Planned offshore wind projects are three to five times as expensive as alternative options to reduce emissions such as onshore wind, solar, carbon capture and advanced nuclear power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency’s levelized cost of electricity. Offshore wind is an environmental wrecking ball.
These projects could edge the critically endangered North American right whale to extinction. No studies have been conducted on the impacts on horseshoe crabs despite projects being built atop the horseshoe crab preserve and in the flyway for the endangered red knot bird that depends on horseshoe crab eggs to survive its 9,000-mile migration.
Federal law authorizing offshore wind limits the adverse impact on historic uses of the ocean. Federal environmental impact statements, including the US Wind draft released in October, say the daytime presence of offshore wind turbines, as well as turbine nighttime lighting, would change perception of ocean scenes from natural and undeveloped to developed, and would be an unavoidable presence. Our local and national treasure of pristine ocean views will be gone, along with the important lost economic benefit of less tourism, based on a survey conducted by North Carolina State University.
Some commercial fishing will abandon lease areas (Section 3.6.6.5.4) totaling an area on the East Coast equal to twice the size of New Jersey if all planned projects are built. The report says vessel collisions could increase in the offshore wind lease areas, with reduced effectiveness of Coast Guard search-and-rescue operations, possibly leading to human deaths (Section 3.6.6 of the US Wind study). Offshore wind projects would have a major impact on important scientific surveys, such as determining seafood take limits (Section 3.6.7.9). Yet federal agencies have approved projects again and again.
Adding to the issues even federal agencies list as having major adverse impacts: turbines will interfere with civilian and military radar (Section 3.6.6), hurricane damage could leak up to 500,000 gallons of fuel and lubricants (Appendix H), and operational noise, ocean stratification and electromagnetic field effects are unknown. These are Maryland projects, however, and there is no specification landfilled material such as turbine blades after decommissioning will be placed in Maryland landfills. The blades should not go to Delaware landfills.
The Indian River Bay is classified as a Water of Exceptional Recreational Significance and a Harvestable Shellfish Water. Transmission cables from the Block Island offshore wind project became exposed several years ago despite the burial of 6 feet or more, and it took years to get the cables reburied. Placing four high-voltage cables in the bay only 3 feet deep should be viewed as unacceptable, instead of the developer’s first choice.
We encourage others to make public comments before the Monday, Nov. 20 deadline at www.regulations.gov. Reference docket BOEM-2023-0050. For details and links to source documents, see Caesar Rodney Institute’s full public comment document at caesarrodney.org/pdfs/Public_Comments_on_US_Wind_DEIS.pdf.
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