US Ignored Own Scientists' Warning In Backing Atlantic Wind Farm

Jan 03, 2023

By Jennifer A Dlouhy

U.S. government scientists warned federal regulators the South Fork offshore wind farm near the Rhode Island coast threatened the Southern New England Cod, a species so venerated in the region a wooden carving of it hangs in the Massachusetts state house.

The Interior Department approved the project anyway.

The warnings were delivered in unpublished correspondence weeks before Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management authorized the 12-turbine South Fork plan in November 2021. And they serve to underscore the potential ecological consequences and environmental tradeoff of a coming offshore wind boom along the U.S. East Coast. President Joe Biden wants the U.S. to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by the end of the decade.

The nascent U.S. industry is already facing mounting challenges from supply-chain struggles and surging costs, including interest rates, prompting the developers behind a separate project near Massachusetts to seek a delay in planning for the venture.

Ecological challenges represent another headwind for offshore wind. Although conservationists argue that building more emission-free renewable power is critical to combat climate change and bolster dwindling ocean species threatened by warming oceans, the short-term impacts on marine life can be significant.

Marine scientists have warned that projects along the New England coast could imperil endangered North Atlantic right whales. And in August, the New England Fishery Management Council identified Atlantic waters already leased for offshore wind development as a "habitat area of particular concern," a designation that encourages the government take a more stringent and cautious approach to permitting.

Concerns about South Fork, the 132-megawatt project being developed by Orsted AS and Eversource Energy, focused on its overlap with Cox Ledge, a major spawning ground for cod and "sensitive ecological area that provides valuable habitat for a number of federally managed fish species," a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration assistant regional administrator said in an October 2021 letter to Interior Department officials. Based on in-house expertise and peer-reviewed science, the agency said "this project has a high risk of population-level impacts on Southern New England Atlantic cod."

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