POINT PLEASANT BEACH — Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra told the borough council Tuesday that recent whale deaths along the Jersey shore underline the environmental threat posed by plans for placement of offshore wind turbines.
During his report at the Jan. 17 council meeting, Mayor Kanitra cited at least 10 incidents in which dead whales have washed ashore, with the latest reported in Atlantic City last weekend.
Though necropsies attributed most of the deaths resulted from whales being struck at sea by vessels, the incidents have served to amplify the concerns already voiced about the Ocean Wind 1 project plans working their way through the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management [BOEM].
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In particular, Mayor Kanitra and other critics of the plan are pointing to sonar testing for the project as a threat to marine mammals.
“I’m sure that there are boat strikes involved, but the echolocation that whales use clearly is being affected by the… offshore wind project that they’re working on,” the mayor said.
He said that claims from state and federal officials that the vessel strikes are an unfortunate coincidence are “absurd” in the current debate over Ocean Wind 1.
The project is a collaborative effort between PSEG and the Danish offshore wind power company, Ørsted, to erect a wind turbine farm located approximately 15 miles off New Jersey’s coast, with the goal of powering nearly a half a million homes in the state with clean energy.
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