August 2, 2023 — Discussions about the impact of wind farms planned off the coast of New Jersey have been in the broad sense recently, but last week two commercial fishermen brought it home to Long Beach Island.
“Our lives are on the line. We wonder whether we are going to pay our bills,” said Kirk O. Larson, who has spent more than five decades on the water as a commercial fisherman, while serving as Barnegat Light mayor for more than 30 years. “It’s not for lack of product. It’s for the brashness of these people from Europe to just come in and push us around, buy up all our fishery services people, who are quitting their jobs to go work for offshore wind companies. They are taking the best of the best.”
Larson spoke as a member of the public at the July 26 standing-room-only Save LBI forum on the promises and realities of offshore wind at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences in Loveladies.
The Atlantic Shores offshore wind project is comprised of three phases, with the first phase expected to be approved later this year. It includes 120 turbines to be placed in the Atlantic Ocean with phase two calling for the placement of 80 turbines; phase three has 157 turbines, according to a presentation by Bob Stern, president of Save LBI.
As proposed, the wind farm would see 1,000-foot-high turbines between 9½ and 13½ miles offshore the entire length of LBI, extending farther eastward into the Atlantic Ocean. While offshore construction is expected to begin later in the decade, an exact date has not yet been set.
The project is a 50-50 partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America. It was formed in December 2018 to co-develop nearly 183,353 acres of leased sea area on the Outer Continental Shelf, located within the New Jersey Wind Energy Area.
“Everything is being affected. The only thing you see are the big things washing ashore on the beach,” Larson said, referencing humpback whales and dolphins that washed up on Jersey Shore beaches earlier this year. “I’ve heard they have tugboats now pulling whales offshore, so we don’t see any of them this summer. I mean this has happened. These people have money; they have clout. They have the government on their side – the federal government, the state government.