PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 21, 2021
More than 80 lobster boats lined up between Monhegan Island and Boothbay Harbor on Sunday to protest a seabed survey for a planned offshore wind turbine near Monhegan. Lobstermen fear that the ongoing survey project and the test turbine that would follow it will disrupt fisheries and undermine an industry that serves as a vital economic engine for coastal Maine. After years of planning, a collaboration between the University of Maine and New England Aqua Ventus would link a turbine south of Monhegan to the mainland power grid in South Boothbay via a 23-mile underwater cable. A spokesman for New England Aqua Ventus said the company believed buoys and lines were “deliberate” attempts to block the survey. Before the project began, surveyors counted 221 buoys in the area, and on Saturday the figure was 453.