From The Heartland Institute.
Lawsuit seeks preliminary injunction to force comprehensive studies on the massive project’s effect on habitat of critically endangered North Atlantic right whale
Spike in whale deaths occurring at same time early stages of project got underway off Atlantic Coast
Judge’s ruling stops project that was slated to begin ‘pile driving’ this week; gives Dominion, Biden Administration May 6 deadline to respond to legal challenge
WASHINGTON, DC (May 1, 2024) — An order by a federal judge on Monday delayed the start of “pile driving” construction for a massive wind project off the Atlantic Coast by Dominion Energy. Judge Loren L. AliKhan convened an expedited status conference hearing in response to a coalition of three public interest groups—The Heartland Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC)—suing Dominion and the Biden administration, claiming they have not done the legally required research to determine the project won’t harm the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.
The coalition requested a preliminary injunction Monday to stop the project before pile driving began, allowing time to further study its environmental impact – specifically the cumulative risk this project and others along the Eastern Seaboard, pose to the North Atlantic right whale, of which only 350 remain, including an estimated 70 females capable of weaning a calf.
In Monday’s hearing, Judge AliKhan expressed concern that Dominion Energy did not yet gain approval by the federal government for its five mitigation plans, and she grilled the attorneys for Dominion Energy and the Justice Department (DOJ) about when they would gain approval. While Dominion and the DOJ were vague in their answers, the judge ordered them to file a status report on approval by this Friday, May 3. She also ordered Dominion and the Biden administration to file their response to the coalition’s lawsuit by May 6, and for the coalition to file its response by May 9. She is expected to rule on the preliminary injunction shortly thereafter.
See previous press releases about the efforts by the coalition of The Heartland Institute, CFACT, and NLPC at this link.
To speak to members of the coalition filing suit to protect the North Atlantic right whale, please contact Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org or text/call 312-731-9364.
Along with the preliminary injunction, the coalition on April 2 filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to compel Dominion Energy to reveal the methods it intends to use to protect the critically endangered Right Whale from extinction. Dominion has hidden its species protection plan from public view.
Dominion Energy stated in documents filed with the Bureau of Energy Management (BOEM) that it intended to begin offshore construction activities no later than May 1. The project plans to erect 176 giant wind turbines—with each tower taller than the Washington Monument, and turbine blades longer than a football field—to be constructed in the open ocean 25 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia. If completed, the project would be the largest of its kind in the world.
This Dominion Energy project is but one of many massive offshore wind projects mandated by an executive order issued by President Biden on January 27, 2021 declaring that a “climate crisis” exists which “threatens mankind’s existence.” The Biden administration has given fast-track approval to dozens of wind projects off the East Coast with the goal of producing 30 gigawatts of electricity by 2030.
The amount of federal waters leased for these projects constitutes an area larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. The North Atlantic right whales would be forced to navigate a gauntlet of 32 separate lease areas from Georgia to Maine twice each year.
In the midst of a spike in whales washing up on shore in East Coast states, a dead North Atlantic right whale was found near Virginia Beach on March 30. It was a female, named “Catalogue No. 1950” by the New England Aquarium. accompanied by a newborn calf. That marked the fourth documented North Atlantic Right Whale death in US waters this year. Experts do not expect the calf to survive without the support of its mother. According to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s aerial survey, the mother had successfully raised five prior calves.
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Save the whales, save the planet.
I’m sure many of us are old enough to remember when GreenPiss wanted the same goal
Those wind turbines will also be on a major migratory bird flyway, but of course The Green Blob does not care.Whales are but another reason to oppose green prayer wheels.
The advantage of offshore turbines is that no nosey ornithologists will collect dead bird carcasses at the foot of the tower.
Come now. Cats kill more birds than wind turbines, as it is alleged. My neighbor’s cat bagged an ern 25 miles offshore just the other day.
Why is Greenpeace missing out on saving whales?
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/article/the-low-down-on-whales-and-wind-farms/
The usual for big green. They love wind and ridiculously claim no evidence of harming whales. I think otherwise and have said so. For example :
https://www.cfact.org/2023/01/23/evidence-says-offshore-wind-development-is-killing-lots-of-whales/
https://www.cfact.org/2023/01/30/feds-push-ignorance-defense-for-whale-killing-by-offshore-wind-development/
https://www.cfact.org/2022/09/27/how-to-kill-whales-with-offshore-wind/
A lot of smaller whale groups hate wind:
https://www.cfact.org/2022/12/21/ten-whale-groups-slam-atlantic-osw/
So then, Greenpeace agrees with the US Navy when the Navy testified in court that sonar operations don’t affect whale migration or safety. Sonar, after all is just sound waves in the water, no different than construction noise in the water.
Too bad they didn’t convince all the other environmentalists of that when they sued the Navy and won in 2015. So either Greenpeace is lying or all the other listed plaintiffs were lying. You can’t have it both ways.
LOS ANGELES (March 31, 2015) —A federal court today announced that the U.S. Navy’s training and testing activities off the coast of Southern California and Hawaii illegally harm more than 60 whale, dolphin, seal, and sea lion populations. The U.S. District Court, District of Hawaii, found that the National Marine Fisheries Service – the agency charged with protecting marine mammals – violated multiple requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act when agreeing to the Navy’s plan.
The case before the Court was brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Cetacean Society International, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Pacific Environment and Resources Center, and Michael Stocker.
The construction of wind power pylons creates noise.
– – – – – – – – –
Seismic & Sonar Testing
While whales and other marine life are threatened by international whaling and habitat loss, they also face a domestic threat. Navy sonar testing and seismic testing from the oil and gas industry regularly take place in areas where marine species thrive.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/oceans/save-the-whales/seismic-sonar-testing/
G’Day Cam,
I visited the Greenpeace article. I noted: “These airguns use loud blasts on a recurring basis, going off every ten seconds…”
Seismic, when looking for sub-seafloor structure, every 70 seconds. (Six months on the UnitedGeo 1, in the Java Sea in the 1960’s, as one of three Observers.)
When I read “ten seconds” – ouch, one major mistake, the rest is probably just as ‘accurate’.
Nice. Present one side of the issue with a piece of propaganda.
So four dead whales this year … and how does that compare to the known deaths in prior years? Higher, lower, or the same? How much variability occurs in whale deaths year to year … most wild species see rather large variability in population mortality year to year, and of course, the causes should be well understood before drawing conclusions, right? That’s what they call “science” that we warming skeptics are always saying that we need, rather than mere advocacy.
And, given the whale deaths this year, presumably the causes are not yet known, but we do know for absolutely certain that they were not caused by the Dominion pile driving process, which has not yet started.
Finally, contrary to what is published all the time here at WUWT, using whales to stop offshore wind is more than just a double edged sword. The same excuse can be claimed by opponents of offshore oil and gas platforms, which in shallower seas also use driven piles. And against any other marine development project, whether we “like” it or not.
We have to be consistent in our arguments if we are going to win the battle against the warmunists. Don’t adopt their faulty non-scientific reasoning and creation of fake fears to stop fossil fuel production.
Finally, nobody has ever demonstrated scientifically that a single whale has ever been injured, let alone killed, by marine pile driving (which by the way, is involved in many marine development projects). Not a single one. Ever.
If pile driving is to be banned, then kiss goodbye any and all LNG terminal projects; ordinary wharves and docks at seaports; etc. etc.
Use your heads, not your biases, to judge anybody’s claims, no matter who they are and what they are.
Lawfare is been the gold standard when it comes to derailing energy production. I see your point, but the climageddon crowd doesn’t.
It’s sad that it’s come to this. We’re losing the war. There’s no question about it. If my kid was still a young ‘un, I’d have him take lessons in Mandarin, because the sole future world power has its capital in Beijing.
Desperation calls for strategies that don’t feel right.
There is also the argument that if you descend to the enenmy’s tactics then when you win you are no better than them.
I say that these fake care about the whales and birds are fake. Stick to the real point – gas is good
Demanding the same rules apply is not evil.
It is justice. Equal for all.
Why do you assume the “care” is fake?
Conservationist honestly care and want to preserve nature but not at Man’s expense.
Environmentalist see anything Man does as evil, except when the price is right or if it promotes “The Cause”. (“Watermelon” comes to mind.)
I like the clarity of your answer.
I have always been a conservationist.
I lost track of that word when environmentalist came to the front page headlines.
Thanks for the course correction.
I agree with your first sentence, but not the second. The bird, whale (and bat) deaths from windmills matter. Some folks presumably use this just as a tactic, but that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that these windmills are harmful.
Arguments based on facts and science aren’t the “enemy’s” tactics anyway.
In a war, use every weapon you have.
The burden of proof is incumbent on the proposer. Studies of noise and other impacts on marine mammals and other species are mandatory. According to reporting I’ve seen over the past few years none of the cumulative impacts of the proposed projects have been forthcoming.
Beginning in the 1970s, working for the Bureau of Reclamation and later the Department of Energy (Bonneville and Western Area Power Administrations) and other private entities I participated in numerous environmental studies, Environmental Assessments, Environmental Impact Statements and remediation studies related to energy facilities. From my limited knowledge, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has in no way met the long-established requirements of State and Federal environmental laws and regulations.
The courts will sort out FJB’s fast-tracking (environmental shortcuts) of offshore industrial wind development.
Dave Fair,
While you claim that environmental protection plans did not meet their stated objectives, those objectives are plans by people.
The measure of more interest is, what harm and what benefit arose from the existence and actions of those in the protection industry? Simply, did this work make any difference to the natural biological state? Geoff S
I made absolutely no claims about “environmental protection plans.” I questioned if the required environmental studies and documents met the requirements of existing State and Federal laws and regulations. If, as I believe, BOEM did not study nor consider the cumulative impacts of their lease plans the courts will shut down the projects.
“Finally, nobody has ever demonstrated scientifically that a single whale has ever been injured, let alone killed, by marine pile driving (which by the way, is involved in many marine development projects). Not a single one. Ever.”
Yet there are dead whales (more than usual?) washing up.
Why not do an “environmental impact study”?
They’ve been required for other projects and before anything died.
there are voluminous EIS’s for each project but they systematically ignore the key concept. They authorize the acoustic harassments of lots of whales but ignore the likelihood that harassment can cause deadly behavior. The analog is where you throw a firecracker at a dog causing it to run into the street, be struck and killed. The car killed the dog but the firecracker caused the death.
See my https://www.cfact.org/2022/09/27/how-to-kill-whales-with-offshore-wind/
The Feds actually estimate how many firecrackers will be thrown at whales and other protected mammals for each project. For Dominion’s it is just under 80,000. They then deny that this has any adverse effect.
What also needs to be taken into account is how the whales would alter their migratory paths to avoid the offshore wind projects; possibly impacting where they feed, or increasing the likelihood that they will be struck by ships.
While it is true that whale deaths, some in the dozens, are not new, especially with higher populations, wind turbines are not like petroleum platforms. I have been around many platforms in bays and on the continental shelf, even on a few and driven under land turbines many times. I even recently saw an RV park under one. Not me, even offshore, platforms look a lot safer. There is also a massive literature about all the critters around the platforms, some attracted, some feeding.
Dominion’s wind facility occupies 150 square miles. Oil platforms are not that big. The piles are enormous. 30′ in diameter and several hundred feet long to keep that 800′ high turbine assembly from blowing over in a hurricane. Driving them is incredibly loud. There is no comparison with oil platforms.
They might have to go to the suction method of setting the piles, it that is technically possible given the seabed characteristics. But they might be more expensive and time consuming, I don’t know about that.
They were supposed to be evaluated for the construction method proposed. They did not propose the suction piling method, covered here at WUWT sometime in the last year I think.
They have apparently completed their sounding to prepare the engineering assessment for the required piles needed, which was performed, as far as I can tell, without proper environmental assessments. When TRUMP! gets in, MANY heads MUST roll in every agency where they ignored what law requires an approved “plans” just for political reasons. Terminations, with specific language indicating those who acted to their political biases may NEVER AGAIN get any job funded by federal taxpayers. That would include any university that gets :student loan: money, any corporation that does work for the US government, etc. They MAY be able to work at McDonalds, IF they can learn the job. Being political activists, I have my doubts.
Offshore development began with massive sonar surveys in 2016. That year the humpback whale death rate tripled and has stayed high. That year the right whale population decline began and has continued. This is strong evidence of impact, which the Biden Feds simply ignore.
Speaking of “use your heads”: Whales aren’t famous for hanging out at wharves and docks.
There is a substantial difference. The wind obscenities are being built in migratory routes and feeding grounds, not near shore.
Where is the Precautionary Principle and Catch-22?
Unless you can prove offshore wind is safe, how can it be approved? And how can you prove offshore wind safe if it hasn’t been approved?
The Precautionary Principle is inextricably joined to The Peter Principle.
The Greens don’t have Principles.
Very good news. We need to double down, these monsters need to become completely transparent, follow all laws to the letter and do their business on their own dime. No more tax preferences, subsidies or environmental forgiveness. While they are figuring out how to be honest we need to get busy building nuclear and fossil fuel power plants.
Said previously, will say again. Especially with migratory species (Atlantic right whale), the ESA has long been interpreted as requiring cumulative impact studies along the full migration path. That was NOT done for Dominion’s offshore wind farm. CFACT should prevail, and the preliminary injunction should issue.
And Dominion shareholders should fire the CEO. Correctly calculated, on shore LCOE is 2.5x CCGT. (Details in long ago post ‘True Cost of Wind’ over at Judith’s.) The ever biased EIA says offshore wind is ‘only’ 3x onshore wind. There is no shortage of natgas in the US. Foisting on ratepayers something green but known to be at least 7.5x more expensive ought to be criminal.
All true but I think the nutty net zero Virginia Clean Economy Act (is the present economy dirty?) actually calls for 5,000 MW of offshore wind, but maybe it just allows it.
Good point, David. The VCEA requires Dominion Energy to go to nut zero by 2045 and wind power has been declared in the public interest so DE gets a return on the investment. If this project is ultimately ruled out, then there will only be solar to meet the VCEA.
That puts DE between a rock and a hard place. Will that make the Dems that currently own both houses of the state government to relent? I don’t know, but when I have seen industry squeezed between two impossible regulations, they just say, “too bad, do them both. It sucks to be you.”
Virginia, when under the control of Democrats, REQUIRED Dominion to do the offshore wind.
A couple of years ago, Dominion stated that it didn’t matter if they ever installed one bird/whale killer, it was going to cost the ratepayers 5 BILLION dollars either way, such money guaranteed by the legislation.
SO not any ones fault but Democrats.
BTW, Democrats gained seats in the Virginia legislature last year due to MASSIVE campaign contributions and ad buys by wind manufacturers and Dominion energy.
I believe in most ‘toss up” races, the Republicans were outspent by 2 to 1. All outside money for the Dems.
I do believe in ONE campaign finance control. NO ONE can donate to any politician if they cannot LEGALLY vote in the particular race. Proof MUST be provided to donate. You know, picture ID.
Of course that would not stop “issue” advertisements, but people know who is behind those ads.
Speaking of Dominion and LCOE here’s another hidden seldom seen cost of wind and solar, the associated forced premature closing of coal plants before the end of their economic life. Wind and solar truly are destroying our economy:
Dominion Rate Case Hearing:
Much of that final calculation is due to the subtraction from revenues of costs associated with the early retirement of fossil fuel plants that had become uneconomic in what Dominion Energy Virginia President Edward Baine described as “an emerging carbon-reduced world.”
At $688 million, the early retirement costs for the 15 fossil fuel units are the largest chunk of expenses Dominion is seeking to recover during the triennial period.
The Biden Feds have actually said pile driving can kill whales.
See my https://www.cfact.org/2023/04/27/feds-admit-offshore-wind-can-kill-whales/
One needs to see the collosal scale of the Dom project. Each tower stands on a single monopile. The tower is say 500′ tall with a 2,000 ton turbine on top to which is fixed three 300′ blades. The wind forces are huge and wind can easily exceed 100 mph in a hurricane many of which run up the coast. Keeping the tower vertical means the monopile is enormous, making the driving noise incredibly loud. It will be heard 50 miles away or more underwater because in shallow water noise does not dissipate. Some say 100 miles.
Moreover this has never been done before. The North Sea iron is just 6-9 MW with no hurricanes. DOM’s is around 15 MW which only exists in prototype or has just been erected.
To avoid the acoustic damage from pile driving offshore turbine foundations should be illegal and tubular anchored floating turbines made mandatory. Offshore is 2X+ as expensive as onshore, A big bonus from the mandate: I’d love to see it at 3X+ (Whatever it takes to end the madness).