Dark Money Interests and Foreign Investors Now Hold Over 400,000 Acres in the Gulf of Maine Slated for Offshore Wind Turbines
Even NOAA Fisheries is “particularly concerned” at how BOEM is leasing ecologically vital seabed first, saying it will somehow figure it out later.
Continuing its mission to industrialize as much as the outer continental shelf as possible, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) sold off 439,096 acres in the Gulf of Maine to Invenergy NE Offshore Wind and Avangrid Renewables on Oct. 29.
Invenergy, owned by the Canadian firm CDPQ and the $880-billion-dollar asset management firm Blackstone (which also invests over 80 percent of its energy portfolio in fossil fuels) and foreign-owned Avangrid, paid a total just shy of $22 million for four of the eight available leases up for grabs.
But what makes this BOEM lease sale a bit different from others is where it is and what it will consist of.
Apparently BOEM decided it had not jeopardized enough large whales –- particularly the nearly extinct North Atlantic right whale — with its previous thirty-one offshore wind energy leases of East Coast seabed.
So, making sure to create as much disturbance as possible for these endangered marine mammals, this “special” wind energy area covers critical habitat* designated specifically for the North Atlantic right whale (NARW) by NOAA Fisheries** back in 2016.
In an April 2024 letter directed to BOEM and other government administrators (including those at the EPA) NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator Michael Pentony was about as blunt as one federal agency official could publicly be to another, stating:
“A number of species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as well as a number of marine mammal species protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) occur in the Gulf of Maine and their distribution overlaps with the Final WEA (wind energy area). Additionally, the entirety of the Final WEA overlaps with critical habitat designated for the NARW. Please reference our previous correspondence on the Gulf of Maine (see above) for more information on these species and their distribution.”
The Pentony letter also warned that the final WEA “overlaps with sensitive hard bottom habitats” that “support deep-sea corals and sponges” along with other “ecologically important habitat features.”
Pentony further cautioned that “A number of activities that may affect (Endangered Species Act) ESA-listed species are reasonably certain to occur as a result of lease issuance…” Previous correspondence (See letters below) referenced “adverse effects” to whales, sea turtles and fish, as well as being “particularly concerned” about increased vessel traffic “strike risk” to the NARW and “incomplete information on the risk of floating wind deployments…”
You read that right – floating wind deployments.
These offshore turbines will not have a monopile fixed foundation but be anchored with “mooring lines and dynamic cables,” making them “much riskier” according to industry experts. If you’re unfamiliar with this technology, so is BOEM. And they won’t be little bouncy floaters either but described as “gigantic machine(s)” that will rise 850 feet above the Gulf of Maine, “tethered to the seabed with thick metal cables.”
As for determining how large whales will traverse these thick metal cables and moorings without becoming entangled or disorientated, BOEM has already checked that off its to-do list.
Hiring Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to do a study on this over six years ago, Pacific found that since no real life “encounter” of large whales and floating turbines existed to understand “this potential risk,” they would just grab some data and make up a fancy “visualization” to see how it goes.
The resulting “animation” of a whale and calf (to some upbeat music) navigating successfully around cables and mooring lines shows just how easy it can be done! That animated whale had no trouble at all! Watch this exciting video here.
You really can’t make this stuff up.
BOEM boasts that it has spent over $80 million so far to collect “baseline information” about developing the Gulf of Maine. More big bucks are being spent by the current administration that offered up a “historic” $82 million to take “next steps to conserve and recover” the NARW.
But with a mere 350 of these majestic creatures remaining on Earth, and even more importantly, just 70 known reproductively active females, perhaps the most logical “next steps” would be to stay out of their federally “protected” critical habitat area.
* As explained by NOAA Fisheries, “critical habitat does not create a closed area…” However, in a 1995 Supreme Court decision -- Babbitt v. Sweet Home, the high court decided that the definition of the term “harm” in the Endangered Species Act, goes beyond direct harm and includes changes in habitat that can cause harm. “Also, the Court held that the intent of the Act to give broad protection to endangered species must include even actions that may have minimal or unforeseeable effects.”
** NOAA Fisheries, also officially known as the National Marine Fisheries Service, is an office within NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that is within the Department of Commerce. BOEM is within the Department of Interior.
It would probably be good, to position a van with loud speakers in areas around maternity hospitals, nursery schools, houses of Senators & BOEM Executives; with the pile-driving sound blaring out at a decibel level equivalent to what marine mammals will be experiencing, for an incremental time span of say, 15 mins-30 mins-45 mins-60 mins every 2 hours from 8pm until midnight, and 5am until 9am. And see how they like their sleep patterns disturbed?
Without intentionally targeting dogs, I'm sure that a lot of the houses in the areas targeted, will have dogs, which will be vocal in their annoyance of this sound, and the family members will be angry at the parent involved in sanctioning these threats to all marine mammals, as well as the threat to the marine sea-bed eco-systrm!
Just a suggestion!
Bruce (Sovereign Scot) Borthwick
Another great reporting job Linda Thanks so much for doing the hard work to uncover the duplicity in our government "Protection" Agencies The old saying is still true
"FOLLOW THE MONEY"
The first thing to go should be the BOEM They are not Managing the Ocean they are selling it to foreign countries no less What are we leaving our children our grandchildren and great grandchildren? Death and distribution A dead Ocean littered with the remains of the monstrosities we allowed into our oceans to kill everything around and above them
This can not be allowed to happen