Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and DEP Deputy Commissioner Debbie Mans announce New Jersey’s participation in a multi-state environmental lawsuit. (Courtesy OAG/Tim Larsen)
Officials in New Jersey and eight other states are taking President Donald Trump’s administration to court over its decision to allow seismic testing off the Atlantic coast, a move widely seen as the first step toward off-shore oil and gas drilling.
“The federal government is putting the fossil fuel industry above New Jersey’s residents, above the environment, and above the law,” state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal told reporters at a press conference in Belmar, one of the Jersey Shore towns state authorities say would be hurt by fossil fuel exploration along the coast.
New Jersey is joining Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New York in opposing the decision by the federal government to allow preliminary scientific testing that could harm marine mammals.
Seismic geophysical surveys are conducted to map the ocean floor and determine areas where oil and gas may be. The process uses airguns towed by ships to blast compressed air into the ocean, creating sound waves that reach the ocean floor and bounce back to a receiver, where the sound waves are measured to determine what materials lie beneath that section of the Earth’s crust.
Seismic testing is incredibly loud. The effects of the blasts on marine life are not fully understood, but scientists are increasingly worried about the impacts on endangered whales and other species, according to an NPR report.
