By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
State Sen. Vince Polistina sent a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy recently asking him for a 30-day moratorium on offshore wind activity.
In his letter, Polistina said the unprecedented deaths of whales that have washed up on New Jersey beaches, warrant a delay in activity until science can provide insight into the cause of their deaths.
“(It) seems completely irresponsible to blindly continue the work without definitive reasons why so many whales are meeting a tragic end,” wrote Polistina, a Republican who represents Atlantic County.
He said although no one at this time knows what is causing the whales to die and wash up on the shore, “the only thing we get from our federal regulators is that there is allegedly no ‘direct’ impact, seemingly wanting to ignore the indirect impacts to marine mammal behavior allowed by the Incidental Take Authorizations granted by those federal bureaucracies.”
Incidental Take Authorizations assume work to site the windmills 15 miles from the coast will result in some impact on marine life.
Over the last two months, nine whales have washed up on East Coast beaches and there were two new strandings in Manasquan and Virginia Beach since the weekend.
Many detractors of offshore wind energy are pointing to the whale deaths as a reason to halt preliminary work to map the ocean floor to determine the depth of windmill infrastructure.
“I once again request a 30-day moratorium on all offshore wind activity so that a diverse group of experts have the time to study all of the evidence gained as a result of the necropsies and death investigations and release definitive findings,” Polistina said in the letter.
The letter comes on the heels of a public information meeting held in Brigantine on Saturday about the whale deaths and offshore wind projects. Hundreds of people attended the meeting to demand an end to offshore wind energy projects.
NOAA has said there is no evidence the whales are dying due to sonar used to map the ocean floor and that most whale deaths occur due to vessel strikes and fishing net entanglements.
“We acknowledge that a lot of the whale deaths are due to vessel strikes, but we want to know why,” Polistina said during the meeting. “It never has happened before, so that’s what we are concerned about. That’s why we have called for a pause.”
Offshore wind fits in with Gov. Murphy’s plan to have 100 percent clean energy by 2050.
“Our constituents are increasingly demanding it and we owe it to deliver,” Murphy said.
