Green Oceans Petitions the Army Corps of Engineers to Suspend and Revoke Revolution Wind Permit

LITTLE COMPTON, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Green Oceans, the independent and nonpartisan environmental grassroots organization, called upon the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ New England District to suspend and revoke the permit previously granted to the Revolution Wind project.

The call comes after Green Oceans obtained documented objective and indisputable evidence that Revolution Wind discharged wastewater with levels of toxic pollutants that significantly exceeded legal limits into Narragansett Bay and the surrounding wetlands.

In a letter this month to Col. John Atilano II, Green Oceans asked the Corps to suspend the permit in order to halt further degradation of the waters, perform a formal compliance investigation, and, considering Revolution Wind’s own admissions of toxic discharges, revoke the Army Corps of Engineers’ authorization.

The Corps, Green Oceans wrote, had “assured the public that Revolution Wind’s onshore discharges would meet all water quality standards, introduce no toxic effluents, and avoid significant degradation of the waters of the United States.”

But 15 months of construction “have proved each premise false,” Green Oceans said, adding that Revolution Wind’s own discharge records “reveal arsenic, zinc, phenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and total suspended solids at levels hundreds to thousands of percents above the numeric limits” allowed under existing law and violated the Clean Water Act, state water quality laws, and the Record of Decision.

“As with so much information buried in the rushed approval process, once again, we find documented objective evidence of real environmental harm,” said Dr. Lisa Quattrocki Knight, co-founder and President of Green Oceans. “How can we allow a company to disregard legal limits of toxic pollutants, toxins that could contaminate our seafood and drinking water, and eventually harm our health? The Corps must stop Revolution Wind from continuing to foul our waters with toxic discharges.”

“In the last month, we have asked the EPA to reopen and revoke Revolution Wind’s permit approvals, because the original permit omitted critical conditions in the air pollution analysis. This week, we have asked Interior Secretary Burgum to suspend the operation of offshore wind projects, and we are now asking the Corps to suspend their permit,” said Bill Thompson, co-founder of Green Oceans.

“We will not rest until this environmental tragedy is averted and our oceans and marine ecosystems are safe from industrialization,” Thompson said.

The letter comes after the Trump Administration has signaled a major change in energy policy that aims to protect our coastal waters from environmental degradation. On Jan. 21, President Trump signed an executive memorandum prohibiting new permits from being issued for offshore wind construction and for existing permits to undergo a thorough review.

About Green Oceans

Green Oceans is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, community organization dedicated to protecting the health of the ocean and the coastal communities that depend on this vital natural resource.