A New Jersey group opposing offshore wind development says it is suing the U.S. Department of Commerce again for rejecting its call for a right whale “migration corridor” off the East Coast.
Save Long Beach Island went to federal court in early to compel Commerce officials for a decision on the group’s petition to declare ocean waters from Maine to Georgia as a “primary historic migration corridor of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.”
NOAA rejected the petition July 2, with a lengthy explanation “that the petition does not present substantial scientific information indicating a revision to North Atlantic right whale critical habitat may be warranted.”
The Save LBI group, with support from homeowners, businesses and commercial fishermen on the barrier island, played a role in opposing the ill-fated Atlantic Shores wind turbine array planned nearby.
The activists contend noise and disturbance from construction and operation of turbines pose a threat to the highly endangered right whales. Save LBI president Robert Stern said Aug. 3 the group’s lawyers are heading back to federal court.
The agency’s “inaction leaves us no choice but to file suit in federal court to overturn its negative finding and require NOAA Fisheries to conduct the lawful, science-based review that the petition warrants.”
Stern said the group will also appeal directly to President Trump, whose administration’s opposition to offshore wind and other renewable energy projects have been a 180-degree reversal from federal policies pursued during the Biden administration.
A critical-habitat designation “and the requirements for an analysis of the operational noise generated by offshore wind-energy complexes would likely deter the siting of such projects in the whale’s migration corridor, which is consistent with President’s stated objections to them,” said Stern.
“We have written to the President, suggesting that he intervene and reverse the Commerce Department’s denial.”
