A nonprofit opposed to offshore wind development, a lobster fisherman, and a whale-watching business are suing the federal government, arguing it violated federal law when it approved the construction of Vineyard Wind, a 62-turbine project 15 miles off the coast of Nantucket. 

Dan Pronk, a Nantucket lobsterman, does commercial lobstering in the area of the turbines. He told Just the News that the project has decimated his business. 

“They completely ruined that area. It’s basically like they put a fence up is the way I look at it,” Pronk said. 

Revolution gets greenlighted 

The Trump administration last month paused offshore wind leases due to concerns about the impact of the project on radar, a national-security issue. Multiple reports from various federal agencies over the past few years have found that the clutter from offshore wind blades and turbines causes interference to radar. This lowers the ability of radar to identify targets on the water, and it creates false targets around the projects. 

The lawsuit filed this week by Nantuck-based ACK4Whales and two local businesses argues that when the Department of Interior and other agencies under former President Joe Biden approved the Vineyard Wind project, they ignored the impacts radar disruptions would have on civil aviation and national defense. 

In so doing, the lawsuit argues, the Biden-Harris administration violated the Offshore Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and the Administrative Procedures Act. 

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia just a few days before the same court granted Revolution Wind the green light to proceed with construction after the Trump administration suspended offshore wind leases. 

Revolution Wind is not far from Vineyard Wind, lying just 12 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. In granting the preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s stop work order on the project, Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said the developer had demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of its underlying claims in suing over the suspension. Last year, Lamberth ruled against another shutdown order on the same project. 

This week, the D.C. District Court also granted Empire Wind and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind preliminary injunctions to resume construction. That project consists of over 50 turbines located 15 miles off the shores of New York. 

Impact on commercial fishing 

Pronk has a 40-year career in commercial fishing, and he said there was a time it was a very lucrative business for him. “It was probably the only job that I could make a lot of money at without breaking the law,” Pronk said.

Now that’s all changed. Offshore wind projects have extensive impacts to all kinds of commercial fishing operations. Underwater cables run between the towers and to the shore to transport the electricity generated by the turbines to substations on land. 

These cables, fishermen say, are a serious risk to fishing operations. Developers also cover the seabed floor with rip rap — a layer of large, angular stones or concrete placed to protect soil from erosion by water, waves, or ice — to prevent scouring of the turbines, and this destroys the soft, sandy habitat that many marine species, including lobsters, prefer. 

The area may never be fishable again

Since construction began on Vineyard Wind, Pronk said his old hunting grounds are now devoid of lobsters — and it’s not just lobsters. Squid and clam operations are also impacted, and the project will prevent the area from ever being viable for commercial fishing again. 

“You could never tow a net through there again. You could never tow a scallop dredge through there. You could never tow a clam dredged through there, because of all the garbage that they put on the bottom,” he said. 

He’s had to move his operations into other areas, he said, which creates competition with other commercial fishing operations and adds fuel costs to his business. 

“They're wiping out an industry that feeds people, all in the name of green energy. The only thing green about it is the money that these foreign companies are stealing from us,” Prong said. 

Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, a Danish investment firm, and Avangrid Renewables, a Spanish company. 

"A big green lie"

William Vanderhoop, a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah, has run Tomahawk Charters, a whale-watching and charter-fishing business for decades. In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Vanderloop said his business has also been devastated by the turbines. 

“The Biden Administration chose a big, foreign-owned wind company, Vineyard Wind, over local businessmen, hurt my business and jacked up our electric rates in the process, all in the name of a big green lie,” Vanderhoop said. 

Pronk said that the energy bill for his freezers was about $500 in the summer, but it’s now up to $1,800 some months. 

A favorable decision, the lawsuit explains, would redress the economic harms suffered by these and other businesses that have been impacted by Vineyard Wind. 

Courts so far siding with developers 

Amy DiSibio, board member with Ack4Whales, told Just the News that members of the nonprofit have been voicing concerns about the impact on radar for years. 

“We have many airports out that way. There are a lot of boats, a lot of fishing boats, the Coast Guard. Who knows if there's somebody who's coming in to present something nefarious toward the United States out there? This needs to be really looked at,” DiSibio said. 

Lamberth’s ruling in the Revolution Wind case suggests federal courts might not be willing to reconsider lease contracts when projects are far along in their development. 

Elmer Peter Danenberger, a petroleum engineer who worked in the Interior Department's offshore oil and gas program for 38 years, explains on his “Bud’s Offshore Energy” blog that it takes a compelling case to halt projects with lease contracts in the advanced stages of development.

So far, federal courts don't appear to consider the effect on radar to be a compelling enough case to halt construction. Whether they eventually side with the plaintiffs in the Nantucket lawsuit remains to be seen.