NJDEP: Offshore Wind Has ‘Potentially Catastrophic Cumulative Impacts’

Letters found at the pro-wind NJ Department of Environmental Protection website give ominous warnings over additional turbine builds in the Central Atlantic region.

The colored shapes indicate just some of the BOEM-issued offshore wind leases. The orange blocks are area A-2 (now known as lease number 0557), and the brown blocks obstructing the entrance to Chesapeake Bay indicate area C-1 (now known as lease number 0558). Both areas were claimed during BOEM’s August 14, 2024 auction.

Furthering the plan to build a wall of gigantic offshore wind turbines down the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to the Carolinas, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) conducted its fifth offshore wind auction in the past three-plus years on August 14, 2024.

Up for grabs were two areas in what’s called the “Central Atlantic” region. One, previously known as A-2, is 101,443 acres just 26 nautical miles from Delaware Bay. The other is a larger swath of 176,505 acres 35 nautical miles from the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, known as area C-1. They went for a combined value just shy of $93 million into the U.S. Treasury.

Area A-2 joins three neighboring lease areas that will eventually form a video-game-like maze for anyone navigating in or out of Delaware Bay. There’s also the little problem – duly reported by BOEM -- of nearby “DoD national defense and FAA air-traffic-control land-based radar sites,” the fact that project structures “would be visible on military and national security vessel and aircraft radar,” and the “increased navigational complexity,” collision risk and amplified vessel traffic creating “adverse impacts on USCG SAR (Coast Guard search and rescue) operations and military and national security uses.”

However, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has other worries. Outlined in three letters sent to BOEM as comments on its plan to lease out the area previously known as A-2 are the potential “catastrophic” effects on N.J. commercial fishing interests, not to mention the trickle-down effects on anyone who enjoys seafood.

The ‘incompatibility’ of fisheries and offshore wind

It seems that no matter what disastrous effects offshore wind is shown to bring along with it, be it marine mammal strandings, impacts on scenic views, or submarine cables being trenched through Barnegat Bay, the NJDEP has gone along for the ride. But letters found at the agency’s website (and curiously not included in the official Federal Register summary of comments received) warn about the effects of industrializing additional areas of the ocean with hundreds of offshore turbines.

Signed by Megan Brunatti, NJDEP Deputy Chief of Staff, a letter dated August 31, 2023, reads in part:

“Previous comments from the NJDEP described how important the Atlantic surfclam fishery is to the State, the significant overlap of leases and WEAs (wind energy areas) with fishing grounds, the incompatibility of current surfclam fishing methods and windfarms, and the potentially catastrophic cumulative impacts to the fishery.”

New Jersey, Brunatti warns, “will be the most impacted state by revenue” when lease area A-2 is developed.

“A-2 is in a major transit zone for vessels leaving and entering the Cape May port. Many commercial and recreational vessels transit through A-2 to reach fishing grounds such as Wilmington, Baltimore, and Washington Canyons. This would affect vessels from Cape May, Wildwood, Atlantic City, and to a lesser extent, Port Norris.”

Aside from impacts to transit and the surfclam industry, Brunatti cautions how offshore wind can also adversely affect blue crabs, scallops, and vitally important menhaden stocks.

Blue crab larvae “are swept into the bay by wind and currents. Any interference with currents (from) wind farm development could be detrimental to blue crab larvae…” Brunatti says.

Scallop fishing “and survival and reproduction in scallop beds” might not fare any better, she notes, warning of “cumulative impacts on the fishery…” with NY Bight leases further up the coast closing in on the Mid-Atlantic Access Area and “A-2 abutting directly to its boundaries in the Southwest.”

As for menhaden, filter-feeders that are an indispensable fish in the food chain, Brunatti says that “(m)enhaden, like other Clupeiformes, may be at particular risk of behavioral response to offshore wind noise because of unique hearing structures and capabilities.”

European studies, she adds, “have shown evidence that herring migration was affected by a windfarm, and avoidance behavior and displacement of finfish and shellfish resources was observed during construction in Europe.”

Also at risk is the Carl N. Shuster Horseshoe Crab Reserve off the northern part of the Delmarva peninsula. Not only does area A-2 abut the southeastern corner of the reserve, but as Brunatti reveals, other issued offshore leases prepping for construction are sited smack within the protected horseshoe crab zone. “A full characterization of any WEA option should include this detail, and studies should be conducted regarding population estimates or impacts of construction on population.”

As far as the hundreds of pending offshore turbines that are right in the NJDEP’s own backyard, the agency’s job appears to be simply to continue promoting Gov. Phil Murphy’s various Executive Orders calling to increase the state’s “offshore wind goal.”

But the “potentially catastrophic” impacts of this technology now threaten marine life species along the entire Eastern Seaboard. And once these environmental resources are gone, they may never be capable of regenerating.