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Despite public proclamations of innocence, it turns out BOEM and NOAA knew, the deadly threat of offshore wind development to marine mammals.
Not surprisingly, they reveal it in documents that are currently under judicial review.
They were caught lying, REPEATEDLY, to the semi-lobotomized, media-befuddled US people , during public hearings, aka dog-and-pony shows by insiders.
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Of course these admissions are well hidden, buried in the depths of thousand page of obtuse documents, but they are there to be found.
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These admissions are in the LEGALLY-REQUIRED Draft Environmental Impact Statements (DEIS) that precede each offshore wind project.
They are jointly prepared by BOEM and NOAA.
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The key is, the overall project DEIS includes the EIS for NOAA’s allowance of harassment of whales for the construction of each project.
In fact, you can find this language by searching the DEIS for the word “harassment”.
I am told, this is standard language which varies little from project to project.
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The standard language says just what we have been saying!
Harassment of whales, etc., is likely to lead to dangerous behavior, including increased likelihood of deadly ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements.
The standard language also says, as we have, having multiple projects increases these risks.
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Here is a good example of admitting harassment of whales can cause harm. I could not have said it better.
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“It is "possible" that the (very noisy) pile driving will:
1) Displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality (away from food), and
2) Pose a higher risk of vessel collision or
3) Fishing gear entanglements.
NOTE: All that is true in New England, the US East Coast, Texas Gulf and US West Coast
Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness.
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The magnitude of impacts would depend upon the locations, duration, and timing of concurrent construction. .
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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, (INCLUDING DEATH).
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The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.” (The pile driving events will of on for at least a few DECADES)
Empire Wind DEIS v.1, Page 3.15-14, PDF page 372
This warning is about risks created by pile driving, but all forms of acoustic harassment fit this description. .
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NOAA "harassment authorizations" (including killing whales) are based on the estimated number of critters that will be exposed to unsafe sound levels.
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The source of the dangerous sounds is irrelevant. What matters most is the volume. Sound is a pressure wave; the louder the sound the greater the physical pressure on the whale's echo-locating "hearing" system, which it uses for navigation and avoiding objects.
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The sounds likely are so high as to cause severe pain and physical damage (destroying their echo-location system, which likely results in whale death)
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In fact, the infamous sonar-surveying sounds (under-water explosions to determine ground firmness before driving piles), implicated in the whale deaths, likely are much louder than the very loud, and much more frequent pile driving.
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Driving the enormous piles in to the ground, for the proposed wind projects, is estimated to create sounds around 190 decibels, which is destroys the hearing in humans.
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Depending on the diameter of the pile, size of the hammer, bottom properties, and the required penetration depth, it may take several hours and as many as 5,000 strikes to drive one pile into the seafloor.
The under-water background noise likely is about 25 decibels.
https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/collegephysics/chapter/sound-intensi...
https://dosits.org/animals/effects-of-sound/anthropogenic-sources/p...
But some sonar equipment deliberately emits sounds over 200 decibels.
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Thus it makes no sense that NOAA claims sonar surveys have no significant impact, and so do not fall under NEPA, while pile driving does.
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This is especially true when, as just happened, a dozen different projects are given simultaneous authorization to acoustically harass large numbers of whales. (Let the whale killing begin, per Biden's offshore idiocies)
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What is important is, NOAA and a BOEM are clearly stating the acoustic threats we have been warning about and suspecting are real.
The telling correlations between sonar blasting, pile-driving, and increased whale deaths cannot be waived away.
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Correlation is not causation, but correlation between cause and predicted effect is very strong evidence that the cause is guilty.
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NOAA and BOEM’s repeated insistence, there is no evidence offshore wind development is killing whales is clearly contradicted by their own Environmental Impact Statements.
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AUTHORIZED HARASSMENT KILLS
Author
David Wojick, Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy.
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