U.S. government scientists warned federal regulators the South Fork offshore wind farm near the Rhode Island coast threatened the Southern New England Cod, a species so venerated in the region a wooden carving of it hangs in the Massachusetts state house.
The Interior Department approved the project anyway.
The warnings were delivered in unpublished correspondence weeks before Interior¡¯s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management authorized the 12-turbine South Fork plan in November 2021. And they serve to underscore the potential ecological consequences and environmental tradeoff of a coming offshore wind boom along the U.S. East Coast. President Joe Biden wants the U.S. to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by the end of the decade.
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