So much has been going on these past few weeks – a Presidential assassination attempt; my grandpa standing his ground, catching Covid, and finally giving in to the kids trampling his lawn; the arrest in Greenland of the notorious picaroon Watson; the world up in arms because it mistook a drag show reproduction of a 17th Century Dutch painting of a bacchanal for a drag show reproduction of a 15th Century Italian painting of a rabbi at a party telling his buddies “We don’t have enough matzah and wine? It’s cool, you guys got me,” and the Olympics folks finally giving in to the kids trampling their lawn. But one thing happened which caught my eye that a lot of people seem to have missed. And here’s the backstory.
For about two years in the mid-2000s, there was a fellow who was President of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. The group was founded to oppose a wind farm planned for the middle of the Sound, between Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vinyard and Nantucket. This fellow was doing an amazing job and he was being paid well for it, around $210,000 in 2007, or just under 10% of the nonprofit’s donations for the year.
In early 2008, when it became clear that permitting for the wind farm would not go forward, the fellow resigned. It was about this time that he announced he had been consulting for a company called Clipper Windpower, a manufacturer of turbines for wind farms. In 2013, the founders of Clipper Windpower, Jim and James Dehlsen, invited this fellow to be CEO of another one of their companies, called Aquantis, which uses wind turbine technology and applies it to ocean currents. This ocean turbine has been a decade in development and we have yet to see a commercial product (kind of like its former CEO’s process of developing an orca sea sanctuary), even thought Aquantis has received millions of dollars in government funding for testing and development.
So you may have seen this fellow speak on video. You may have seen him speak in person. You may have met him, shaken his hand, or even hugged him, and that’s quite alright since he does give off serious Santa vibes.
This fellow, Charles Vinick, is now a board member and Executive Director of the Whale Sanctuary Project (WSP). And the story’s about to take an interesting twist. WSP’s books – it’s financial records and ledgers – are not kept by an officer of the organization – not the treasurer, Dave Phillips, nor President Lori Marino, nor Vinick (though Marino and Vinick did individually keep the books for a short period early on).
They’re kept by a man named David Arthurs, who on WSP tax filings is listed as Chief Financial Officer. But he’s not CFO of WSP. He’s CFO of Aquantis and the address he’s listed is Aquantis’ offices in Santa Barbara.
Now there’s nothing illegal or unethical about this, but if Arthur is involved with fiscal management of WSP at all, including its tax filings, then I’m quite suspect about Aquantis’ filings and revenue (or loss thereof) and accuracy of reporting, mostly because WSP’s 2022 IRS filing includes some rather avertible errors and questionable entries. I’ll note here that WSP has a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) of record that is not Arthur, and typically, the CPA (such as with PAWS) or an officer or executive of the organization (as at Elephant Sanctuary) would be the one holding the books, not the CFO of a company the Executive Director used to lead.
“You can’t buy love, but you can rent it for three minutes!”
– Stan Lee, “Deadpool”
So back to the news that you likely missed.
When Vinick left the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, he told the local paper that he supported wind power and would work with developers on establishing offshore wind farms farther out.
On the day that Trump was shot, July 13, which is why you’ve likely not heard of this, a blade being installed on a turbine as part of a new wind farm farther out fell into the ocean and broke apart. The debris floated onto the shore of Nantucket Island.
One would expect that Charles “David” Vinick, the great conservationist and ecowarrior who defeated the Goliath wanting to build in Nantucket Sound, would be all over the news expressing his concerns. But I get it. He’s busy fighting a French nonprofit** affiliated with Paul Watson for possession of two French orcas while simultaneously signing a letter with Jane Goodall asking for Watson’s release.
Never mind that Vinick, as Executive Director of WSP, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars directly from Sea Shepherd board member Pritam Singh at a time when Singh was orchestrating Watson’s forced exit from the very group he (Watson) had founded.
Never mind that Vinick was collaborating with The Dolphin Company’s CEO, Eduardo Albor, on doing something with an endangered killer whale in Miami at a time that Albor’s company was lobbying the Mexican government to allow the capture of wild dolphins if they were prohibited from breeding them in captivity.
Never mind that key components and technology of the General Electric wind turbines being built farther out from Nantucket Sound are from companies that GE acquired either directly or indirectly from Dehlsen Associates and its principals.
Knowing when to keep your mouth shut can be essential for achieving your goals. But when you don’t speak up when bad things are happening that are counter to your attested values because it would jeopardize your goals, philosophers and writers for centuries have had terms for that:
“Selling out”
“Compromised”
“Making a deal with the Devil”
And the Devil heard, for when he joined WSP, the Devil provided Vinick with one of his servants.
**Sea Shepherd France, which is not affiliated with Sea Shepherd Global, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, or Pritam Singh.
TOP IMAGE: Town of Nantucket Current
(YES, MUCH MORE TO COME!!)
