Over 81,000 Acres Off New York Coast to be Made Available for Offshore Wind Development - Oceana USA

Over 81,000 Acres Off New York Coast to be Made Available for Offshore Wind Development

Press Release Date: March 16, 2016

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Contact:

Dustin Cranor, APR | email: dcranor@oceana.org | tel: 954.348.1314

 

WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management defined a Wind Energy Area development of 81,130 acres in federal waters off the coast of New York, 11 miles south of Long Island.

In response to the newly proposed plan, Jacqueline Savitz, Oceana’s vice president for the U.S., released the following statement:

“Just one day after President Obama announced the removal of the Atlantic Ocean from future plans to drill for offshore oil and gas, the Department of Interior has taken another step in the right direction toward reducing our global carbon pollution and generating clean renewable energy for future generations.

Oceana supports the responsible development of offshore wind energy and believes that when it’s done in environmentally responsible way, it can make a huge contribution towards the clean energy solution that we need. Oceana applauds DOI for identifying an area of more than 81,000 acres for offshore wind development off the coast of New York. This new Wind Energy Area adds to the 1 million acres already slated for offshore wind development in the Atlantic, showing that the U.S. can move rapidly to develop clean energy sources off the Atlantic coast, rather than drilling for the dirty fossil fuels of the past.

This designation for wind energy development will help protect our marine life, fisheries, coastal economies and oceans, and demonstrate how we can best use our marine resources for energy development.”

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Oceana is the largest international advocacy organization focused solely on ocean conservation. We run science-based campaigns and seek to win policy victories that can restore ocean biodiversity and ensure that the oceans are abundant and can feed hundreds of millions of people. Oceana victories have already helped to create policies that could increase fish populations in its countries by as much as 40 percent and that have protected more than 1 million square miles of ocean. We have campaign offices in the countries that control close to 40 percent of the world’s wild fish catch, including in North, South and Central America, Asia, and Europe. To learn more, please visit www.oceana.org.