BOEM’S Right Whale coverup and deception

BOEM pretends it knows the noise impairment levels for Right Whales but hides its own admitted lack of knowledge on the issue and also obscures its ongoing research that will not be completed for several years.

By Collister Johnson September 27th, 2023 33 Comments @ CFACT

The Biden Administration is rushing headlong to start the massive construction of offshore wind power projects off the East Coast. The wind industry calls these installations “farms”.

In no way, shape, or form do they resemble bucolic farms?

They are massive, noisy, complicated, metal, concrete, and fiberglass factories consisting of thousands of steel towers, all taller than the Washington Monument, topped by fiberglass blades longer than a football field, and surrounded by tons of rock required to prevent ocean scouring.

Even if one subscribes to the absurd theory that carbon dioxide controls the climate, these factories will, when considering the energy and materials required to construct them, result in zero reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere and have zero impact on world climate.

Repeat: zero reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere and zero impact on climate.

But vendors believe there could be a lot of money to be made in this business, and the wind industry has been effective in sprinkling seed money into the coffers of politicians and so-called environmental groups to support the legislation necessary to pay for this boondoggle – money which will ultimately be derived from hapless electricity consumers who want nothing more than cheap, reliable electricity to power their daily lives, and who will find out too late in the game that offshore wind will be neither cheap, reliable, or environmentally friendly.

Fortunately, several citizen groups have been formed that are vigorously opposing this massive industrialization of the ocean. The two leading organizations are Save Right Whales Coalition, led by Lisa Linowes: https://saverightwhales.org/, and Save Long Beach Island, led by Dr. Robert Stern https://www.savelbi.org. In addition, Michael Shellenberger has produced a terrific documentary, Thrown to the Wind, which provides an eye-opening view into the real world of noise produced by so-called survey ships. Save LBI has also initiated litigation in New Jersey federal court seeking to revoke the permits issued by BOEM authorizing this preconstruction activity.

Officially listed as an endangered species by all State and federal governments, the Right Whale falls under the protection of both the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. These statutes require wind energy companies to obtain an “incidental take” permit for the Right Whales and other protected marine mammals while engaged in pre-construction site assessment work, which consists of sonar blasting the ocean floor to determine the placement of the wind turbines.

Last year, BOEM issued a dozen “take” permits to different wind developers who spent the winter months sonar blasting off the East Coast.

Between December 2022 and May of this year, 60 large whales, including one Right Whale, washed up dead on the beaches of NY, NJ, and VA. BOEM put together a “hastily called ” news conference to counter the outcry from the public over this outbreak of dead whales.

BOEM seemed absolutely sure there was no connection between the dead whales and sonar blasting: “At this point, there is no scientific evidence”, BOEM claimed in carefully worded lawyer jargon, ” that noise resulting from offshore wind site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales”. It concluded, ” There are no known links between recent large whale mortalities and ongoing offshore wind surveys”.

But what BOEM did not mention, or even reference, was the fact that it has funded a program currently underway that is designed precisely to answer the question of the extent to which sonar noise adversely impacts Baleen whales. Nor did BOEM mention that it had virtually no knowledge of the impact of sonar noise on large whales when it authorized the IHAs that permitted sonar mapping off the East Coast.

The program, termed “Auditory Weighting Function for Low Frequency Whales,” consists of three studies that examine the underwater noise abilities of the minke and humpback whales as proxies for Right Whales and other Baleen whales.

The program, begun in 2021, contains some startling admissions. First, BOEM is very clear in admitting that it does not know how sonar noise impacts “low frequency” whales. “The hearing abilities of ‘low frequency’ whales”, it explained, “remain one of the ‘major unknowns’ as the regulatory community has tried to deal with the effects of noise on marine mammals.” It added, “This information is imperative for BOEM to assess the potential effects of noise-producing actions (from both oil and gas and renewable energy) on these species, many of which are highly threatened”. It further conceded, ” the data need is national information on just one species of baleen whale which will significantly advance the current understanding (which is almost nonexistent) ……”.

Second, it acknowledged that “we are required to know this information for analyses under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.” It further explains that ” the lack of meaningful, validated data for LF whales has made it extremely challenging for NMFS and others to derive meaningful regulatory ‘not to exceed thresholds’ for noise sources, as required under the MMPA and ESA”.

The program envisions a set of three studies funded not just by BOEM but also by the US Navy, NOAA, and the Marine Mammal Commission.

This means that the program, when completed, will provide guidance for the entire government concerning acceptable noise levels for both oil and gas and offshore wind development.

So why hasn’t BOEM acknowledged that it does not know noise impairment levels for large whales, and why hasn’t it revealed the existence of this program, which will produce the information it is “required to know” under the MMPA and ESA?

The reason is obvious. The studies are being conducted right now and have not yet been completed. The final report and conclusions of the studies are not scheduled for completion until June 2025, almost two years from now.

BOEM is obviously hiding the existence of these critical studies. BOEM does not yet know the impact of sonar signals on Baleen whales, it is very clear that under the Marine Mammal Protection Act BOEM is required to rely on ” the best scientific information available” in crafting underwater noise regulations. In its rush to authorize offshore wind construction before the elections in November 2024, BOEM is relying on guesswork and outdated guesswork, at that. The Federal Code of Regulations makes it very clear that BOEM cannot hide behind the excuse that this critical information is not available when it knows full well that the data will be derived from ongoing studies that are organized and funded by BOEM itself.

At a minimum, this set of facts would support a temporary injunction prohibiting BOEM from issuing further IHAs until the studies have been completed and the data has been incorporated into definitive regulations. Any final Environmental Impact Statement issued by the EPA that fails to incorporate the data to be derived from these latest studies will be de facto misleading and de jure unlawful.

When BOEM claims that “there is no evidence” linking the recent outbreak of whale deaths due to sonar testing, it is engaging in obvious and easily provable deception. This is a classic case of gaslighting. BOEM cannot sweep its “knowledge gap” concerning Right Whale noise impairment under the rug and expect the courts to approve any further offshore wind development.

Author

• 
  Collister Johnson

  Johnson has spent the last four decades working in the public and private sectors in Virginia, primarily in the fields of project finance and maritime transportation. He began his career in public service as Chairman of the Board of the Virginia Port Authority. He was appointed by President George W. Bush, and confirmed by the Senate, as a member of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and most recently, as Administrator of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. In that capacity, he became knowledgeable in the field of climate and its impact on the Great Lakes. He currently serves on CFACT's Board of Advisors. Johnson holds a B.A. degree from Yale University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.

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Do The Political Elites Intend To Starve People To Death?

I & I Editorial Board  August 11, 2022 5 comments

 

Sri Lanka is the case study. Cruel and pointless green agricultural policy has caused a crisis of hunger, shortages, rising prices, a crippled economy, and violence. The country’s president and its prime minister were chased from the country, and have been replaced. It should be a lesson to the rest of the world. Instead, it’s more likely a preview of the future.

What happened in Sri Lanka – “the systematic destruction of Sri Lankan agriculture by a regime so focused on appearing environmentally conscious that it blinded itself to the humanitarian disaster it was creating” – is also taking place in the Netherlands, one of the world’s top producers of farm products. There, policymakers have placed limits on agricultural waste emissions, which the eco-zealots are now at war with. The “tractor-riding rebels” understandably rose “up against their government.” What else should be expected when the rules could force as many as 30% of producers out of business?

Farmers in Spain, Ireland, and New Zealand are also rising up. It’s more than enough for any open-minded lawmaker anywhere on Earth to look at these events and rethink the policies that have caused such turmoil. But not Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Boy Prime Minister, who like the rest of the immature left is fixated on making points with the “right” people, as if he never left high school. Despite the clear warning signs, he’s moving “ahead on fertilizer reduction as provinces and farmers cry foul,” the Toronto Sun has reported. There are factions that must be impressed..............Do The Political Elites Intend To Starve People To Death?

What is it with leftists and the horrible damage they do to nature

August 15, 2022 By Andrea Widburg

For all that leftists identify themselves as the saviors of the natural world, it seems that they are just as likely to wreak incredible havoc, whether it’s the EPA polluting rivers, Anthony Fauci authorizing beagle torture or, most recently, UC Davis’s research facility killing 21,000 fish. When one considers the manmade drought in California’s Central Valley, where a natural drought is also affecting the region, all to save the Delta smelt, you begin to suspect that leftists, rather than protecting nature, are just toying with both it and us.

Let’s start with the EPA, which ostensibly exists to protect the environment. When individuals or businesses run afoul of the EPA’s stringent protection requirements, the costs are high. Here are the baseline daily penalties the EPA began imposing in 2022 for violating anti-pollution laws:.........

With these narratives in mind, it’s easy to start believing that the leftist obsession with nature has less to do with being a steward for nature and more to do with controlling people with nature as the cudgel. The left’s obsessions, callousness, and human errors too often have disastrous consequences for both humans and nature...........

• Ideological and Economic Fascism Combined - This is not a frivolous accusation because, in this case, the shoe fits. There are two types of fascism. One is based on ideology and manipulates popular emotions, and the other is based on economics and appeals to elitist greed. The climate crisis movement has found a way to combine both............ 
• Biofuel Ecocide..............
• Land-Hogging Species Exterminators................
• Intermittent, Toxic, Nonrenewable Solar Power..............
•  Blood Batteries.............
• The Green Fascist Crimes Against Humanity - The green fascists have declared war on energy, water, and housing. They claim that conventional energy creates deadly CO2 emissions and attempt to forbid all debate about the validity of that theory.............Where does this end? Without energy, water, housing, meat, and farm produce, civilization dies. Before that happens, though, billions of people who had either achieved a middle-class lifestyle, or were about to, will be wiped out. And as this reset runs its course, the green fascists will acquire more political power, and their corporatist allies will acquire more economic power.. ..............To Read More....

Green Fascists Are Destroying the World

By Edward Ring 

The green agenda needs to become the topic of open, honest, balanced, and very public debate.   Earlier this summer, the CO2 Coalition was banished from LinkedIn. The CO2 Coalition, with only three full-time employees and an annual budget of under $1 million, had committed the unpardonable sin of sharing contrarian perspectives on climate science. Its work, produced by a network of volunteers that includes dozens of distinguished scientists, offers indispensable balance on a topic that requires honest debate now more than ever.

Among the many comments that followed LinkedIn’s decision, the mentality of the climate crisis mob came through loud and clear. If “the science is settled,” then any contrary perspective is dangerous and must be silenced. A typical comment: “Why does LinkedIn allow so much Climate Disinformation to persist throughout its platform?” Brigades of these content wardens continuously log complaints with LinkedIn against climate skeptics. The impeccable work of Bjorn Lomborg is one of their next targets.........To Read More...

The Great Green Conspiracy

Gil Gutknecht Jul 25, 2022

A big attaboy to Senator Tom Cotton. He is among the first in Washington to begin sounding the alarms about something most Americans have never heard of. It’s the Environmental, Social and Governance system, or ESG for short. This is the spawn of radical environmentalists and woke Wall Street wolves. It is slowly eating away the foundations of our economic system. It’s a major reason that sky high energy prices won’t be going away for a long time. 

ESG is a rather subjective (political) rating system designed to measure a company’s commitment to a green future. A cabal of big money managers use it to deploy capital toward “good” companies and away from “bad” companies. The activists have turned fund managers and bankers into enforcers of their green agenda. So a wildcatter looking for funding to drill new wells in North Dakota or an energy company upgrading pipelines will find financing harder to get. A coal-fired power plant in Utah suddenly finds it nearly impossible to get insurance. 

It is a quiet conspiracy. It’s pernicious. It is a virulent strain of woke capitalism. Should it be illegal? Imagine if the big oil companies conspired similarly to limit production and keep prices high. That’s essentially what the practitioners of ESG are doing..........The Great Green Conspiracy

Repealing the Ban on DDT is Bigger Than Bed Bugs!

By Rich Kozlovich

On November 20, 2014 Samantha Craggs of CBC News posted an article titled, DDT repeal would do nothing to combat bedbugs, stating that experts say 'DDT is going to have zero effect. All it’s going to do is a lot of damage'.

She goes on to state that:

“Local bed bug and environmental experts say DDT would do little to curb the infestation.   DDT or no DDT, there is no magic chemical that will rid Hamilton of its bed bug problem.”   

And they’re right!  DDT will not do one thing to alleviate the bed bug problem in this city or any other city in Canada, U.S or any other place in the world where DDT was used for this purpose.  But that’s not the real issue here!  Which is what I intend to explore.

Apparently this article was inspired by the thoughts of a new councillor-elect, Matthew Green, that appeared in an article titled, New councillor wants to look at repealing DDT ban to fight bed bugs, that says: 

“he wants the province to take “a closer look” at repealing the 40-year ban on DDT, or other powerful chemicals on a limited basis if they'll help eradicate bed bugs in Hamilton”.   

What triggered his concerns?  Well, I think we can reasonably assume there's nothing like a good epidemic to get things started. 

This Canadian city is in the midst of a “bed bug epidemic since 2006, public health officials say, calls to the city have increased about 600 per cent. CityHousing Hamilton will spend $1 million this year alone battling the problem.”  If you read this article will notice there’s an opportunity for their reading public to vote on whether or not the ban on DDT should be lifted in some way asking “Should DDT ban be repealed to fight Hamilton bed bugs?”  In spite of the fact that I absolutely know DDT will not end their bed bug problem I voted yes to lift that ban along with 466 others.  Of that number 238 (50.96%) voted yes, 198 voted no (42.4%) and 31 (6.64%) didn’t know.

The number that really strikes out at me is how many who didn’t know whether or not the ban should be lifted.  Remember - this is in Canada - where anti-pesticide activists have dominated the process with legislation and rank propaganda from the media, and yet over 6% “didn’t know”.  I think that’s an important statistic in viewing the public’s concerns about pesticides and the impact they make in the lives of western societies.  Between those who want ban lifted and those who don’t know that number comes to 57.6% of Canada’s population who aren't moved by the anti-pesticide claims of the environmental movement and their minions in the media and government, at least in a Canadian city that’s been so badly plagued. 

The article goes on to quote local pest control operator Roger Burley, president of Aanteater Pest Control in Hamilton as saying:

 

“going back to old pesticides won’t fix it, particularly DDT”........“Bed bugs are resistant to DDT and most other pesticides that used to treat it. “DDT is really dangerous, and it’s really not effective against bed bugs anyway,” he said. “I’d love to have a silver bullet that would wipe them right out, but it’s not DDT.” 

The article continues to quote him saying “every chemical that used to kill bed bugs wouldn’t work anymore”, and claims that bed bugs are “immune” to a chemical classification known as organophosphates, which would include Dursban, Diazinon and others.  He continues being quoted saying:

 

“Every 10 years, we have to find something new to kill them”, and “they’ve mutated so much. The chemicals we use now are not even related to those chemicals, and we’re actually having some success.”

The only thing Burley said that was correct was that DDT won’t kill bed bugs and we’re having some success - after that he became lost in the green fever swamps.  Resistance isn’t mutation and they are not resistant to organophosphates, and there’s some argument as to whether or not they’ve developed some resistance to carbamates, which are both still used in countries other than the United States.  Those who have studied the efficacy of propoxur (commonly known as Baygon), a carbamate, claim it’s still effective. 

In point of fact those two chemical classifications were what replaced DDT in the 1950’s when bed bugs became resistant to DDT. Organophosphates and carbamates were so effective we didn’t have bed bug problems again for almost 60 years.  The reality is this - carbamates and organophosphates were so effective against bed bugs we were protecting society from this plague without even being aware of it. An insect that plagued humanity all through human history until modern pesticide chemistry was introduced in the 1940’s with DDT.  

Let’s do a little history here.  This plague DID NOT return until the passage of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) and the loss of carbamates and organophosphates.  And they were NOT BANNED! 

EPA created a whole new set of regulations based on risk “assumptions” and added testing after 15 years of use.  They managed to side step science in order to create de-facto bans through use of economics and unscientific demands, thereby avoiding all the messy legal problems they would encounter if they actually attempted to ban these chemicals. FQPA created such an economic hardship the primary registrants simply refused to meet their demands and made a business decision to pull their registrations.

But environmentalists understand the real issue here, and it isn’t just about bed bugs.  It's all about lifting the ban on DDT that would be far reaching.  The article goes on to say:

 

“a local environmentalist and chemical scientist say thinking about bringing back powerful and banned chemicals is a bad idea.” 

There is the real issue in a nut shell.  If DDT’s ban is lifted then there will be serious efforts to do what this newly elected official wants to do when he uttered the most frightening words no green activist ever wants to hear: “I need to take a closer look at the science, but there are chemical solutions and I’d like to revisit that”.  

The raw emotion created by Rachel Carson’s fallacious diatribe in her successful "science fiction" book Silent Spring against chemical pesticides is long past, and any honest scientific effort to revisit all these laws and regulations used since 1972 to eliminate these life saving products from the marketplace would devastate their movement.

Of course any article about DDT must include claims that it was banned “because of its impact on wildlife, particularly bird populations”, and that it’s “persistent and it bio-accumulates, and it does some not-so-nice things".  All are either fallacious or misleading.

Bird populations were never so high in North America until the extensive use of DDT, and that includes the Bald Eagle, which increased during the DDT years.  Carson’s claim about how the poor robin was going to disappear was not only wrong she was deliberately lying.   Carson was a science writer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and absolutely had to know that in 1960 there were “12 times more robins, 21 times more cowbirds, 38 times more blackbirds, 131 times more grackles, etc. compared to 1941 numbers.  The claims about bird shell thinning was a lie based on studies that deliberately eliminated calcium from the test bird’s diets.  Carson had to know all of that and deliberately lied.   

 The bio-accumulation argument was a bust. 

 

 “The theory is that if a fish eats a large number of crustaceans, the fish will have a higher concentration of DDT than any one crustacean, and the duck that eats many fish, and the hawk that eats many ducks, will have higher and higher concentrations of DDT. To ``prove'' this, propagandists analyzed the DDT levels in hawk brains (where they are highest) and duck fat, which has levels lower than hawk brain but higher than fish muscle. In fact, if one compares the level in muscle from crustacean, fish, duck, and hawk, there is no biomagnification at all. In fact, most of the DDT in fish comes through the gills; most DDT in food passes through the gut and is eliminated.” 

As for the persistence argument: “Dr. Edwards can cite more than 140 articles demonstrating breakdown of DDT. In one experiment, a large amount of DDT was added to sea water in a glass container, which was closed and suspended in the ocean. After 38 days, 92% of the DDT and its metabolites was gone. The persistence myth was based partly on inaccurate measurements by gas-liquid chromatography. Many substances interfere with the analysis, including PCBs in fluorescent light ballasts or in the plastic tubing within the instrument. GLC, for example, ``showed'' five kinds of chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides in soil samples, even though none existed until 30 years after the samples were sealed.

Even if the bioaccumulation argument was valid we have to ask ourselves - where was the predicted devastation? Who were devastated?  What animals were devastated?  Since we’re living longer and healthier lives than any time in human history we must ask where's the predicted devastation?  We know that DDT did not then, and does not now, cause cancer, nor do the other pesticides that took its place.

Scientists – if that’s what you choose to call them – have been going along with this propaganda for decades because it’s profitable, and as the years have gone by I have discovered these people are incapable of ramping up the moral fiber to be the rock in the current.

What must really concern the greenies is the fact these other council members aren’t taking a strong stand against the new guy’s desire to review the science on pesticide bans saying:

 

“the notion “needs to be assessed by public health officials, who can separate politics from science and conclude the best practices accordingly.  Another member is “open to forwarding a motion to the province” saying “The province needs to understand the severity of this problem, and if we keep hammering away with what we should be doing and what we can try, they might have to take a look at that”.  Even one who is opposed says, “He's not a fan of the DDT option, but he admires Green's commitment to the issue".  He goes further stating “I welcome councillor-elect Green to this very important discussion table.”  "His advocacy is welcomed." 

This is after decades of indoctrination by the activists, the media, academia and bureaucrats.  As for claims about DDT being linked to all sorts of afflictions.  "Linked to" is a weasel word for some professional’s opinion when in reality they don’t have a clue….but they make all the right noises. 

As for my voting on that poll to restore DDT in spite of knowing it will have no direct positive impact on this city’s bed bug population – we need to understand the ban on DDT is foundational to the green movement.  If that’s overturned their foundation of sand will start to crumble and eventually everything they have promoted will be called into question.

That’s a day that’s long overdue!  The green movement's success has been humanities nightmare.  The socialist and green monsters of the 20th century have left human devastation in their wake.