nguyen, a project coordinator, and Isis Johnson, an environmental protection specialist, tried for close to four hours to get through a prepared program. They are charged with choosing two locations from within four giant swatches of ocean bottom off the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey. The fishing industry reps don’t think there should be any offshore turbines, period.