August 15, 2023 — Fish and fishermen are used to making their way in or on the water. But, in its rush to develop offshore wind, the U.S. Government is throwing both fish and fishermen under the bus.
The U.S. should learn from Europe, which is decades ahead in developing offshore wind. The first offshore wind farm in Europe was built 32 years ago. Since then, more than 116 offshore wind farms have been built. Europe was extremely slow in addressing the effects of offshore wind on the marine environment, but in the last decade or so they have been catching up.
In recent years, European scientists have developed and adapted various methods for qualifying changes to the marine ecosystem due to offshore wind development, beginning with establishing a baseline prior to construction. Surveys have been designed to examine stressors (physical presence and dynamic effects of turbines, acoustic, electromagnetic, etc.) and receptors (pelagic/benthic habitat, fish and fisheries, mammals, food chain, etc.), in many cases, establishing a grid covering the site of a future offshore wind farm and systematically surveying that grid, often extending the survey for some distance beyond its borders. In so doing, the scientists establish a critically important baseline of data that is needed to compare with data obtained when re-surveyed after an offshore wind farm is operational. In this way, it is possible to quantify the short, medium and long term effects of offshore wind on the marine ecosystem. It’s just common sense to do this.
Contrast this with the current U.S. approach. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Federal agency that is the steward for all U.S. offshore properties, has repeatedly stated that they have no plans for requiring any offshore wind site to be surveyed prior to construction for the purpose of establishing a baseline of marine life. In so doing, the U.S. is simply failing to prepare for the potential effects of offshore wind on fish and fishermen, preferring to accept a highly uncertain outcome and ignoring important biological, ecological and socioeconomic effects of offshore wind development.