A US federal judge has refused to delay execution of the lease for the 1GW New York offshore wind area.
Statoil won the site at an auction in December, however, several fisheries organizations claim offshore wind development will harm the industry and have asked the court to block the sale.
The plaintiffs requested a preliminary injunction to delay the lease transfer until the full case has been decided.
Judge Tanya Chutkan this week denied the motion, citing plaintiffs’ failure to show “that the purported injury is certain, great, actual, imminent and beyond remediation”.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had delayed the lease transfer until the motion was dealt with.
Following the court ruling the agency is now “working with Statoil on the next steps to execute the New York offshore wind commercial lease,” BOEM spokesperson Tracey Moriarty told reNEWS.
In the meantime, the lawsuit will continue in a District of Colombia federal court.
The plaintiffs claim the environmental analyses prepared by BOEM were defective, and in violation of the agency’s statutory and regulatory requirements, including that it failed to analyse the actual construction and operation of a wind project and further failed to consider other potential locations.
Image: Long Island (Wikimedia Commons)
