September 3, 2023
Rhode Island

Wind farm approval met with protest

August 31, 2023 | By Zane Wolfang | newportthisweek.com

The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) decision to approve Sunrise Wind’s 84-turbine offshore wind farm, 16 miles off the coast of Block Island, prompted CRMC Fisherman’s Advisory Board (FAB) member Richard Hittinger to resign in protest on Aug. 28, the same day the Council approved the project.

Hittinger serves as vice president and first chair of the Rhode Island Saltwater Angler’s Association legislative committee, and he was the only representative of recreational fishing interests on the CRMC. He submitted his letter of resignation to CRMC executive director Jeff Willis the same day the Council approved the project.

Sunrise Wind is owned by Danish energy titan Orsted, who set up their North American headquarters in Boston and Providence. Its lease area is on and around the historically rich fishing grounds of Coxes Ledge in the Atlantic Ocean about 20 miles southeast of Point Judith.

In his resignation letter, Hittinger decried what he sees as the CRMC’s lack of interest in bringing recreational and commercial fishing interests to the table in the offshore wind permitting process. “CRMC seems to view us as a hurdle that projects must jump over during permitting,” he wrote, saying the fishermen should be viewed as true stakeholders in the marine environment.

Hittinger called approval of the project “a one-sided push by developers with no requirement for realistic discussion” and “a rubber stamp of the political desires of Washington, D.C.,” which he said renders the existence of the Fishermen’s Advisory Board pointless. He suggested that other fishermen and anglers share his views.

However, Mary Lhowe reported on the EcoRI website [an article about the Sunrise Wind approval] that there were far fewer fisherman testifying at the Sunrise Wind hearing on Monday than there had been at the Revolution Wind approval hearing in May. She also reported that some fishermen who testified at the CRMC hearing on Monday spoke in favor of offshore wind development.

Hittinger also wrote in his letter that the decision to approve the South Fork Wind, Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects in Rhode Island’s coastal waters effectively “trampled” on language in Rhode Island’s Ocean Special Area Management Plan (OSAMP), which was written specifically to protect special areas like Coxes’s Ledge.

Lhowe reported that Orsted agreed at Monday’s hearing to six conditions imposed by the CRMC to bring the project in line with state OSAMP requirements, including a reduction of the original proposal for 122 turbine foundations to a maximum of 84 turbines. Those conditions included siting turbine foundations outside Coxes Ledge “where practicable…unless such siting outside of Coxes Ledge precludes Sunrise Wind from meeting its power purchase agreement obligations.”

CRMC public educator and information coordinator Laura Dwyer did not respond to a request for official CRMC comment on Hittinger’s resignation.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2023/09/03/wind-farm-approval-met-with-protest/