Offshore Wind Fight Focuses on Funding Local Opponents / The Sandpaper / April 10, 2024
By Gina G. Scala
A Brown University professor is clapping back against opponents of New Jersey’s offshore wind farm program, saying local groups are not as autonomous as they’d like homeowners to believe.
Timmons Roberts, professor of environmental studies and sociology, said the concept of local groups using talking points and other information from national figures and industry leaders dates back more than a decade.
He called it “sort of like the Ikea of movements.” Local groups are given information they can piece together to fit their needs, he said during a New Jersey Resource Project community forum on offshore wind last month.
Roberts’ comments stem from his discussion of “Against the Wind: A Map of Anti-Offshore Wind Network in the Eastern United States.” He authored the report along with Isaac Slevin and William Kattrup. A disclaimer included in the report notes it is the first phase of research regarding the network of opposition to offshore wind development produced by the Climate and Development Lab at Brown.
“We show how think tanks in the anti-offshore wind movement have received donations from six fossil fuel-interested donors between 2017 and 2021,” according to the report. “Of these donations, $16,278,401 has gone to members of a grassroots-appearing coalition at the center of the movement.”
The report connects 18 local groups and businesses, 14 climate denial think tanks, eight coalitions, 11 other established entities, and 16 key individuals.
“These community groups have made national headlines for their opposition to projects in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Jersey,” the report says. “They appear to be new organizations that operate organically and independently, but they often share legal support, personnel, talking points, and financial resources with major organizations that have been blocking climate policy for the last several decades.”
Responding to a question about data that feed table six in the report, Roberts said most of it was from 2021 and 2022 tax forms. “A lot of these (local) groups were founded in the last year or two … so we don’t really have the data yet.”
Local groups, including Save LBI and its president, Bob Stern, made the list, though Roberts did not mention either by name when he addressed the NJRP forum.
The report links Stern to Save LBI, an organization he help found; Congressmen Jeff Van Drew, whose congressional district includes LBI; and Defend Brigantine Beach, a neighboring organization that shares the same concerns, Stern noted in an April 3 letter to Brown University President Christine H. Paxson.
“This is hardly the stuff of conspiracy. To correct the unfounded accusations in the report by association, I ask that you remove my name and organization from the map on page two of the report, and from any other mentions in the report,” Stern wrote, adding, “We were disappointed that the report was devoid of any substance about the real problems regarding fossil fuel or offshore wind energy use, but rather just descended into character assassination. We felt Against the Wind was beneath an institution like Brown University that should demand research of the highest caliber.”
Of the contributions mentioned in the report, Stern wrote “There is nothing unusual about industries operating in this country supporting organizations or persons that may support its interests. In fact, the wind energy entities have provided far more money to universities, environmental organizations, and other non-governmental entities than the amounts cited. The irony here is that the wind energy entities are often part of larger corporations that still derive most of their revenue from fossil fuel sales. So the contributions to those parties supporting offshore wind energy may ultimately be coming from the fossil fuel industry.”
In his letter, Stern said his organization invites an opportunity to speak with faculty and students regarding their findings on sea level rise and what can be done to mitigate and prepare for it, as well as survey vessels, pile driving, and operational turbine noise impact on marine mammals.
Roberts, also executive director of Climate Social Science Network, refuted claims the increase in whale deaths along the Eastern Seaboard in 2023 was tied to offshore wind activity.
“In fact, there is no scientific evidence about this. The evidence we have for the whales that have been able to be studied is that it’s entanglement with fishing gear and ship strikes. And climate change, that they are moving in places they didn’t before because their food is moving,” he said.
As of Nov. 30 of last year, eight humpback whale deaths were recorded in New Jersey in 2023, data from NOAA Fisheries on the subject shows. Of that number, three of the death locations were recorded as offshore.
“Location represents the nearest state to where the confirmed mortality was first observed and does not necessarily reflect the location of the death of the animal,” according to NOAA. “Floating carcasses may drift across state border lines; therefore, a carcass may be initially sighted or reported nearest one state although the mortality may have occurred elsewhere. Additionally, an animal first observed floating may wash ashore and be examined in a different state.”
NOAA declared an unusual mortality event for humpback whales in 2016. Since then, New Jersey has seen a total of 29 strandings with three in 2016 and 2017; two in 2018; five in 2019; four in 2020 and 2022; none in 2021 and eight in 2023, according to NOAA figures.
From Maine to Florida, a total of 212 have been reported since January 2016. The unusual mortality event for humpback whales was declared in April 2017 but contains strandings dating back to January 2016, when elevated whale strandings were first seen along the Eastern Seaboard, according to information from NOAA Fisheries on the issue. The single most deadly year for humpback whales was last year, when 37 were stranded across the 13 Atlantic coastal states. That’s four more than 2020, which was previously the deadliest year for humpback whales.
Still, since December 2022, 15 whales of varying species have been stranded along the Jersey coast, according to data from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. In the same time period, nearly 50 dolphins and porpoises were also stranded.
NOAA’s Fisheries division issues permits for “incidental harassment” of whales and dolphins when it authorizes seabed surveying using high-intensity noise devices. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, annoyance of a marine mammal is defined as either injury (Level A) or a behavioral disturbance (Level B).
Federal officials have rejected any connection between wind project activity and whale deaths in recent years, saying the sonar equipment used to map the ocean floor in preparation for the project has been used all over the world and “no historical stranding events” have been associated with the use of similar systems.