As you may have read in the November edition of The Fisherman, Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind has received construction and operations approvals from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for two more offshore wind locations approximately 8.7 miles offshore between Atlantic City and Long Beach Island, including up to 197 total locations for wind turbine generators and offshore substations, along with subsea transmission cables expected to make landfall in Atlantic City and Sea Girt.
As BOEM continues to plow forward with industrial offshore wind development, we’re still awaiting a comprehensive and independent Government Accountability Office report on the impacts of offshore wind energy development on coastal fisheries; my guess is that those findings won’t come until after the election. Meanwhile, a group of Indian River High School students from Jordan O’Boyle’s Engineering Design & Development class in Delaware revealed their own independent findings on industrial offshore wind during a Fenwick Island Town Council meeting on September 27.
O’Boyle told the Coastal Point newspaper that students were tasked with holding a mock stakeholder meeting on the positive and negative impacts of offshore wind proposals along the DELMARVA Peninsula. “Remarkably, after the students started to research, the entire class — 100 percent — shifted toward the negative impacts far outweighing the positive impacts of offshore wind off our coast,” O’Boyle noted.
The students kicked over quite a few rocks in their fact-finding mission. For one, students noted how planting six trees can eliminate up to one ton of carbon dioxide emissions annually. They also concluded that wind turbines “make no sense” as a source of cost-effective energy, finding that wind turbine production is “unreliable and would be dependent on the wind speed.” Then there’s the cost for ratepayers, 11.59 cents per kilowatt for wind compared to just 3.33 cents per kilowatt for natural gas.
The students also found that a Category 2 hurricane would likely wipe out about 6% of the proposed ocean wind turbines, ultimately leading to dangerous situations with “floating chunks and toxic chemicals.” And then there was the visibility of wind turbines and the impact that could have on tourism. “A lot of people were informed that these turbines wouldn’t be visible from the shore,” said student Landon Arauz, adding “Well, they will be very visible, as they’re about 1,000 feet tall and only 10 to 13 miles offshore.”
“It gives us an industrial look,” Arauz said, explaining how people won’t flock to Delaware beaches only to see look out at commercial wind turbine clusters along the ocean. The high schooler went on to explain how industrial offshore wind would harm coastal business while causing natural landscapes to suffer, even citing a University of Delaware survey of beachgoers that found 17.4% of those interviewed saying they wouldn’t come back to local beaches if wind turbines were visible from shore.
Finally, student Travis Gosnell noted specifically how wind turbines could have a negative impact on the fishing industry, in part because fishermen will not be able to navigate through the wind turbine areas. Gosnell said the effects on offshore fisheries would be on both commercial and recreational fishing, pointing out where the beach at 3Rs and in Indian River Bay will likely see impacts from high-powered cables crossing through them to reach inland power stations. The class message at the end of the project and delivered before the town council was that industrial offshore wind has a serious possibility to cause catastrophic impacts.
A week later, BOEM delivered their own industrial offshore wind activity update to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council which found a significant number of fish kills resulting from pile driving operations for wind turbine installation, including more than 17,000 dead Atlantic croaker and dozens of dead hake. Remarkably, BOEM’s own takeaway from this discovery was “More study is needed to determine causation.”
Clearly, BOEM is not smarter than a 12th grader.
