By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY — Tony Butch is a recreational fishermen. He said the data and studies don’t confirm that wind farms proposed off the coast are safe for the fisheries.
Butch, of Evesham in Burlington County, loves to ply the waters off the southern New Jersey coast. He keeps his boat in Great Bay and takes it out to the ocean through Little Egg Inlet, which is between southern Long Beach Island and northern Brigantine.
That also is the heart of where two wind farms are proposed – Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, in a plot north of Atlantic City to LBI, and Ocean Wind, from Atlantic City south to Stone Harbor.
Butch, as a member of Save Our Shoreline NJ (saveourshorelinenj.com), is concerned about many facets of what he and other group members believe are the detrimental impacts of electricity-generating wind farms in the ocean. The group is dedicated to stopping the wind farms.
As a fisherman, he said in an interview last week, his prime concern is the ocean and sustainability of the fisheries.
Butch points out the plots proposed for the wind farms take in an area the size of Los Angeles or nearly twice the size of New York City’s five boroughs – some 537 square miles. The projects proposed so far include up to 99 turbines at Ocean Wind’s first phase and an undetermined number at Atlantic Shores believed to be around 100, also in a first phase.
The wind farms would be located in the Mid-Atlantic Bight Cold Pool, a unique body of water in the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast that is home to multiple species of fish. He explains the cold pool has different water temperatures that vary according to the depth. As an example, he said while fishing in August, he could be reading surface temperatures of 74 degrees, but at the bottom, the water is much cooler, perhaps in the high 50s or low 60s, “depending on where the cold pool is shifting.”
Butch said it is one of the only areas in the world where a fisherman can catch mahi and then drop to the bottom and catch cod at the same time. “It’s a unique body of water.”
He said when wind farm companies and “pro-wind folks” say those farms don’t impact fishing, “they don’t have the same type of cold pool there.”
That is because the studies have been done in European waters where there are cold pools, but they are not the same as the Mid-Atlantic Bight Cold Pool off the Jersey coast.
“There isn’t enough scientific study on that, particularly in our waters, to say this won’t be a thing,” Butch said. He cited a Rutgers University paper reviewing research on cold pools that concludes there isn’t enough data to determine the impact of wind farms. (There is a link to the Rutgers study on the group’s website.)
He explains cold pools have a great impact of different fish species, from migration to feeding to spawning. He said fish can migrate from a hundred miles out in the canyons to the back bays behind the barrier islands. Fishermen follow that month by month to determine where the fish they are targeting should be.
“When you mess with those cold pools, it changes the temperature, it changes the migration pattern, breeding patterns, feeding patterns,” Butch said.
He compared the potential impact of wind turbines artificially doing what can happen naturally after big storms. Fishermen talk about upwelling after big storms as reasons for why fish aren’t biting. Upwelling, he said, is another term for disruption of the cold pool.
Butch said between the wind turbines themselves and hundreds of bases for the turbines – monopods 36 feet wide – there will be disruption of tidal flow and currents. “You’ll mix up and stir up the water there,” he said.
He acknowledges that commercial fishermen will have their own issues with the loss of fishing grounds. Although they and recreational fishermen can be at odds over their different quotas, “at the end of the day, we’re all in it for the sustainability of the fishery.”
He said Ørsted is telling recreational fishermen they can fish in there and U.S. Coast Guard hasn’t said fishermen can’t be there, “but we’re taking that with a grain of salt.” He said places in Europe with wind farms have restrictions blocking fishing within 50 meters of the base of turbines. The only reason to fish near a turbine is to get close to it because fish would be near the base where habitats would be created. “Fifty meters defeats the purpose,” he said.
He said there are plenty of articles about navigation hazards. Turbines aren’t always picked up properly on radar. He said there will be lights on them to make sure boaters and planes are able to see them. Butch has looked at pictures of the wind farms in Europe. With all the lights, he said, “it looks like you’re in a disco.”
Overall, he said, “There just aren’t enough answers to the questions we have. The sad part is it seems to be being fast-tracked. They say it’s not, that it’s years long, but at the end of the day, they’re putting the carriage in front of the horse.”
As evidence of that, he points to Gov. Phil Murphy touting the state investing $250 million in a state-of-the-art facility to produce components for wind turbines at the Paulsboro Marine Terminal. It was supposed to break ground in January with production to begin in 2023. The Ocean Wind farm hasn’t finished approvals yet.
“The state is dedicating $250 million for a project on the banks of the Delaware River before the scientific studies have been done,” he said. Ørsted is still waiting for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to issue a notice of intent and once that is released Ørsted will have 27 months to go through the scientific studies to prove the scientific benefits of the wind farm.
That is frustrating to average people, he said, including the recreational fishermen who enjoy the ocean resources for pleasure and for commercial fishermen who rely on them for their livelihoods.
He’s also worried about the electromagnetic fields (EMF) from the turbines and the underwater cables. He said studies show EMF will affect the movement of fish, another disruption of the fisheries.
Hazards of construction
Butch also points to the damage and disruption caused by the construction of the wind farms, which if done efficiently propose to each be done in two years —Ocean Wind by 2024 and Atlantic Shores by 2027 – but could take much longer, meaning loss of that area for far more than four years.
He believes, just as Ørsted is applying to build a second site south of where Ocean Wind is proposed, that Atlantic Shores is going to consider doing the same thing. He predicts perhaps 400 or more turbines being built. “That would be eight years of construction. What am I going to do for eight years while this is being built?”
The 36-foot-wide monopods would be driven 150 feet into the sand. Ørsted is saying sound can travel underwater for 40,000 feet, which is seven and a half miles, Butch said, countering that he has seen reports it can carry for 12 miles.
He said the company would use a “bubble curtain” around the pile driving to stop the sound from traveling, but he doesn’t see that working.
Butch and other group members believe those sounds not only will drive dolphins and whales away, they could also damage their hearing, leading to the deaths of those creatures, including entire pods.
He encourages people who are worried about the potential impacts of the wind farm to go to the group’s website and to click on the links for the studies and research that support their position.