The whale killing study the Feds are afraid to do
By David Wojick |July 11th, 2023
The Feds have admitted that offshore wind development can cause the death of whales and other marine mammals, but they refuse actually to assess that threat for any wind facilities. So I here outline what such a study should look like. This sort of study is what they are afraid to do because it would give numbers to the deaths that are likely to occur, species by species.
First off, here is the Feds’ own description of some of the known deadly threats. In this case, the offshore wind activity is driving the monster piles that support the turbine towers, but there are others. The Feds say this in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Empire Wind project off of New York and New Jersey:
“It is possible that pile driving could displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality or higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction. Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness. The magnitude of impacts would depend upon the locations, duration, and timing of concurrent construction. Such impacts could be long term, of high intensity, and of high exposure level. Generally, the more frequently an individual’s normal behaviors are disrupted or the longer the duration of the disruption, the greater the potential for biologically significant consequences to individual fitness. The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.”
https://www.cfact.org/2023/07/11/the-whale-killing-study-the-feds-are-afraid-to-do/
