By Dino Grandoni and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
Photo by Michael Dwyer/AP
March 8, 2021
The Biden administration took a crucial step Monday toward approving the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., a project that officials say will launch a massive clean-power expansion in the fight against climate change.
In completing a final environmental review of Vineyard Wind, the Interior Department endorsed an idea that had been conceived two decades ago but had run into a well-funded and organized opposition from waterfront property owners near the tony island, including then-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D), who died in 2009, and the billionaire industrialist William I. Koch. . .
But Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which represents commercial fishing, slammed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for failing to expand transit lanes to four miles through the sprawling 167,000-acre lease area to accommodate larger boats. “If they have to spend an extra 10 hours to go around the turbines,” she said, “that’s 10 hours of lost revenue.”
Hawkins also raised concerns over the turbines interfering with fishing radar, as well as the potential impact of construction on the endangered North Atlantic right whale. “Climate change is really important,” she added. “But we need to do our due diligence on the environmental impacts.”