NOAA Calls for Right Whale Protections
Conservationists and federal scientists from NOAA Fisheries have expressed concerns about how the installations could harm the North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered species which has dwindled to about 340 individuals, as the offshore wind industry in America prepares to launch new industrial wind energy projects off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.
Sean Hayes, chief of the protected species branch at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), wrote a letter this spring to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the principal regulator for offshore wind development, suggesting a "conservation buffer" zone, or area without wind turbines, near to the Nantucket shoals that would be roughly 10 nautical miles long and would overlap with areas planned for offshore wind projects in southern New England.
The New Bedford Light asked a spokesperson for BOEM about the proposed buffer zone and whether BOEM had approved or established it. A spokesperson for the organization responded that BOEM is taking into account all feedback provided during the scoping period for the Mayflower project and that it anticipates publishing a draft environmental impact statement early next year that will address Hayes' concerns.
“We are primarily concerned about development in the areas with the highest degree of overlap,” a NOAA Fisheries spokesperson told the New Bedford Light, adding the risks are “potential and not certain,” and that the agency is collaborating with BOEM on a “range of options.”
Right whale sightings off Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket have been on the rise since 2022, and researchers from the New England Aquarium have suggested that climate change may be to blame. A warming ocean may be affecting the whales’ feeding and migration patterns.
Prior to Hayes' letter (issued in May of this year), NOAA Fisheries submitted a public response to BOEM for the Mayflower Wind project, advising BOEM to include a project alternative in its environmental impact statement (EIS) that would have no turbines in certain areas of the lease. However, in that letter NOAA did not specifically identify a conservation buffer zone.
A right whale survey was conducted in the area slated for wind development before the federal government approved the leases, but Erica Fuller, a senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), cited claims that the survey was insufficient.
Numerous conservation groups, including the Save Right Whales Coalition, have also voiced concerns. Nantucket Residents Against Turbines is engaged in a federal lawsuit against BOEM, NOAA Fisheries and others over the Vineyard Wind project, alleging the wind farm (through both its construction and operation phases) will threaten the right whale.
Read more:
New Bedford Light: NOAA scientists propose more protection for right whales in offshore wind area
