Ohioans Agree With New York Fishermen
Published: Thursday, March 12, 2020
By: Norm Schultz
The Boating Associations of Ohio has intensified its call on the Ohio Power Siting Board for a full Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed “Icebreaker” project off Cleveland before any construction permit is issued.
This time BAO is pointing to the concerns for Lake Erie being loudly voiced in New York state, with whom Ohioans share the lake. As recently reported in the Buffalo News: “Lake Erie is simply too small to sustain any industrial offshore wind project,” according to Rich Davenport of Tonawanda, NY, a spokesman for the Erie County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs and the Western New York Environmental Federation.
“The towers will displace water currents for quite a radius around each turbine,” says Davenport, “impacting nearby spawning shoals (even if sited away from spawning areas, you cannot avoid the current change), coupled with the massive amounts of infrasound, or low frequency noise, each turbine will generate while operating.”
There are unknown answers to questions about the true impact of infrasound on fish and other marine life. Unlike in the Atlantic Ocean where other wind turbine farms are being proposed, Lake Erie is only 12 miles wide at Sturgeon Point where there would be 50 turbines sited. The impact on the important fish spawning grounds there is unknown. More specifically, erecting 50 400-foot high industrial turbines from Lackawanna to Dunkirk, NY, without completing a full environmental impact statement is unconscionable.
Further, Ellen Banks of the Sierra Club Niagara Group, part of the Atlantic Chapter, notes the group wouldn’t endorse anything like this until the environmental impact studies have been completed through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Environmental Conservation.
Further, New Yorker Mike Boicmenu, who has worked in the power industry for the last 50 years as an independent consultant with companies like Niagara Mohawk, contends: “There haven’t been enough studies done. There needs to be a detailed environmental impact statement.”
“In Ohio, as in New York, it’s clearly unknown how bad things will be once developers like LEEDCo start stirring up the sediments in the lake bottom to construct “Icebreaker,” plus the required miles of transmission cables,” says Michelle Burke, BOA’s executive director. “We easily recall it was once called a ‘dead lake’ due in major part to all the chemicals, carcinogens, and dredgings now resting on the lake bottom. They are still there.”
Essentially mirroring Ohio’s citizens initiatives, a New York group called “Citizens Against Wind Turbines in Lake Erie” has been formed with nearly 1,800 people initially showing support by signing a petition to keep wind turbines off the lake.
As Burke points out: “Lake Erie is the source of good drinking water for 12 million people; a thriving fishery; is home to countless waterfowl including the comeback of bald Eagles along its shoreline; and a magnet for millions of dollars in tourist money spent in Ohio each year. But the lake is still a fragile ecosystem and the call for a full EIS to determine the true impact of turbines is the responsible action for the OPSB to protect all Ohioans,” she adds.
BAO has formally urged the OPSB to demand the full EIS before any further consideration is given to permitting Icebreaker.
Find out more about wind turbine concerns at www.saveourbeautifullake.org.
This article first appeared in the Spring Issue (Mar/Apr) 2020 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
tags: Environmental Impact, Lake Erie, Law & Politics
