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The Biden Administration is advancing offshore wind in areas of the Gulf of Maine that pose a decrease threat to endangered North Atlantic proper whales.
The Final Wind Energy Area (WEA) recognized for potential offshore wind growth within the Gulf of Maine is basically situated away from habitats of upper significance to endangered North Atlantic proper whales. This good siting choice will assist the trade advance responsibly on this new offshore wind area.
We’d like offshore wind, and we have to do it proper. This sort of clear power will assist get rid of harmful greenhouse fuel emissions and create 1000’s of well-paying sustainable jobs. However as we struggle local weather change, we should keep away from, reduce, and mitigate threats to ocean life in no matter methods we will.
North Atlantic proper whales are extremely endangered, and their survival is at serious risk on account of a mix of vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. People can’t trigger even one proper whale dying or damage every year if the species is to keep away from extinction. The whales are additionally being careworn by underwater noise air pollution and experiencing normal malnourishment, ill health, and impaired reproduction, all whereas preventing to adapt to climate change.
With the species merely unable to resist extra loss or disturbance, the suitable whale disaster just isn’t an issue attributable to the offshore wind trade, however it’s one the trade should face.
Offshore wind growth ought to keep away from and reduce harms to marine mammals and different species throughout growth, together with via mitigation measures that cut back the danger from vessel strikes, noise air pollution, and habitat disturbance. Mitigation measures must also handle the potential risk of entanglement from floating offshore wind generators which can be doubtless for use within the Gulf of Maine on account of its deeper waters.
Some of the efficient methods to scale back the danger to proper whales is to easily keep away from creating offshore wind in habitat areas of significance to the species. That is difficult within the Gulf of Maine as the whole space is critical habitat for North Atlantic right whales designated underneath the Endangered Species Act. Nonetheless, science exhibits that some areas of the Gulf are of upper significance to proper whales than others and this info can assist information siting choices. Nonetheless, strong, precautionary requirements to protect the species all through all levels of offshore wind growth will stay of utmost significance.
The Final WEA issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the federal company mandated with allowing offshore wind power in america, includes one contiguous space of simply over 2 million acres in dimension and a mixed capability of 32 gigawatts of offshore wind power. Importantly for the suitable whale, the Remaining WEA avoids lots of the areas that the most recent science signifies are of outsized significance to proper whales.
For instance, BOEM has eradicated from consideration three “restricted areas” the place NOAA Fisheries prohibits or in any other case regulates fishing to guard proper whales from entanglement, as required by the Atlantic Massive Whale Take Discount Plan. All three restricted areas signify habitat that has remained constantly vital for proper whales throughout their seasonal migration, together with for actions equivalent to feeding, socializing, and transiting.
BOEM additionally eliminated an space for which there’s rising proof of a migratory hall to the north of Georges Financial institution for proper whales transferring between the Gulf of Maine and Canadian waters. 9 underwater hydrophones designed to listen out for right whale vocalizations have been deployed by NOAA Fisheries in Could 2022. Proper whale calls have been detected by all 9 hydrophones in each Could and June that 12 months, corresponding with the situation of modelled areas of core abundance for proper whales from Could to July. Parts of the migratory hall have additionally beforehand been recognized as vital foraging habitat for proper whales, in addition to species of marine birds.
BOEM’s removing of the restricted areas and the migratory hall from the Remaining WEA signifies the form of precautionary strategy essential to defending the species whereas advancing offshore wind power growth. The company’s choice can be according to the North Atlantic Right Whale and Offshore Wind Strategy that BOEM and NOAA Fisheries collectively launched earlier this 12 months.
Proper whales weren’t the one focus of BOEM’s siting choice. The Remaining WEA additionally excludes:
- An space extending from the shoreline, together with islands, to 24 nautical miles offshore to guard the myriad species of birds, together with puffins and Arctic terns, that forage primarily on this space of the Gulf throughout the breeding season.
- Identified areas of deep-sea coral habitat—weak to the anchoring of vessels throughout offshore wind development and of the floating platforms themselves.
- Cashes Ledge, an ecologically wealthy space and residential to the deepest, densest cold-water kelp forest on the Jap seaboard.
- Jordan’s Basin, an vital bodily and oceanographic function within the Gulf of Maine that can be of important significance in supporting the life cycle and aggregations of the North Atlantic proper whale’s most well-liked prey, the zooplankton Calanus finmarchicus.
Not all areas of concern have been taken off the desk. An space within the central Gulf of Maine (recognized by BOEM as “Secondary Space C”) that has been proven to be of key significance to North Atlantic proper whales based mostly on habitat fashions, long-term sightings information, behavioral info, the distribution and density of their major prey, and is in shut proximity to one of many NOAA Fisheries restricted areas, might nonetheless be the positioning of offshore wind growth.
A big portion of Wilkinson’s Basin additionally stays into account. This basin not solely represents the first supply of provide of Calanus finmarchicus to North Atlantic proper whale feeding grounds within the waters off Southern New England, together with the Nice South Channel and Georges Financial institution, however indicators level to it being a far more climate resilient habitat for the zooplankton species in comparison with Jordan Basin.
And siting is simply step one. Because the company strikes ahead with leasing, BOEM ought to embrace a set of environmental measures as lease stipulations to make sure that offshore wind growth proceeds in a fashion that safeguards weak ocean habitats and wildlife. We urge BOEM to undertake circumstances that require complete mitigation and monitoring of impacts together with vessel strikes, entanglements, noise air pollution, and habitat displacement, in addition to necessities for adaptive administration.
Floating offshore wind expertise is new globally, and the Gulf of Maine is an ecologically vital area the place many information gaps nonetheless exist. As such, comprehensive baseline and post-project monitoring and implementation of an adaptive administration framework will probably be important to enhancing our understanding of cumulative opposed impacts and utilizing these classes realized to maintain adjusting course to ensure offshore wind is developed responsibly.
By Dr. Francine Kershaw, NRDC.
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