March 23, 2021 — The seabed survey for a cable that would connect the planned offshore wind turbine near Monhegan Island to the mainland was disrupted Monday morning by three fishing boats that circled the survey vessel, according to New England Aqua Ventus, the project’s developer.
The action led the crew of the 144-foot R/V Go Liberty to suspend operations for an unspecified period, New England Aqua Ventus said.
“It was creating an unsafe situation until it’s resolved,” Dave Wilby, a project spokesman, told the Portland Press Herald.
The incident follows a protest Sunday by more than 80 lobster boats that lined up between Monhegan and Boothbay Harbor to call attention to their concerns about potential wind power development off the Maine coast.
Lobstermen fear that the ongoing survey project and the test turbine that would follow it will disrupt fisheries and undermine a traditional industry that is a vital economic engine for coastal Maine. But the project also is critical to Maine’s ambitions of jump-starting a new clean-energy sector.
After years of planning, a collaboration between the University of Maine and New England Aqua Ventus would link a turbine south of Monhegan to the mainland power grid in South Boothbay via a 23-mile underwater cable. The 12-megawatt test turbine would be the first commercial-scale project in the nation and help demonstrate the viability of floating offshore wind energy.