A monstrous shadow looms over Newport Harbor.
On Monday afternoon, the SSCV Thialf — the second-largest crane ship on the planet — crept into Narragansett Bay, a 661-foot-long, 472-foot-tall steel leviathan that dwarfs everything around it. Its mission: to begin foundation work for the Empire Wind project, the latest push in a controversial offshore wind scheme.
Though these turbines will rise off New York’s coast, the damage begins here. Staging has started in Rhode Island waters, and with it, growing certainty that our coastline and marine life will pay the price.
Enough is enough.
For years, environmental groups and fishermen have sounded the alarm. They warn of catastrophic disruption to fragile marine ecosystems — migratory species thrown off course, fisheries destabilized, habitats scarred beyond repair. Yet the warnings go unanswered, as politicians turn a blind eye, drowned beneath hollow promises of “progress.”
Now, with the Thialf anchored in our bay, that progress feels more like an invasion.
This isn’t clean energy — it’s an infection. It’s industrial sprawl at sea.
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