Neptune City Council President to State & Feds – It’s Time to Investigate Whale Deaths
Neptune City Council President to State & Feds – It’s Time to Investigate Whale Deaths
Neptune City (Borough), N.J. – After months without feasible discussions or fact-based investigations launched by the State of New Jersey and/or Federal Government into the staggering whale and dolphin deaths along the Jersey Coast, borough of Neptune City Council President Brian J. Thomas is demanding immediate action:
“The silence from the majority of our state and federal elected officials is quite deafening. In fact, it’s absolutely disturbing when agencies in charge of protecting our coastlines and waterways along New Jersey have been mute for months now, even as marine mammal fatalities have continued,” commented Council President Thomas. “The hypocrisy is nauseating, Trenton and Washington talk a tough game when it comes to ‘saving the environment,’ but apparently that doesn’t count when dealing with foreign companies paying or when it’s a ‘green’ agenda item for a governor. Dead whales and dolphins are okay with them, just don’t ask for a plastic bag or utensils because that’s their redline.”
Thomas has been sounding the alarm on this issue since the onset of the acoustic sonar survey mapping for New Jersey’s now infamous offshore wind turbine projects began and the first of the unfortunately never-ending marine mammal deaths started in late 2022.
Since then, he has been rallying the call to have an immediate investigation of these projects as well as the dubious nature of the N.J. Legislature’s actions in rushing to pass a law in 2021 removing authority from municipalities on this issue and the ability of local officials from having a say:
“The legislature, barring a limited few, continues to act unilaterally – blatantly disregarding towns and overstepping in their reach of authority. This isn’t the first time, but it is just a recent example in a long list of malicious actions by Trenton,” Thomas continued. “Listen, they have time to name days after microbes or call for ‘special investigation task forces’ for everything, so why can’t they do that in this situation? I guess they’re concerned about green energy, but the only green they’re looking at is from corporate dollars.”
On March 27th, at the Borough of Neptune City Council meeting, Council President Thomas worked across party lines to design a resolution (below) calling for an immediate investigation into these deaths:
“It’s simple, we want an investigation. Residents all throughout New Jersey want unbiased, evidence-based studies to find out what is killing these animals. Whether it ends up being due to acoustic sonar surveying or not, we deserve and demand the information. Neglecting to do so by the state and federal government only serves to raise even more questions,” concluded Thomas. “This is not hard and needs to be done immediately. If we can work together in our borough to pass this bipartisan resolution calling for one, then there is no reason why New Jersey can’t. I ask my colleagues in other towns to join us in passing their own resolutions calling for the same.”
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