April 8, 2023 –Rich Baehrle, resplendent in a red, white and blue American flag button-down shirt, sported a black baseball cap emblazoned with the defiant Revolutionary War dictum: “Don’t tread on me.”
As he stood before a large crowd at the Ocean City Tabernacle, the real estate broker from Northfield poured out his grievances, delivered in a rapid, brusque manner through a thick Southern accent.
“I am against it! I’m not calling for a moratorium,” he thundered in the church building as if raging against sin, raising his hands while drawing loud applause. “It’s our coast! It’s our New Jersey! And we need to stop it now!”
It was not a religious service. Baehrle was railing at the wind.
It was not just about ruining their ocean views. Some in the hall theorized the offshore platforms would haphazardly set off pacemakers. Others believed it was a national security risk, would brainwash children into the fruits of green energy, incur millions in future decommissioning costs and single-handedly dismantle local tourism. One speaker asserted, without substantiation, that the electricity from the wind turbines would all go to New York.
Further enflaming it all were the whales.
At least 31 whales and 25 dolphins have floated ashore up and down the East Coast since December and have become part of the fight, despite evidence that many of the marine mammals were most likely hit-and-run victims of increasingly larger cargo ships. And despite there being no wind farms in the ocean off the coast of Jersey just yet. In fact, there are only 7 wind turbines along the entire Eastern seaboard right now, off the coast of Block Island in Rhode Island and Virginia.\