Whale Deaths Continue, NOAA, Enviros Deny Wind Energy Link

Dead whales continue to wash up on on the East Coast, and the media and the government are starting to get concerned that people are getting concerned. Virginia Mercury, Wind and whales: ‘No evidence’ links projects to deaths

The U.S. offshore wind power industry is in its infancy, with just a handful of turbines installed along the Atlantic coast.

But they’re already being blamed for the deaths of whales that have washed up on beaches in New Jersey, New York, Virginia and elsewhere.

A Fox News story on Feb. 13 made strenuous attempts to link a dead right whale to Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, which currently consists of two small test turbines about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach.

It was among a string of articles from local and national outlets on wind development and dead whales over the past several months that also saw a call for an offshore wind moratorium by 30 mayors of coastal New Jersey towns. The backlash comes as states and the federal government increasingly set aggressive offshore wind energy targets and as the industry tries to develop supply chains and solve transmission problems.

 

However, according to several federal agencies and scientists, there’s no connection between offshore wind development and what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls an “unusual mortality event” that’s been afflicting whales up and down the East Coast, from Maine to Florida, since 2016, before the vast majority of Atlantic coast wind development began. At the time, the only U.S. wind project in operation was the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island. As of 2022, though, at least 20 projects were in various stages of development

“At this point, there is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales, and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys,” NOAA said in a statement. “We will continue to gather data to help us determine the cause of death for these mortality events. We will also continue to explore how sound, vessel and other human activities in the marine environment impact whales and other marine mammals.”

Bay Journal, Whale die-off raises stakes in Virginia offshore wind bid

As Dominion Energy’s massive wind-energy project proposed off the coast of Virginia enters a critical new regulatory phase, it faces strengthening political headwinds.

Two years of design work and wide-ranging scientific investigations, which, among other pursuits, tracked the flying altitudes of migrating birds to evaluate threats from turbine blades, have led to an important milestone: the Biden administration’s publication in December of the project’s draft environmental impact statement, or EIS.

The Richmond-based energy giant’s bid to build the largest ocean-based renewables project in the nation hinges on acquiring approvals from several state and federal agencies. But none looms as large as the verdict, expected by September, from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees the leasing of offshore energy resources. The EIS is central to the bureau’s decision-making process.

What would be a controversial undertaking even under normal circumstances has been roiled in recent months by a spike in deaths among large whales along the U.S. East Coast. The stakes were already high over concerns about potential impacts to birds and the region’s seafood industry.

From the beginning of the year through Feb. 10, eight humpback whale strandings were reported between Maine and Florida, including two off Virginia. Four North Atlantic right whales have turned up dead or injured during the same period.

Whale distress is not new to the region. “It's been a period of several years where we have had elevated strandings of large whales, but we are still concerned about this pulse over the past six weeks or so,” said Sarah Wilkin, the coordinator of NOAA’s Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, in a Jan. 18 call with reporters.

Examinations of dead humpbacks since 2016 suggest that about 40% were linked to vessel strikes or entanglement in fishing gear, scientists say. The rest remains inconclusive.

So far, only two small pilot wind projects operate in the Atlantic: Dominion’s two turbines off Virginia Beach and Orsted’s five-turbine wind farm off Rhode Island. More than a dozen wind projects, though, are in various stages of development between North Carolina and Massachusetts.

An unlikely combination of environmentalists and conservatives has accused the nascent offshore wind industry of causing the surge in whale deaths. Critics allege that the sonar equipment used during surveys of the ocean floor could disorient the whales and cause them to become stranded.

But the federal scientists said that there is no evidence that offshore wind projects are to blame for the whale deaths. The type of sound imaging used by the wind industry is likely outside the presumed hearing range of humpbacks, said Erica Staaterman, a marine acoustics expert with BOEM. The sounds are also far quieter than those emitted during oil and gas exploration, which employs “air guns” to map deep beneath the sea floor.

As I have said before, I have no idea whether the wind power explorations going on now are directly or indirectly causing these whale deaths. But I do know, if the exploration were for gas and oil, the government and the environmental lobby would be seizing (or is that pouncing?) on the deaths as an excuse to shut it down, regardless of the strength of the evidence. The precautionary principle, don't you know.