June 16, 2016 — Fish might not have fancy communication equipment like whales and dolphins, but they do have their specialized ways of navigating through an ocean filled with predators and mobile food sources. And these honed adaptive responses could potentially be harmed by seismic air guns.
But as the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management continues to review the effects of proposed seismic surveys on marine mammals in the Atlantic, an environmental advocacy group is putting out alarms that the tests’ potentially ill effect on fish will be glossed over in the review process that is close to completion.
“There are fisheries impacts that are not very well understood, and now is the time to do these reviews,” said Zachary Lees, ocean and coastal policy attorney for Clean Ocean Action, a New Jersey-based nonprofit group.
Eight companies are currently seeking to conduct seismic surveys in areas off the southern Atlantic coast between Delaware and Florida to look for oil and natural gas resources. Although oil leases in the Atlantic have been canceled until at least 2023, the federal government is moving forward with mapping the sea floor for hydrocarbon deposits.
After approving a final programmatic environmental impact statement, or PEIS, on seismic surveys in 2014, BOEM was made aware earlier this year of new information on protected marine mammals that triggered additional review.