By JACK FICHTER/Sentinel staff
CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE — A quiet protest took place April 27 outside the County Administration Building against a project that would erect as many as 99 wind turbines 15 miles off the coast to generate electricity.
Several dozen participants held signs with messages against the project. The only speaker at the event was County Commission Director Gerald Thornton, who said he opposes the wind project.
Earlier during a caucus meeting, representatives of the fishing community — including Greg DiDomenico and Jeff Kaelin of Lund’s Fisheries, Annie Hawkins of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance and Scot Mackey of the Garden State Seafood Association — spoke to county commissioners.
The members unanimously passed a resolution opposing Ørsted’s offshore wind project, Ocean Wind. Thornton said he personally wrote a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management opposing the project.
“This is a nightmare, and I can tell you it’s an uphill battle because the feds and the state are for it,” he said.
Thornton said in order for electricity from the wind turbines to get to shore, a 15-mile-long trench must be dug 18 feet deep and 12 feet wide. He asked what impact that would have.
“Another fallacy, I can’t find out that it is going to generate a lot of jobs for Cape May County,” Thornton said.
He said wind-produced electricity is the costliest and residents would pay the price.
Thornton said he spoke with U.S, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd), who promised to reach out to Atlantic and Ocean counties “and get everybody on board.”
“It’s a David and Goliath story, because we’re in south Jersey, where there aren’t many votes, and the people in north Jersey and New York state don’t want this. So they came down to south Jersey, where they figure there’s not many people who will protest it because they did,” Ocean City resident Martha Oldach said.
“My grandchildren will never see the ocean without windmills on it in their lifetime,” Oldach said.
She said she had concerns for migrating birds since each wind turbine tower would have a light.
Organizer of the event, Tricia Conte, of Save Our Shoreline, said her hope was that all the county commissioners agreed with Thornton and would oppose offshore wind farms. Conte was wearing a “save our whales” T-shirt.
“I didn’t realize how important whales were to the ecosystem of the ocean until I did more research about it; they are incredibly vital,” she said.
Conte said only 360 Atlantic right whales remain in existence, adding that they visit the New Jersey shore frequently. Another of her concerns was the fate of fluke.
She said a fish similar to fluke in the United Kingdom won’t cross the electromagnetic fields generated by wind turbines. Conte said fluke is important to commercial and recreational fishing in this area.
In other countries and in California, electricity prices have gone up between 25 percent and 100 percent because of wind turbine energy, she said.
“It’s shocking how many people have no idea this major project is even happening,” Joe Conte said.
One protester said placing wind turbines offshore that would be visible from beaches should have been put before voters as a ballot question.
Cape May Court House resident Lee Evans said she retired to the area and is upset at the “industrialization of our oceans.”
Jeff Reichle, chairman of Lund’s Fisheries, said the fishing industry was not made part of the planning process for the proposed project.
“The government leased all these wind areas out and never came to talk to us about where we’re fishing and what we’re doing, if it’s an issue, if it’s not an issue,” he said. “We’ve been kind of a second thought in the whole process.”
Reichle said the local fishing industry is hundreds of years old and has been a vital part of the shore community.
“We shouldn’t even be talking about this until we do the research, and the whole process is backwards. They leased everything out and now they’re going to try to do research, which makes no sense whatsoever,” he said.
A question remains what effect wind turbines in the ocean would have on marine mammal migration.
“If there is a negative impact on marine mammals, that’s going to come out of our hide because that is going to put more pressure on our fisheries,” Reichle said.