Speeding boats, not offshore wind, likely culprit in recent whale deaths

This story was first published by Energy News Network.

The death of a 43-foot North Atlantic right whale that washed up on Virginia Beach in mid-February was not caused by the offshore wind industry.

Still, that incident and other similar ones have heightened wind developers’ attention on protecting vulnerable marine mammals.

Dominion Energy is following a meticulous safety checklist as its 2.6-gigawatt wind farm, 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coastline, evolves from a blueprint to turbine steel in the ocean floor.

Jason Ericson, a director on Dominion’s environmental services team, said the utility has complied with federal agencies and collaborated with conservation organizations from the get-go to mitigate any potential harms of the 176-turbine project.

“We are taking significant steps to minimize any impact on the North American right whale,” said Ericson, a Dominion employee since 2010. “We take this very seriously. We can and will do this.”

He’s mindful that farther up the Atlantic Coast, some groups are trying to blame the Northeast’s mushrooming offshore wind industry for the nine humpback whales stranded on beaches between Maryland and New York thus far this year.

But federal scientists dismiss that link. Benjamin Laws, deputy chief for permits and conservation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Office of Protected Resources, rebuked the demonstrators.

“I want to be unambiguous: There is no information supporting that any of the equipment used in...offshore wind development could directly lead to the death of a whale,” Laws said at a January press briefing in Atlantic City. “There are no known connections between any offshore wind activities and any whale strandings.”

That statement from NOAA also applies to the four humpback whales that died off the coast of Virginia thus far this year.

“Whale strandings have not gotten the same attention here,” said Richmond-based Ericson. “But we engage with our stakeholders continuously, so we are prepared” to handle these issues.

Protecting an endangered species

Entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes are the two major causes of whale deaths and serious injuries along the Atlantic Coast. It’s those threats, combined with human-made ocean noise and dwindling food supplies, that have accelerated a path to extinction for North Atlantic right whales. Only about 340 of the endangered species remain.

Right whales typically don't travel too far out to sea while moving north from their breeding and calving grounds between Florida and South Carolina to their traditional foraging grounds in New England and Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy.

Dominion must obey an assortment of federal measures to prevent whale strikes and dampen noise as it aims to complete the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project before the end of 2026, Ericson said.

That 112,800-acre lease area has the potential to be part of the whale’s territory because the site begins 27 miles offshore and extends 15 more miles out into the Atlantic.

Crew members aboard all the project’s support vessels — whether conducting prebuild surveys, construction or, eventually, turbine maintenance — are trained in how to identify and avoid whales and other marine mammals.

In addition, survey and construction vessels are staffed by employees federal agencies certify as protected-species observers. They notify crews if marine mammals enter the work zone. Operations are halted if that happens.

“The observers are the ones with advanced degrees, and they work in shifts,” Ericson said. “They’re approved by the federal government, and we provide support to ensure they are doing what we want them to do.”

To enhance that work, Dominion also relies on hydroacoustic monitoring. Simply put, it’s the equivalent of a giant microphone sweeping the ocean near the worksite, allowing observers to listen for specific marine-mammal calls.

Lessons from a pilot

As the $9.8 billion commercial project takes shape, Dominion will be adhering to the same procedures it deployed to keep marine mammals safe during the building of its 120-megawatt offshore wind pilot project in 2020.

While the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is the lead offshore wind permitting agency, it partners with NOAA. Separately, NOAA also issues permits related to the potential impact on marine mammals.

Relatedly, the Marine Mammal Commission, an independent federal agency, weighed in about the pilot project to be sure its construction didn’t violate the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Dominion’s two-turbine prototype served as a lab, of sorts, as workers figured out how to quietly “plant” a pair of 220-foot-long steel monopile foundations into the ocean bed. That pile-driving amounted to an enormous hammer pounding the foundations 110 feet deep.

NOAA has set the pile-driving window between May 1 and October 31, so right whales are less likely to be harassed as they migrate.