The Sakonnet Paradox: When Climate Goals Bury Our Coastal Heritage
June 15, 2026
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The view from the Coastal Resources Management Council hearing room was clear, even if the logic presented was anything but. As I sat through the latest public discussion regarding the proposed cross-state submarine cables destined to tear through the floor of the Sakonnet River, a familiar, unsettling irony hung in the air.
We are told that these massive industrial installations — the undersea arteries of the offshore wind push — are the necessary price of progress. We are told this is how we save the climate. Yet, in that room, the very people who have spent lifetimes preaching the gospel of conservation, especially Save The Bay, found themselves in a contorted posture: justifying the mechanical destruction of vital benthic habitat in the name of “environmental protection.”
It is a paradox that is becoming difficult to ignore. The seafloor is not a blank canvas waiting for infrastructure. It is a living, complex ecosystem, the engine room of our coastal productivity. To support the systematic scarring of this habitat for high-voltage transmission is to engage in a form of ecological cognitive dissonance. It is, quite literally, the act of destroying the environment to save it.
During the hearing, I offered my own perspective on the sheer foolishness of Rhode Islanders allowing this destruction to proceed. We are facing the ruin of the Sakonnet River bottom for a project that, at least right now, will deliver not a single watt of energy to Rhode Island.
Even more alarming is the regulatory vacuum surrounding the proposal. There is no guarantee of meaningful remediation, no bond, and effectively zero accountability for the developer. Meanwhile, our local fishermen are left vulnerable, forced to stand by as their livelihoods remain susceptible to an industrial undertaking completely out of their control.
Watching so-called climate activists blindly support this project is, frankly, embarrassing. It reveals a dangerous narrowness in our current environmental movement — a tendency to prioritize global, abstract metrics while remaining willfully blind to the immediate, tangible destruction of the local ecosystems right under our keels.
When the “dog catches the car,” the thrill of the chase usually evaporates, replaced by the jarring reality of the collision. We have reached that moment. Our reliance on the “green energy” narrative has become so absolute that we are willing to sacrifice the integrity of the very places we claim to love. We are trading the health of our local estuaries for the optics of a global transition.
If we are truly environmentalists, our stewardship must be holistic. We cannot selectively ignore the devastation of benthic habitats just because the project arrives wrapped in the right rhetoric. If we continue to sacrifice the foundation of our coastal life to feed the infrastructure of tomorrow, we will eventually find that we have built a “clean” future on the ruins of a destroyed past.
The Sakonnet is a living ecosystem, not a utility corridor. It is time for those who claim to speak for the environment to decide whether they are truly protecting it, or merely rebranding its destruction.
John Travassos is a retired professional wetlands scientist and creator of The Invisible Handshake Project. Though currently residing in Warren, R.I., he grew up sailing, fishing, and swimming in the Sakonnet River as a resident of Tiverton.
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Interesting perspective. Sorry that you were not listened to by Save the Bay and the others that must have been in the room. In the same vein then people should stop mowing and fertilizing their lawns, we should not pave the roads with all the toxic oil and tar. We are changing the environment with everything we do, it is a non-linear entanglement. We need fewer humans on spaceship earth to make things sustainable, so with you we agree on that point. Unfortunately the Sakonet river is not the pristine ecosystem that you describe. The wars propagated by man and the industry propagated by man have polluted the seafloor. Studies have proven that just centimeters under the bottom are toxic waste that was put there by human industry. So we agree that the ocean is not man’s garbage can. Why are we not doing more to close the manufacturing cycle, oh right, for greed and profit. Do the cheap thing not the hard thing.
As to your fallacies – not a single W of power to RI = myth. All power generation goes to the grid and does not care. It is consumed instantly – that is the modern miracle of the grid. What your misconception comes from is the power market which is very hard to understand so your statement and lack of understanding is understood. It is actually better for RI that we would not be paying for the procurement of this energy. Primer – what actually happens is that hourly to two days ahead, power generators bid into the market to sell their power. Most of the cost of electricity generation is from the fuel, the assets are financed up front and present as investment risk and are not associated with the actual production. So RI is not pledging to pay for the infrastructure BUT RI benefits from the power that is produced. So, the plant bids into the market at a negative cost for the electricity so that they are dispatched (their power is used). This guarantees that renewables are used and as much power as they make goes to the market. As long as we have fossil fuel generation and nuclear, there will be no curtailment of renewables. So we receive 100% of the power they can produce. The benefit comes in the market clearing price. The power required from humans hour by hour is provided based on the bids from the power plants. The clearing price is set by the cut off of the most expensive bid which tends to be natural gas for RI in our power market. So, ironically, the more we support oil and gas, the more profitable the renewables are. (so if you want to make them less profitable, then stop supporting oil and gas which lowers the clearing price and cuts into the market based profit) Regardless, RI benefits from a lower cost for our power on the bulk market without pledging to pay for the infrastructure. We do not see that immediately as the rates only change 2x a year… that is a negotiation between the PUC and the utility… not unwrapping that here but the utility shoulders the costs fluctuation of the production and there are many complicated economic models to predict how those companies remain afloat and FERC and the PUCs regulate their profit margins. The point is that RI does see benefits from the power in lower bulk power prices. It is a quite confusing and interesting story.
Please explain this thesis more “There is no guarantee of meaningful remediation, no bond, and effectively zero accountability for the developer.” there is no evidence to support the statement.
We look forward to your movement for people to stop fertilizing their lawns and applying herbicides and insecticides to preserve nature. We support your messaging on that movement. We also support your movement for people to drive less and moderate their heating needs. walk or bike more to increase community health and air quality. We support your message for people to purchase only what they need for their lives and not throw tons of meaningless trash into nature (for what is a landfill but lost natural environment but with a more permanent footprint). We support your message for people to live a more responsible life each and every moment of their lives.
Also, what about your phone, your internet, your telecommunications… your subsea cables that defend our nation? Should all these never be installed also? Pipelines, there are many oil and gas pipelines in the Sakonnet also. You also fail to mention the recovery time and area of disturbance. Many holes in the statements here that could be sorted if you could please provide more defendable evidence.
For the entirety of our lives, each decision can have positive or negative impacts on our environment. Most are negative. I think that Frank points them out early and often in his engagement. Each gallon of gas, each therm, each gallon of fresh water… came from the hard work of civil engineers who thanklessly create our standards of life and our privilege in the animal kingdom. Our dominance, existence, level of health depends on the technology that we develop. But where is the balance… each choice, ever so small creates an impact and the tails, the small stuff cumulatively adds up to create the world we live in.
Glad that you identify as an environmentalist. Let’s work together to preserve our home. Thanks to Eco News for the forum to discuss these issues in a safe environment.
This writer is right on. The insanity of industrializing the ocean makes absolutely no sense. And the writer is right, these wind farms will produce zero watts (for our consumption). Anything they produce is more than offset by the fossil fuels used to keep the grid stable with all the ups and downs of the wind, and other operating requirements. The evidence of this is clear. The shell game played by the developers needs to be exposed for what it is: one big fat con. All the while, they fight like mad to keep their biggest potential competitor out of the game. That’s why nuclear power is still illegal in Rhode Island.
DEK, I don’t recall hearing that name testify at the CRMC hearing. Maybe I missed it, unless you did and used a different name.
Very well stated. Industrial expansion is intended to be incremental out of demonstrated need that cannot be met any other way, and at that as conservatively as possible. Dredging up 4000 acres of Narragansett Bay does not fit that criteria, nor does paving the continental shelf.
DEK, whoever you are: your explanation of how energy is priced in ISO-NE (including RI) is flawed. I’d be glad to point you in the right direction if you want a more accurate picture of why our energy bills keep going up (and it’s not natural gas). Feel free to email me. Ed
Wondering readers should search “Fishing the oil rigs, Gulf of Mexico.”
It’s an industry. A flourishing one.
And check the veracity of the “When the wind don’t blow, the current don’t flow” critics by searching, for starters, “FORM Energy” and “Grid scale battery storage innovation.” You’ll be comforted to learn that American engineers and the venture capital that finances them are still pretty sharp.
Ok, email address please.
Interesting to see an ISO-NE employee get told they do not know how ISO-NE markets work.