ON DECK
Dock Talk
An array of risks n June 2019, Maine’s Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill requiring the state Public Utilities Commission to approve the contract for an offshore wind farm in Maine. This proposed array would cover 16 square miles of prime fishing ground in the Gulf of Maine, with miles of underground cables installed 2 meters below the ocean bottom to transport the energy. The array would operate for 20 years before being decommissioned. Though touted as a research array to explore clean energy alternatives, this project is an experiment. And during this experiment, power generated will be sold for profit, likely to out of
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state consumers. Information from this research will not just benefit scientists, but also big-money energy investors who want to develop wind farms throughout the Gulf of Maine. “When you a look at a chart of where all the preferred wind farm leases are on the East Coast and compare that to the chart NMFS has made showing the most heavily fished areas, almost every lease is based directly on or adjacent to the best grounds,” said fisherman Glen Libby. There is a lot more at stake here than may meet the eye. Drilling the ocean meters down, placing cables and topping with an artificial cover for miles will at the very least disrupt and at the very worst
Nieuwkerk family
By Shelley Wigglesworth
Eben Nieuwkerk, Knoep Nieuwkerk, Hannah Nieuwkerk Smith and her daughter Julia are three generations of Maine fishermen.
destroy countless marine life habitats, ecosystems and breeding grounds, which will influence the food chain from there on up, not to mention the unknown long-term effects chemicals coating the underground cables may have on the environment and consumers. Electromagnetic fields and noise from offshore wind turbines can
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8 National Fisherman \ May 2021
www.nationalfisherman.com
