NOAA Fisheries recently announced that it plans on mailing surveys to some coastal residents in Southwest Louisiana to better understand community concerns about industrial offshore wind.
According to KPLC Channel 7 news out of Lake Charles, LA, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has designated a wind power area south of the Louisiana coast, and NOAA is interested in knowing what the coastal community thinks the process.
“This survey in particular we are going for random so that it best represents the community that lives there,” said Amy Freitag, Social Scientist for NOAA. According to KPLC, concerns were raised during a focus group with local community members about how fishing on the coast would be affected, the impact windmills would have on water quality, and how this would change boat navigation routes near the turbines. In response to community concerns, Freitag said NOAA will be mailing out random surveys to coastal Louisiana residents later this year.
In a follow-up email to The Fisherman Magazine in early August, Freitag said similar surveys have been coordinated in the Carolinas and Oregon, but nothing has been done nor is planned for Mid-Atlantic and Northeast communities where industrial offshore wind is even further along in the process.
“Nope, nothing in the Garden State, or connected to the MD/DE leases either,” Freitag said when asked about similar programs in New Jersey. “I wish we had gotten in before those, given that’s my home turf, but we’re trying to stay ahead of BOEM issuing leases,” she added.
