The US Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) is claiming the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management “paid insufficient attention” to the total impact of offshore wind beyond the proposed Vineyard Wind project in its latest environmental report.
In a new report, SCEMFIS also argues that BOEM failed to address the scope and scale of offshore wind’s impacts on fisheries surveys beyond categorising them as “major.”
BOEM released its supplement to the draft environmental impact statement (SEIS) last month for the 800MW Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts.
The SEIS sought to analyse the cumulative impacts of every reasonably foreseeable offshore wind development on the US East Coast in the coming years.
The SCEMFIS report claimed the Vineyard Wind SEIS needed further work in eight areas: the totality of impact across the Mid-Atlantic, physical oceanographic processes, climate change, adequacy of the database on finfish and benthic invertebrates, long-lived biota, fishing/surveys/stock assessments, marine mammals, and economics.
It states: “In the case of the present SEIS, one cannot evaluate the total impact of the proposed development of the Mid-Atlantic Bight as insufficient attention is paid to the impact beyond the Vineyard Wind project, whereas the cumulative impact is the issue of greatest concern.”
The researchers continue that, while the SEIS analysis is “extensive across potentially affected resources,” its frequent “lack of detail” is a weakness.
They argue that the most important direct economic impact of offshore wind on fisheries could be the impact of turbine placement on stock assessments.
Surveys are unlikely to be conducted in wind areas, in which case it is assumed that no stock exists there, the report continues.
The researchers claim this would likely lead to quota reductions, especially due to increased uncertainty in the assessments, and the resulting long-term effects would not be able to be resolved by a single-year compensation plan.
In addition, potential changes in vessel transit routes that make certain areas no longer profitable to fish have been overlooked in the BOEM report, they argue.
The biggest indirect threat to fisheries is a likely increase in marine mammal entanglements in and near wind areas, according to the SCEMFIS report.
This could result from an increased density of fishing gear due to a reduction in available fishing areas and a new source of entanglements from offshore wind construction and operations that could be mistakenly attributed to fisheries.
Greater threats to marine mammals would lead to greater limitations on fishermen, and the SEIS should have classified these impacts as “major” instead of “moderate,” the SCEMFIS report concludes.