Opinion: Wind Farms Won't Be A Speck in the Sea, Fisherman Says

The phone buzzed, it was a text message from Montauk local Anthony Sosinski. Besides being a commercial fisherman and co-author of the best seller, " A Speck In The Sea," he cares about all things Montauk and Long Island.

The reason he reached out to me was because he is upset about the wind farms being proposed for the ocean off of the East End of Long island. These text messages were preceded by headlines regarding the project.

Anthony Sosinski, the best selling author wanted me, the writer of two novels that quite frankly don't seem to sell at all, to write this story. We have been friends for 14 or so years and he reached out for me to write about "green products" and what he calls "dirty products," in this case, the wind farms.

After a series of text messages we finally spoke and he educated me about his point of view on this issue. When I lived in Montauk we saw each other a few times a week, as does almost everyone. He totally believes in "green energy," with solar panels on homes and even windmills on private and government lands.

But not, however, on 212,000 acres in the ocean off the East End. I believe he made a great case and so I am honored to list them.

First of all, he said he often sees the huge commercial service ships for the 5 turbine wind farm off Block Island and thinks that for a small remote island with a very tiny winter population the situation is acceptable.

However, what he sees as problematic is what will be the norm off the East End's pristine beaches when huge service vessels and commercial offshore platform building vessels start commercially building scores of these wind farm turbines, some with wing spans of at least 500 ft.

He said he understands the sensitive nature of the ocean and believes this activity will harm the delicate status of the ocean off the East End. He also believes the project will be massively inefficient and in the end, there will be power lines coming ashore on our world famous beaches that will create an industrial presence at many points right off the beach; perhaps similar to the ugly power transfer station by the train station in Amagansett.

His second point was about the unknown factors of how wind farms never before used, at this scale, in this location, will fare over time during hurricanes and nor'easters. He believes nothing built by man out in the ocean can withstand a category 4 or 5 hurricane and that the promises being made by those who will build and profit from the wind farms in this multi-billion dollars project, are not being truthful. Because, as Anthony said, "How can they really test them for that?"

Lastly he knows he is up against a thirst for "green energy" that's gained momentum nationally and is afraid that the wind farm projects sounds "green," but is in fact, using his words, "very dirty." He said it will take a small navy of huge fossil fuel burning service ships that will be all over the East End's ocean waters, first just to build these massive wind farms.

They will, he believes, pollute the ocean with construction materials and debris perhaps falling into the water and washing up on summer beaches during the extremely profitable construction phase. Then, second, a small active navy will be needed to maintain, protect and service them. In the end, Anthony Sosinski believes the ocean wind farms are a bad idea. Short term construction profits are too high a price to pay, with the threat of sacrificing the integrity of our East End shoreline a concern. First wind farms, then, perhaps, oil platforms. These days many awful things now seems possible.

Over the years in so many articles I always mentioned how, for as long as there have been men and women, they no doubt stood at the edge of the East End's ocean and marveled at its power and beauty. Are we ready to end that right now for shortsighted, unproven symbolic gestures for "green energy," for political sound bites, for politicians looking to rise to being considered presidential candidates?

This is not a "not in my backyard" argument; this is "never off any ocean beach of a densely populated area known for a number of the world's most beautiful beaches". The other side has well composed position papers to answer all of Anthony Sosinski's points, as all well financed high profit oriented construction projects have.

I remember experts testifying how the Montauk beach project would not expose ugly black plastic bags and manmade hard structures after storms. They either lied or were just plain wrong.

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