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New York Post
15-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
NYC fishermen beg Trump to rethink offshore windfarm OK'd during Biden admin
Commercial fishing workers pleaded with President Trump to again maroon a wind project off the Long Island shore – arguing Tuesday the green energy initiative could throw the industry into disarray. Business and environmental organizations gathered at the Fulton Fish Market Cooperative in the Bronx early Tuesday to emphasize the devastating effects the Empire Wind One project could have on fishermen's jobs and marine life. The Trump administration temporarily paused the project in April while it was already under construction, launching a review of the permits issued during former President Joe Biden's administration. The stop was lifted a month later. 3 Critics of the project want Trump to intervene again. Getty Images But Bonnie Brady, the executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, claimed White House officials don't know how damaging the project is. 'If new information came to him that he was made aware of that made him understand the severity of the situation, I think he's a good American like anyone else that wants to keep this country safe and I think he'd act accordingly,' she told The Post in an interview. Critics of the project – constructed by Norwegian-based Equinor and meant to power some 500,000 homes — argued offshore wind farms can interfere with navigational radar used by ships and smaller boats that could lead to collisions or hamper water rescue efforts. Commercial fisheries also catch an assortment of seafood in the area where the wind turbines are going up, advocates said. Brady and Fulton Fish Market Cooperative CEO Nicole Ackerina said its members would welcome Trump to the area to learn more about the potential pitfalls of Empire Wind One from workers who make up a chunk of his GOP base. 'The reality is that especially seafood and fishing, we're a large population of the Trump-supporters base, especially in New York and New Jersey for him,' Ackerina told The Post. 'So we're kind of of the perspective the only reason why this project is proceeding at this point is probably strictly because of political reasons and political agendas at the city and state level so we'd love the opportunity for him to actually sit down with the people that voted for him and with a industry he claims to align with.' Equinor has said it is committed working with mariners and fishermen to avoid and minimize any potential effects the project could have, according to its website. 3 Map of Empire Wind Project The seafood industry generates billions a year across New York and New Jersey and employs more than 140,000 workers in the two states, according to the groups against the project. 'They are the last of the hunters in a sense of harvesting high-protein, unspoiled seafood source,' Brady said. 'Someone is forgetting about them.' A lawsuit was filed against the Trump administration by various fishing companies and other opponents in June, calling on the president to re-implement the stop work order that was previously put in place by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. An email to the interior Department was not immediately returned Tuesday. The Post has also sought comment from Equinor. 3 The turbines would help power thousands of homes. Empire Wind The project is backed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams in part because it'll help meet a state law that mandates 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040 and the phasing out of fossil fuels by 2050. Trump has spoken out against wind farms in the past, but Republican mega-donor and billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis said the president told him he can't stop it because the approvals were OK'd before he took office. The project will be built 15-30 miles south of Long Island and made up of 54 wind turbines, according to a project website.
New York Post
09-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Businesses, environmentalists join forces to stop NY offshore wind project they fear will harm fishing, sea life
They're in uncharted waters. In a rare move, businesses and environmentalists have joined forces in court to furiously fight New York's Empire Wind One offshore project, saying that it will devastate both the commercial fishing industry and marine life in local waters. 'A decade ago, we said it would affect fishermen, fisheries, and guess what? The state didn't care,' said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association. 8 Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, is pushing back against a plan to build an off-shore wind farm off the coast of Long Island. Gabriella Bass 'We are collateral damage — even though we feed people.' The decade-long planned energy initiative, which began construction last April off the coasts of New York and New Jersey, faces a growing lawsuit from stakeholders in the tri-state area. The Bronx's massive Fulton Fish Market Cooperative, which employs around 1,200, and Nassau County's Point Lookout Fishing Club, and the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association are some of the groups joining a legal action brought by environmentalists in the area. Fulton's CEO said that the project will 'kill longstanding American port communities and economies' and grab 'thousands of real jobs, a sustainable food source, and the heart of the NY restaurant and tourism industry' by the gills as well. Ocean City, Maryland has also come out in opposition of another offshore wind project close to its coast as well. Locally on LI, Brady explained that in Point Lookout and nearby Long Beach — a mere 14 miles from the Empire project in the New York Bight — boats must dramatically divert around the massive windmill poles to reach canyons for fishing. 8 Brady getting interviewed on businessman John Catsimatidis' WABC radio show about the Long Island wind farm project. Gabriella Bass 'Think of cruising on the Long Island Expressway and suddenly there's a bunch of telephone poles in the road.' 'They can't go through these projects because, God forbid, they lose power. Then what? Then they're just floating in the sea, so they can hit one of them,' she said, adding that fishing organizations in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts are also in the lawsuit for similar reasons. Beyond afflicting the industry, the intense, concussive noise and vibrations of the Empire Wind's construction are deafening whales, advocates warn. 8 A map of the planned Empire Wind One project. 8 A rendering of a Empire Wind 1 Sunset Park Onshore Substation. Empire Wind 8 The size of a Empire Wind turbine compared to the Chrysler Building. Empire Wind Environmental groups Protect Our Coast NJ and Clean Ocean Action are also driving the same legal action over the threat to local whales — including the endangered North Atlantic right whale. 'Some of them are going to be permanently deafened as a result of this project,' said Brady, who noted that three dead humpback whales were recently spotted off local shores. 'If you're deaf and the sea is dark, and then you have to come up to the surface because you can't hear or see what's going on. Then you can be hit by a ship.' 8 A beached whale found on Long Island's south shore near Lido Bech on Jan. 30, 2023. Environmentalists warn that wind farms could pose a threat to marine life like whales off of Long Island. REUTERS/Mike Segar Wailing on business Billionaire John Catsimatidis has also been a staunch opponent of the project as well. 'Not only is it killing the fishing business on Long Island, they're going to kill our whales, and they're going to increase the price of electricity for homes,' he said. 'I talked to the President about it a few weeks ago…he hates windmills, but he wasn't able to stop it because it was already put through before his term.' Catsimatidis recently interviewed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, who also is churning against the 180 foot tall windmills — ones which will cost New Yorkers about 2.5 times the market rate for electricity, per a recent analysis. 'If you're not sure which way to go… you look at the map and you look at the economics, well, that should convince you against wind,' the Long Island based politician told Catsimatidis Sunday on WABC 770. 8 Catsimatidis is an opponent of the wind project off the coast of Long Island. Gabriella Bass Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also expressed fears over increased sightings of dead whales around offshore wind sites. 'We've had 109 whale groundings in the last 22 months. And they're all in the proximity of these new offshore wind farms,' Kennedy told Catsimatidis last month. 'In the 20 years before that, the average whale grounding was 2.6 per year.' 8 A map of off-shore wind projects in the northeast. Gabriella Bass Kevin Halpin of the Point Lookout Fishing Club fears that the damage to marine life and the local ecosystem 'could be irreversible.' 'All for a project which is dirty, dangerous to our safety, and completely inefficient,' he added. Equinor, the company in charge of Empire Wind, did not immediately return a request for comment.
