Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE)

Study: Potential Hydrodynamic Impacts of Offshore Wind Energy on Nantucket Shoals Regional Ecology: An Evaluation from Wind to Whales, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Comments:

• Kudos to BOEM for sponsoring this important study which identifies the potential ecological effects of offshore wind farms on the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.
• BOEM must now consider, and presumably implement, the committee’s recommendations. This could prove to be especially challenging given BOEM’s prominent wind advocacy role.
• All 9 of the study committee members are scientists with appropriate backgrounds and specialties (see Appendix A of the report).
• As a rule, the NAS notes potential conflicts of interest in the biographical statements. Two possible conflicts were identified: one committee member was a “compensated member of a review panel for Ortsted’s Offshore Wind Research Plan in 2021,” and another works for a firm that “has been partially funded by offshore wind development companies.”
• The panel recommends robust monitoring during all phases of wind development and operations in the North Atlantic region. Is that sufficient given that hundreds of turbines could be installed before the data have been acquired and analyzed?
• The concerns raised by the NAS committee are not new. 18 months ago, NOAA’s Chief of Protected Species cited some of the same concerns in recommending a conservation buffer zone adjacent to Nantucket Shoals.

. Background graphics, excerpts, and recommendations are pasted below.

Important excerpts:

• p.2: A single offshore wind turbine can alter local hydrodynamics by interrupting circulation processes through a wake effect and induce turbulence in the water column surrounding and downstream of the turbine supporting structure, the pile. Moving away from single turbine effects and looking at arrays of turbines in a wind farm or at multiple adjacent offshore wind farms, these effects become more complex with implications for both local and regional circulation.
• p.4: At the wind farm scale, the potential impacts include reductions in ocean current speeds, stratification, ocean surface wind speed, and deflection of the pycnocline. At the regional scale, perturbations due to offshore wind turbines are difficult to quantify because of the natural processes that drive significant environmental variability across the region.
• p.6: Recommendation: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and others should support, and where possible require, the collection of oceanographic and ecological observations through robust integrated monitoring programs within the Nantucket Shoals region and in the region surrounding wind energy areas before and during all phases of wind energy development: surveying, construction, operation, and decommissioning. This is especially important as right whale use of the Nantucket Shoals region continues to evolve due to oceanographic changes and/or the activities and conditions relevant to offshore wind farms.
• p.7: Recommendation: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and others should support, and where possible require, oceanographic and ecological modeling of the Nantucket Shoals region before and during all phases of wind energy development: surveying, construction, operation, and decommissioning. This critical information will help guide regional policies that protect right whales and improve predictions of ecological impacts from wind development at other lease sites.