Smart Siting of Offshore Wind Protects Right 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 Final Wind Energy Area (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 determination will assist the business 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 eradicate 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 serious risk attributable to a mix of vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. People can not trigger even one proper whale demise or harm every year if the species is to keep away from extinction. The whales are additionally being burdened by underwater noise air pollution and experiencing basic malnourishment, ill healthand impaired reproductionall whereas combating to adapt to climate change.

With the species merely unable to resist extra loss or disturbance, the suitable whale disaster shouldn’t be an issue brought on by the offshore wind business, however it’s one the business should face.

Offshore wind improvement ought to keep away from and decrease harms to marine mammals and different species throughout improvement, together with by means of mitigation measures that cut back the chance from vessel strikes, noise air pollution, and habitat disturbance. Mitigation measures must also deal with the potential risk of entanglement from floating offshore wind generators which can be probably for use within the Gulf of Maine attributable to its deeper waters.

One of the crucial efficient methods to scale back the chance to proper whales is to easily keep away from growing offshore wind in habitat areas of significance to the species. That is difficult within the Gulf of Maine as all the space is critical habitat for North Atlantic right whales designated beneath 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 may help information siting choices. Nonetheless, strong, precautionary requirements to protect the species all through all levels of offshore wind improvement 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 vitality in the USA, contains one contiguous space of simply over 2 million acres in measurement and a mixed capability of 32 gigawatts of offshore wind vitality. Importantly for the suitable whale, the Ultimate 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 Giant Whale Take Discount Plan. All three restricted areas signify habitat that has remained persistently essential for proper whales throughout their seasonal migration, together with for actions akin 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 yr, corresponding with the placement 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 Ultimate WEA signifies the type of precautionary method essential to defending the species whereas advancing offshore wind vitality improvement. The company’s determination can also be consistent with the North Atlantic Right Whale and Offshore Wind Strategy that BOEM and NOAA Fisheries collectively launched earlier this yr.

Proper whales weren’t the one focus of BOEM’s siting determination. The Ultimate 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.
• Recognized areas of deep-sea coral habitat—weak to the anchoring of vessels throughout offshore wind building and of the floating platforms themselves.
• Cashes Ledgean ecologically wealthy space and residential to the deepest, densest cold-water kelp forest on the Japanese seaboard.
• Jordan’s Basin, an essential bodily and oceanographic function within the Gulf of Maine that can also be of crucial significance in supporting the life cycle and aggregations of the North Atlantic proper whale’s most popular 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 Area 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 location of offshore wind improvement.

A big portion of Wilkinson’s Basin additionally stays into consideration. 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 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, comprehensive baseline and post-project monitoring and implementation of an adaptive administration framework will likely be crucial to enhancing our understanding of cumulative adversarial impacts and utilizing these classes realized to maintain adjusting course to ensure offshore wind is developed responsibly.

By Dr. Francine Kershaw, NRDC.