March 19, 2019 — Every year, 65,000 people get aboard Capt. Jeff Stewart’s whale-watching boat.
Now, he says, his business may be in jeopardy as plans for seismic testing along the Atlantic Coast inch closer.
“Seismic testing will affect the whales and dolphins, along with the fish they eat,” said Stewart, of Cape May Whale Watchers. “They’ll have to leave the area and go somewhere else. It’ll be a detriment to the tourism industry.”
The widespread opposition along the Jersey Shore to planned seismic testing brought together more than 100 residents, local officials, high school students and even some inflatable dolphins at a rally outside the Cape May Convention Hall.
The protest comes after the Trump administration last year issued five authorizations to advance permit applications for air gun blasting from Delaware to Florida. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will soon rule on the applications, which would allow oil and gas companies to shoot sound waves into the water every 10 to 15 seconds to locate deposits under the seafloor.
“Our beaches, we can’t afford to lose them. This is our lifeblood down here,” Assemblyman Bruce Land, D-Cumberland, told a crowd with waves crashing in the Atlantic Ocean behind him.
In New Jersey, there’s been pushback from environmentalists and both political parties who say the testing — a precursor to oil drilling — would harm marine mammals and the state’s multi-billion dollar fishing industry.
In Cape May alone, commercial fishing was worth about $85 million in 2017.