Environmental Activists Show Their True Color Is Red

The clock is ticking on a decision to join litigation that would ban offshore wind to save the whales.

In a strange twist, the largest, most well-funded environmental advocacy groups have thus far declined to join a growing effort to protect an endangered whale species. This has left grassroots conservationists flummoxed. There is still time for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club, and others to jump in, but the clock is ticking on pending litigation.

On August 9, Save Long Beach Island (LBI), an organization based in New Jersey and founded in 2021 for purpose of fighting offshore wind, announced its intention to file a lawsuit against U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC). Save LBI is calling on the department to have its National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revisit a 16-month-old petition to designate a critical habitat along the East Coast for the benefit of the North Atlantic right whale. The petition also asks NOAA to exclude wind complexes from the migratory critical habitat Save LBI seeks to establish.

Wind or whales?

NOAA denied the petition on July 22 after Save LBI filed suit to compel the agency to follow the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA) 90-day review standard for acting on petitions. ‘The new legal notification from Save LBI is modest in scope in that it simply asks NOAA to reconsider its prior decision to turn down the petition. However, it does come with a sense of urgency since NOAA figures show the whale species is down to a sparse population of about 380 with just an estimated 70 females that are reproductively active.

As part of its petition, Save LBI also asked the Department of Interior to conduct an analysis of underwater noise from offshore wind to determine what kind of impact those projects might have on the whales’ migration.