Protest Against Offshore Wind Held At Cisco Beach

A peaceful protest held by island residents took place Sunday afternoon at Cisco Beach to express their opposition to the offshore wind projects in the aftermath of the turbine disaster last month.

Mary Chalke, dressed in a whale costume, led the group as they lined up together side by side for their demonstration.

“The blade went in and as you know, it's 60 tons of fiberglass shards and foam into the water and this is the heart of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale habitat,” she said. “They're baleen whales. They feed by skimming the surface of the water. So they're going to be ingesting it as this gets broken down into microplastics, and our fish, and our seals.”

This protest took place simultaneously with the "flotilla" protest organized by the New England Fishermen's Stewardship Association.

"They really need to stop these projects," Chalke said. "This is three blades in just over three months. They need to stop them, take those blades down, and barge them back to Europe."

“This is an amazing journey. I don’t really know what is going to happen, but we're at an inflection point where the public now understands this is not good for our environment," Chalke continued. "We're angry, we're angry at our Select Board for going into a financial partnership. We're angry with our conservation organizations that took money from these wind companies to abandon the plight of the right whale in favor of offshore wind. I think people are feeling pretty betrayed and it's losing steam fast.”