Fishing Industry Perspective Bonnie Brady, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association
Impacts Of Offshore Wind Turbines • Environmental Damage To Ocean Sea Floor • Heavy Industrial Construction (is it an appropriate use?) • Negative Operational Consequences (Co-Existence Planning) • Habitat, Nursery and Forage Degradation (53 Fin Fish Species) • Migratory Changes of Key Regional Species (Mammals, Schooling Fish) • Vast and Sustainable Organic Protein Sources Put at Risk • Regional Economic Consequences
Construction Methodology Turbine Bases
Piling Driving and Noise Generation • "Pile-driving during the construction of offshore wind farms produces an incredible amount of noise," said Helen Bailey, one of a group of scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science who are studying the impacts of wind turbines on the environment. "This is potentially harmful to marine species and has been of greatest concern to marine mammal species, such as protected populations of seals, dolphins and whales.“ • Creating up to 220 db, which can injure and kill. Causing permanent temporal shifts in hearing in marine mammals and in fish, through swim bladder destruction, and particle wave pressure. • https://m.phys.org/news/2013-11-noise-impact-offshore-farm- marine.html
Transmission Cable Methodology (35 Miles) • Jet plowing is considered a Level B harassment of marine mammals, and fish, masking communication, and can disrupt migration, breeding, feeding or sheltering. • Jet plowing has “the potential to cause harassment as defined by the MMPA includes the noise associated with the use of DP vessel thrusters during cable installation activities (120 dB).” • For the Block Island wind turbine project, the 120 db Zone of Influence was 9.7 miles from the jet-plowing cable laying, throughout. That means that the jet-plowing at 120 db could be heard underwater for 9.7 miles from the actual site of cable trenching, at a level that is considered a Level B harassment of marine mammals, and fish. • Jet plowing will cause displacement or loss of benthic habitat and finfish resources in the immediate areas of disturbance http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/incidental/energy/biwf_cables_2016iha_app.pdf
Sound is Essential to Marine Species • Communication - Individual Recognition, Predator Avoidance, Prey Capture, Orientation, Navigation, Mate Selection, Mother-Offspring Bonding. • Effects of Anthropogenic Sounds (Mammals, Fish) • Physical injury - Temporary or Permanent loss of hearing sensitivity • Behavioral modification - Changes in foraging or habitat-use patterns • Masking - The prevention of marine mammals from hearing important sounds. (Family and Schooling) • http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/permits/biwf_iha_application2014.pdf
Noise Concerns – Industrial Construction
Noise Levels and Impacts
Site Area Survey Noise Impacts • Site surveys
Site Area Survey Noise Impacts (Cont.)
Site Area Survey Noise Impacts (Cont.)
Operational Noise Generation Wind Turbines • Operational sound of wind turbines: sound estimated to be 120 db continuous, 200 meters from monopoles, based on model results. • 120 db continuous sound is considered a Level B harassment: potential to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering, but does not have the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild
Dbs and Particle wave pressure • http://www.subacoustech.com/information/downloads/reports/534R1231.pdf Noise causes both auditory and non- auditory effects. The non-auditory effects of noise may be obvious, for instance when underwater blast results in floating dead fish. Other injuries, such as swim bladder rupture in fish, may be observed by observation and dissection of exposed individuals. These effects only occur at high levels of sound, for instance typically within tens of, or at most a few hundred metres from underwater blast, and hence affect relatively small areas and numbers of individuals (Nedwell and Edwards 2004). • The auditory effects of sound comprise temporary or permanent noise induced deafness, and the behavioural effects of underwater noise, typified by a species avoiding an area of high noise. Both of these are poorly understood, yet behavioural effects may have an influence over great ranges, often kilometres or tens of kilometres, reaching very much larger numbers of individuals. High noise levels have been cited as having the potential to impede communication amongst groups of animals, to drive them away from feeding or breeding grounds, to cause strandings, or to deflect them from migration routes. • http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/2041-210X.12544/full Deviations between sound pressure and particle motion can be high in the near field (near sound sources), meaning sound cues such as vocalizations are likely to be detectable at different ranges via particle motion compared with sound pressure. This is also the case for anthropogenic noise sources, such as pile driving and shipping, which may have near-field effects on fishes and invertebrates that scale with particle motion rather than sound pressure. Methods to measure and model the particle-motion field at close ranges are needed to understand better the behavioural and evolutionary implications for acoustic communication, and the potential effects of noise on aquatic fauna. A related subject is the role of directionality in these effects: sound pressure signals do not contain directional information, whereas particle motion is inherently directional, which gives information about source direction.
Conclusions On Wind Energy Related Noise • There is a need to examine more closely those sound exposure response patterns that give rise to significant detrimental effects on fish populations before a more complete risk assessment approach can be developed and incorporated into environmental statements. • The development of specific sound exposure criteria, whether weighted or unweighted, is only the first step in performing risk assessment. It is important to specify in greater detail the characteristics of those sounds that result in effects.
Impacts of Wind Energy Related Noise • It is also necessary to describe the behavioural responses of the animals in greater detail and to assess the implications of those responses in terms of risks to populations. • Significant changes in behavior might include abandonment of spawning behavior or spawning sites, movement away from preferred habitats, disruption of feeding, increased energy consumption, and diversion or delay of migrations. • Sounds we make in the sea may interfere with the ability of fishes to detect and use sounds of biological relevance, and could have a substantial impact on their fitness and survival. • http://acousticstoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Assessing-the-Impact-of-Underwater- Sounds-on-Fishes-and-Other-Forms-of-Marine-Life-Anthony-D.-Hawkins-and-Arthur-N.-Popper.pdf
Biofouling and Displacement of Biodiversity https://tethys.pnnl.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Fouling_Community_on_Turbine_Foundation s_and_Scour_Protections.pdf
Horns Rev 1O shore Wind Farm • Follow-up Seven Years after Construction (2011) • Highest numbers of W hiting were found before the construction. • Multiple Sites Monitored and Surveyed • Whiting Numbers declined significantly (Figure 17a). • Severe Impact on School Fisheries • https://oregonwave.org/oceanic/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/246- 2011_effect-of-the-horns-rev-1-offshore-wind-farm-on-fish- communities1.pdf
Whiting Survey Data 17a.
EMF During transmission of the produced electricity, the cables will emit low-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs; Figure 2). At present, the industry standard for design of the cables requires shielding, which restricts the directly emitted electric fields but cannot shield the magnetic component of an EMF. The movement of water and organisms through the emitted magnetic field will then induce localized electric fields (Ohman et al., 2007). If AC cables are used, the magnetic field associated with the cable has a rotational component, which also induces electric fields in the surrounding environment (CMaCS, 2003). EMFs emitted by the marine renewable energy harnessing process is most likely to affect animals that use EMFs for spatial location, largescale movement, small-scale orientation, feeding, or mate finding. http://tos.org/oceanography/article/environmental-and-ecological- effects-of-ocean-renewable-energy-development- https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/bitstream/1826/8235/1/Effects_of_P ile-driving_Noise-2010-2.pdf
Identification of Outer Continental Shelf Renewable Energy Space-Use Conflicts and Analysis of Potential Mitigation Measures Urban Harbors Institute Publications http://scholarworks.umb.ed u/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article =1038&context=uhi_pubs
Recommend
More recommend
