April 6, 2023 — New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm may “adversely affect” whales and other marine mammals, but its construction, operation and eventual dismantling will not seriously harm or kill them, a federal scientific agency said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a report Tuesday evaluating an analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of the Ocean Wind I project to be built off the southern New Jersey coast.
NOAA’s final biological opinion examined BOEM’s research, and took into account “the best scientific and commercial data available.”
NOAA determined the project by Danish wind power company Orsted “is likely to adversely affect, but is not likely to jeopardize, the continued existence of any species” of endangered whales, sea turtles and other animals. Nor is it likely to “destroy or adversely modify any designated critical habitat.”