CAPE MAY – A group of people held a cairn lighting on a cold early evening at Cove Beach in Cape May Sunday, Oct. 8, in protest of New Jersey’s offshore wind initiative.
Cairn lighting borrows from the historical lighting of rock piles in Norway as a warning of impending danger, and the event was part of a coordinated international cairn lighting annual event organized to oppose ocean wind power facilities. An interactive map listed the Cape May event as one of over 500 such gatherings worldwide.
The protest in Cape May also had a specific target, the Ørsted wind farm development, which would initially place roughly 100 wind turbines off the coast of Atlantic and Cape May counties. Plans then call for expanding the wind farms up and down the New Jersey coast in what opponents call an “industrialization” of the shore.
Cape May regulations against fires on the beach meant that electric lights were used to mimic a real cairn lighting.
Speaking at the event, U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd) expressed the theme of the protest, a call to halt the development of offshore wind farms, which their opponents claim are harmful to ocean mammals and ecosystems, as well as damaging to local tourist and commercial fishing economies.
Van Drew spoke of environmental and economic harms that he said would be the direct result of wind farm development. He also discussed national security issues, saying that Pentagon analysis showed that the large-scale deployment of wind turbines along the coast would interfere with radar and ship movements, “making us more vulnerable.”
State Sen. Michael Testa (R-1st) was present to oppose the offshore wind initiative, which he has often called a “money grab” by foreign corporations.
William Reichle of Lund’s Fisheries was at the event as one of the speakers highlighting the dangers wind farms could pose to the fishing industry.
Save the East Coast, the organization that helped organize the event, self-identifies as “a grassroots ocean environmental advocacy group” that fights to protect the ocean and its ecosystems. Opposition to wind farm development gained exposure and growing support when an unusual number of sea mammals began washing up on the New Jersey shoreline beginning last December.
Protests like the one in Cape May have occurred in coastal towns up and down the East Coast. Along with the protests has come an erosion of public support for offshore wind projects, with those New Jersey residents expressing support for the offshore wind initiative dropping from 76% in 2019 to 54% in 2023, according to a recent Monmouth University poll.
Contact the author, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
