OFFSHORE WIND LAWSUIT

ADDITIONAL OFFSHORE WIND LAWSUIT REFLECTS GROWING OPPOSITION CONCERNS

February 14, 2022

The U.S. Department of the Interior is facing another legal challenge to its handling of offshore wind, this time for its approval of an offshore wind project to be constructed on a 65,000-acre tract in federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard. The suit comes three weeks after a grassroots organization from Long Beach Island made good on its intention to sue the federal agency.

Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a broad membership-based coalition of fishing industry associations and fishing companies, filed suit Jan. 31 in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.

“In its haste to implement a massive new program to generate electrical energy by constructing thousands of turbine towers offshore the eastern seaboard on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf and laying hundreds of miles of high-tension electrical cables undersea, the United States has shortcut the statutory and regulatory requirements that were enacted to protect our nation’s environmental and natural resources, its industries and its people,” said Annie Hawkins, executive director of the alliance. “The fishing industry supports strong action on climate change, but not at the expense of the ocean, its inhabitants and sustainable domestic seafood.”

RODA issued a 60-day notice of intent to sue on Oct. 19, 2021 if the federal government did not address what it said were violations of the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and other federal environmental statutes.

“The alliance received no reply and the environmental violations were not remedied,” Hawkins said. “The decisions on this project didn’t balance ocean resource conservation and management and must not set a precedent for the enormous pipeline of projects the government plans to facilitate in the near term. So, we had no alternative to filing suit.”

Continue reading at thesandpaper.net.