September 10, 2023 — Rhode Island fishermen are sounding the alarm about offshore wind farms. Last week, the nine-member Fisherman’s Advisory Board to the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) resigned in protest of the council’s offshore wind approval process.
Members of the now-defunct board claim the CRMC has abandoned the state’s Ocean Special Area Management Plan and sidelined the fishing industry in its race to meet renewable energy procurement goals with rapid and massive industrial-scale offshore wind development.
Lanney Dellinger, a crab and lobster fisherman out of Newport and the chairman of the Fisherman’s Advisory Board, provided an overview of the motivation behind the mass resignation to Newport This Week on Sept. 2, detailing a multitude of complaints from recreational and commercial fishing interests.
The complaints fell into two main categories: the board’s conclusion that the fishing communities and industries they represent have been sidelined and ignored despite their specified role in the state’s Ocean Special Area Management Plan to the point that there is no longer any point in participating in the process; and fears of what some fishermen are describing as nearly apocalyptic outcomes for New England’s fisheries if the Vineyard Wind, South Fork Wind, Sunrise Wind and future offshore leases are constructed on Coxes Ledge (an offshore fishing ground about 20 miles south of Pt. Judith) and other special habitat areas off the Rhode Island coastline.