LAWSUITS BUFFET US OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS, SEEKING TO END OR DELAY THEM

Opponents of offshore wind around the U.S. are pelting projects with lawsuits seeking to cancel them or tie them up for years in costly litigation.

The court cases represent another hurdle the nascent industry must overcome, particularly along the East Coast where opposition to offshore wind farms is vocal and well-organized.

They add another pressure point for an industry already struggling with escalating prices, shaky supply chains, and a handful of highly publicized turbine failures that opponents are seizing on as proof that the structures are unreliable and unsafe, something the industry denies.

There are 13 cases pending in federal courts targeting offshore wind projects, according to the American Clean Power Association, an offshore wind trade group. An undetermined number of additional lawsuits are active in state courts, they said.

Robin Shaffer is president of Protect Our Coast NJ, a citizens group that has filed numerous lawsuits in New Jersey against two offshore projects currently or previously proposed.

Shaffer said his group was at least partly responsible for scuttling two New Jersey wind farms proposed by Orsted that the Danish wind giant scrapped last October, saying they were no longer financially workable.

"An ancillary benefit of our legal strategy is to give pause or doubt in the minds of investors in the big corporations that are undertaking these projects," he said. "Last year, we saw Orsted leave its commitment to build Ocean Wind off the southern New Jersey coast amidst the uncertainty of two lawsuits we filed, as well as another filed by Cape May County."