August 22, 2019 — Oceanographer Jon Hare listed the effects of offshore wind development on the marine environment.
There’s disturbance to the sea floor during installation of turbine platforms. Noise from pile-driving and other activities. Increases in boat traffic. Lighting of the project site. Dredging for electric cables.
The impacts can be far-reaching.
“Putting a pile into the sediment in essence is habitat alteration,” said Hare, a science and research director with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “You’re taking relatively smooth, unconsolidated sediments and converting it to hard structure, converting that habitat into something else.”
Although Hare didn’t name Vineyard Wind during a seminar on Wednesday, or talk about the company’s 84-turbine wind farm proposed in waters south of Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, the potential impacts he detailed speak to some of the reasons why NOAA has raised concerns about the project, which has led to further scrutiny of the application by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.