Offshore Wind Farms Under Fire Over Maritime Rescue Delays

0:00 Speaker 1 Let’s get an update on windmills. With us today is Bonnie Brady, and she’s the policy director of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association. I guess you go from Massachusetts all the way down to New Jersey. Give us an update.

0:17 Speaker 2 Thanks, John, so much for having me. Yes, we’re all the way from Maine down to New Jersey and growing by the day. Really appreciate this opportunity. A really big event happened this past Wednesday. One of the wind farm boats, ships that is involved in active construction of a wind farm apparently had a medevac. And we followed the entire event. drama.

0:43 And the Coast Guard actually announced on the radio on Channel 16, which is for mariners, that the ETA of the medevac would be there in 10 minutes if it can make way past the wind farms. Now, this is the third event. You’ve heard me talk about this before.

1:01 We have the mistress that went down in 2019. And lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago, they find the boat 50 feet from Turbine One in Block Island Wind Farm. Then a week and a half ago, we had.

1:13 Speaker 1 I remember that conversation me and you had that with the possible hurricane in the northeasterner, the big swell could have just taken the boat and knocked it into those wind farms. Right.

1:26 Speaker 2 And we only had one survivor. It was Tim Diaz, Oscar Diaz’s son, Oscar Diaz, the captain and owner of the boat, and John Anse Jr., his nephew, died in that event. So here we are then. Last week, Canadian Air Ambulance went down somewhere south of Nantucket. Lo and behold, we find out that the fast response cutter coming from

1:46 New London didn’t take a direct route to where they thought the plane had gone down. Why? The wind farms. We tracked the boat. We put it along with the wind farms. They did not take a direct route. They probably lost about 30 minutes in that instance. Probably didn’t matter for those poor souls. But the bottom line is.

2:04 rescues are being delayed because of wind farms. So here we are two days ago, and they announced on the radio, hey, we can get to you if we actually have the chance to get past the wind farms. We followed the track, the MH60. It took 12 minutes to descend. The thing must have been right next to one of the turbines,

2:22 for all I know, which in rescue time is a real big deal. But my question goes back to 2019. Why didn’t anyone tell President Trump? that these two men died right next to a wind farm, whether it was in state waters or not. Why? Because they knew, if someone knew that, that that would have been cancelled immediately.

2:42 They would have cancelled the entire plan instead. Orsted apparently kept quiet because they needed to get approval in 2020, three days after the inauguration of President Biden. He allowed it to move forward for Vineyard Wind, which was the first one, and all the others that have been approved since.

2:59 We have a situation where.

3:00 Speaker 1 People can die. If that’s true, like that, and we have proof of that, then it should be turned over to the U.S. attorney in charge of that area.

3:12 Speaker 2 Green Oceans, an environmental group from Rhode Island, has been screaming for a federal investigation to deaf ears. No one in the press, a couple people covered, oh yeah, they found them. Not understanding.

3:23 Speaker 1 Well, if you get me the information, I will turn it over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and see what they think about it.

3:31 Speaker 2 That would be amazing, John, because... Oscar Diaz and John Anstay Jr., their families deserve justice. We’re heading into the holidays. They’re never coming back. And those men, if it had anything to do with the rescue and the fact that it wasn’t done and something was kept or held, and now here we are, the last two rescues. No one’s saying, oh,

3:51 we have to go around the wind farms. It’s going to take us longer. Seconds matter for a rescue. We know this. No one, I can’t believe anyone, the president on down from his cabinet, wants to see people not get rescued because of wind farms.

4:06 Speaker 1 And if we can prove it, we need to stop it while we can. I’ve spoken to the president, and I’ve spoken to Lee Zeldin, and I’ve spoken to the Department of Interior, who’s responsible for some of those. And everybody...

4:20 fields that those wind farms are a little bit of a fraud. And I’d like to have an investigation of all the lobbying fees that went to different politicians to allow these things to happen, to ruin our environment on the Atlantic coast, to ruin our environment, and double and triple and quadruple the price of electricity. Absolutely.

4:44 Speaker 2 And on top of that, people may lose their lives because of these things. Seconds matter when it comes to a rescue. If you’re in the water, every second counts. You can’t depend on somebody going, yeah, we’ve got to go around these wind farms. We’ll see you in 30 minutes.

4:58 Speaker 1 Thank you so much.

4:58 Speaker 2 People deserve answers. Thank you, John, so much.

5:00 Speaker 1 Bonnie Brady, thank you so much for the update. I look forward for the information because if this was done to the people of the state of New York, then somebody has to pay.

5:10 Speaker 2 We’ll absolutely get you that information, John. Thank you for having me.