Whale Deaths Confirm President Biden’s Offshore Wind Expansion was a Mistake

DEAD HUMPBACK: — On Jan. 13, 2023, the seventh deceased humpback whale washed ashore the coast of Brigantine, New Jersey. The spike in recent fatalities raises concern for local civilians.

Amelia Ward

Online Editor in Chief

On Sept. 15th, 2022, President Biden announced his long-awaited plans to expand U.S. wind energy production by using floating offshore wind technology. This energy was promised to power millions of homes, address the climate crisis, and further Biden’s plan for a clean ecosystem. However, this plan proves to be incredibly destructive to the natural surrounding habitat, responsible for the death of seven whales, and should be put to a complete stop.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) stationed wind turbines directly to the sea floor in shallow waters along the East and West coasts, especially in New York and New Jersey. Although surprising to many, deeper areas of the ocean take up ⅔ of the ocean’s space. This large space has great potential for “floating” turbines, since the turbines cannot be in deeper areas. This results in increased offshore winds and energy production. This created energy can power millions of homes and businesses, lower costs up to 70% by 2035, strengthen energy security, and work with the Biden-Harris administration’s economic and clean energy agenda.

FOX Business Correspondent Madison Alworth shares story on Mar. 3, 2023, on the potential harm of whales due to offshore wind projects by Biden.

According to usnews.com, a humpback whale washed ashore on Friday, Jan. 13, 2023 and was the seventh dead whale to wash ashore in New York and New Jersey in only 33 days. Environmental and citizen groups such as New Jersey Sierra Club took the initiative to request a halt to offshore wind farm preparation on the seafloor, suspecting the fatalities were a product of the implemented turbines. These groups were so insistent they asked President Biden for a federal investigation into the deaths, which was denied.

New Jersey state Senator Vince Polistina says the solution to dealing with the fatalities of the whales is to simply suspend all work related to offshore wind development until the 7 whale’s cause of death was determined. Other New Jersey Representatives and Senators, such as Phil Murphy, spoke out and agreed the death of 7 whales in the span of 33 days was far more coincidental.

The Clean Ocean Action environmental group urges that the damage and fatalities of various whales, a protected species, needs to be addressed. According to usnews.com, installation of an underwater wind turbine uses pulses at an extremely low frequency that can disorient or harm whales who hear it and disrupt whales’ natural communication cycles. This would be very dangerous to the whale’s vocalization and the animals’ natural communication pattern.

No pause was reported in offshore wind energy prep as the seventh dead whale on the East Coast washed onto shores.

Some people think that the wind-farm is not to blame for the whale deaths because the NOAA has said humpback whale and sperm whale deaths have been rising. Benjamin Laws, deputy chief for permits and conservation with National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Office of Protected Resources said there is no information supporting that any equipment used in relation to offshore wind development would lead to whale “strandings”. However, the death of 7 whales does not fall in line with calculations from Dec. 2022 and is clearly extremely invasive.

Biden’s new actions to expand offshore wind energy generation will lead to more tragedy, as the death toll of whales is predicted to increase further into 2023 according to NOAA. Biden’s decisions have clearly created an extremely unfortunate tragedy and needs to be stopped.