December 4, 2017 — Fishermen are worried about an offshore wind farm proposed 30 miles out in the Atlantic from Montauk, N.Y., the largest fishing port in the state. They say those wind turbines — and many others that have been proposed — will impact the livelihood of fishermen in New York and New England.
Scallop fisherman Chris Scola fishes in an area 14 miles off of Montauk. He and his two-man crew spend 2 ½ hours motoring there, then 10 more dredging the sea floor for scallops before heading back to port.
“We have this little patch that’s sustained by myself and a few other boats out of Montauk, and a couple of guys from Connecticut also fish down here,” Scola says.
Scola — like many fishermen — is concerned about state and federal regulations. But his big concern is the prospect of hundreds, and perhaps even thousands, of giant wind turbines spread out in the New York Bight, an area along the Atlantic Coast that extends from southern New Jersey to Montauk Point. It’s one of the most productive fishing grounds on the Eastern Seaboard.
“To me, building wind farms here, it’s like building them on the cornfields or the soy fields in the Midwest,” he says.
Scola belongs to the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, which is run by Bonnie Brady, the wife of a longtime Montauk fisherman. She’s an outspoken critic of the wind farms.