Sensible Siting of Offshore Wind Protects Proper Whales in Gulf of Maine

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The Biden Administration is advancing offshore wind in areas of the Gulf of Maine that pose a decrease danger to endangered North Atlantic proper whales.

The Remaining Wind Vitality Space (WEA) recognized for potential offshore wind improvement within the Gulf of Maine is essentially positioned away from habitats of upper significance to endangered North Atlantic proper whales. This good siting resolution will assist the trade advance responsibly on this new offshore wind area.

We want offshore wind, and we have to do it proper. This sort of clear vitality will assist get rid of harmful greenhouse gasoline emissions and create hundreds of well-paying sustainable jobs. However as we battle local weather change, we should keep away from, decrease, and mitigate threats to ocean life in no matter methods we are able to.

North Atlantic proper whales are extremely endangered, and their survival is at severe danger on account of a mixture of vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. People can not trigger even one proper whale dying or harm every year if the species is to keep away from extinction. The whales are additionally being confused by underwater noise air pollution and experiencing normal malnourishment, unwell well being, and impaired copy, all whereas preventing to adapt to local weather change.

With the species merely unable to resist extra loss or disturbance, the fitting whale disaster shouldn’t be an issue attributable to the offshore wind trade, however it’s one the trade should face.

Offshore wind improvement ought to keep away from and decrease harms to marine mammals and different species throughout improvement, together with via mitigation measures that scale back the danger from vessel strikes, noise air pollution, and habitat disturbance. Mitigation measures must also deal with the potential danger of entanglement from floating offshore wind generators which are possible for use within the Gulf of Maine on account of its deeper waters.

One of the efficient methods to cut 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 tough within the Gulf of Maine as the complete space is important habitat for North Atlantic proper whales designated below the Endangered Species Act. Nonetheless, science exhibits that some areas of the Gulf are of upper significance to proper whales than others and this data will help information siting choices. Nonetheless, robust, precautionary necessities to guard the species all through all phases of offshore wind improvement will stay of utmost significance.

The Remaining WEA issued by the Bureau of Ocean Vitality Administration (BOEM), the federal company mandated with allowing offshore wind vitality in the USA, includes one contiguous space of simply over 2 million acres in dimension and a mixed capability of 32 gigawatts of offshore wind vitality. Importantly for the fitting 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 essential for proper whales throughout their seasonal migration, together with for actions reminiscent of 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 hear out for proper whale vocalizations had been deployed by NOAA Fisheries in Could 2022. Proper whale calls had 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 essential 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 sort of precautionary method essential to defending the species whereas advancing offshore wind vitality improvement. The company’s resolution can be according to the North Atlantic Proper Whale and Offshore Wind Technique that BOEM and NOAA Fisheries collectively launched earlier this 12 months.

Proper whales weren’t the one focus of BOEM’s siting resolution. 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 through 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 essential bodily and oceanographic characteristic 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 had 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 primarily based on habitat fashions, long-term sightings information, behavioral data, 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 location of offshore wind improvement.

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 much more local weather 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 embody a set of environmental measures as lease stipulations to make sure that offshore wind improvement 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 know-how is new globally, and the Gulf of Maine is an ecologically essential area the place many information gaps nonetheless exist. As such, complete baseline and post-project monitoring and implementation of an adaptive administration framework shall be important to enhancing our understanding of cumulative antagonistic impacts and utilizing these classes realized to maintain adjusting course to verify offshore wind is developed responsibly.

By Dr. Francine Kershaw, NRDC.