PROVIDENCE – Three commercial fishing businesses from Rhode Island are suing to stop construction of the first major offshore wind facility in the U.S., claiming that federal officials flouted their statutory and regulatory responsibilities in a rush to approve the Vineyard Wind, which they said would make boat navigation in the 75,614-acre area around the project so difficult that it would cost them $14 million over 30 years.
“Their livelihoods and economic futures depend on fishing in the Vineyard Wind project area,” the lawsuit contends. “The violations of the federal laws resulted from the federal defendants’ unintelligent pursuit of their overarching governmental goal of increasing the capacity of renewable energy generation on the outer continental shelf at any cost. By indiscriminately pursuing that goal, the federal defendants disregarded their legal responsibilities.”
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The lead plaintiff in the case, the North Kingstown-based Seafreeze Shoreside Inc., recently joined Westerly’s Heritage Fisheries Inc. and Nat W. Inc., along with Dartmouth-based fishing organization XIII Northeast Fishery Sector Inc., and a fishing company and an industry group, both based in New York, to file the lawsuit in federal district court in Washington, D.C. Named defendants include officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo.
The 82-page complaint seeks a declaratory judgment to reverse the “unlawful” actions of federal officials in the issuance of a lease and their May 2021 approval of construction for the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project off the southern coast of Nantucket, Mass.
Seafreeze Shoreside and the other plaintiffs are being represented by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which said in a press release that Vineyard Wind would “destroy the lives of countless families, as well as create irreparable harm to the environment and ocean wildlife.”
The legal group said federal officials failed to conduct proper environmental assessments and did not allow for timely public comment.
“In approving the Vineyard Wind project, the federal government trampled the rights of Americans to pursue its misguided goal of developing offshore wind energy at any cost,” said Ted Hadzi-Antich, the senior attorney for the Texas Public Policy Foundation who filed the complaint on behalf of the companies. “In the process, it violated multiple federal statutes that protect the environment, national security, commercial fishing, and the nation’s food supply. Our lawsuit aims to protect the communities that depend on fishing to support their families, as well as ensure the areas do not become wastelands for marine wildlife.”
U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management at the Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
According to the lawsuit, Seafreeze Shoreside primarily sells and processes squid, while also acting as the primary ice supplier to squid fishing vessels at Point Judith in Narragansett, employing about 40 people. Heritage Fisheries Inc. and Nat W. Inc are owned by the same family, which catch up to 40% and 60% of their fish respectively in the Vineyard Wind lease area, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that, during a public input process leading up to the approval of the Vineyard Wind project, federal officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies, without adequate explanation dismissed “comments urging consideration of the devastating impact the Vineyard Wind project would have on fisheries, specifically the longfin squid fishery.” The project area is “one of the primary documented spawning locations for longfin squid,” the lawsuit states.
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @LaRockPBN.
Texas Public Policy Foundation? Don’t you just love how the oil and gas industry comes up with the clever names for their self-funded interest groups? This “foundation” doesn’t give a crap about these gullible fisherman at all. They just want to stop renewable energy development at all costs. These fishing grounds are not in any danger nor will these fishermen’s lives be impacted. Studies were already done on all of this. This lawsuit will be dismissed.