Offshore wind industry says 'misinformation' from foes is a strong headwind it must fight

During the first day of a national offshore wind conference Tuesday 29 Oct  in New Jersey, which has become ground zero for vocal, well-organized opposition to such projects, numerous industry officials said they are in a difficult battle against deliberate falsehoods. These include thus far unsubstantiated claims that offshore wind preparation is killing whales along the East Coast.

We know it wasn't us, and we have the research to back it up, said Crystal Pruitt, an external affairs official with Atlantic Shores, which plans two offshore wind farms off the New Jersey coast..But the hardest thing to do is prove a negative.

She said the industry needs to publicly push back against disinformation.

If you're telling me that the hum from turbines 10 to 12 miles off the beach is going to cause me to go insane, that is not real, and someone needs to say that Pruitt said.

Last year, amid a spate of whale deaths along the East Coast, offshore wind opponents began linking them to survey work to prepare the ocean floor for wind turbines. But numerous federal and local agencies say there is no evidence tying offshore wind to the deaths of the whales, many of which showed signs of having been struck by ships.

Alicia Gene Artessa, director of the New York Offshore Wind Alliance, likened trying to counter disinformation about offshore wind to playing a game of whack-a-mole. Every time you feel you have some local opposition under control, they come up with a new topic and start pumping money into that," she said.

One of the most vocal opposition groups, Protect Our Coast NJ, whose members held up anti-offshore wind signs as they picketed outside the hall where Tuesday's conference was held, said the industry is the party peddling untruths.

We are appalled by the gaslighting of our movement without evidence by shills for the climate industry who hope to cash in if offshore wind becomes a reality,” said Robin Shaffer, the group's president. “This is a case of accusing our group of the very thing that they themselves are doing, muddying the waters, dispensing disinformation to the unwitting public."

The stakes are high for an industry making uneven progress toward goals of having at least 20% of the nation's electricity come from offshore wind by 2035. J. Timmons Roberts, a Brown University researcher who has studied offshore wind opposition groups, said the dynamic has shifted from denying climate change to trying to discredit solutions to it.