Opinion: Montauk Trying To Save Long Island Shore From Wind Farms

July 11, at the Montauk Playhouse just beneath the Montauk Manor there was an open town hall meeting featuring representatives of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management concerning a project to produce 2,400 megawatts of power by 2030 (12 years from now.) The plan is to construct "eventually" clusters of wind farms along the 100-mile south shore of Long Island from 3 to 200 miles out. The project is to start off Montauk. The large hedge fund putting up a reported $560M has tried to frame the debate as "commercial fishermen worried about their fishing grounds versus clean wind power energy," but that just is not the case.

The case is the fishermen are of the most knowledgeable of Long Islanders on just how sensitive the ocean environment is. They understand the maps, the proposed wind mill placements and the obvious dangers to the ocean floor, the coast line where the land power stations will come ashore and the potential dangers to whales and other endangered fish. No one is talking about the harm such a huge undertaking may have on the golden real estate market along the whole south shore. The whole project starts with controlled bids to pay for leases of ocean space to build the wind farms. I personally believe after the leases go to wind farms then perhaps oil companies might acquire those leases or get their own for off shore oil and gas drilling. With the pro-energy Trump Administration anything and everything is possible.

My long time (15 years) friend Anthony Sosinski, a commercial fisherman by trade but a lover of all things Long Island and all things Atlantic Ocean said, "Even if they use the Block Island Wind Farm as a model the new wind turbines are going to be twice as large as the present Block Island turbines, they are just telling us this now." Then he explained what his research has exposed. "The wind farms will be so complex with hundreds if not thousands of electrical wires going from wind farm to wind farm to shore." The proposed documents I have seen show a cluster of wind farms eventually from the Montauk to the NYC line. The original figure put a price tag for construction at around $560M dollars but my guess is that's a lowball number.

I love this "Public Relations" reported remark about the project by Brian Hooker, a marine biologist with the federal Bureau of Ocean Management. Perhaps attempting to lower expectations and to stop opposition he reportedly said, "If there is no demand then there is no market and, yes, there will be no leasing." I am betting the $560M of hedge fund money will prove otherwise.

Bonnie Brady, a strong minded women with positive convictions about everything Long Island, everything protecting "our ocean" and who also happens to be executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association said it best, "These (wind farm and leases) should be removed off our fishing grounds completely."