Tag: harassment

Deficiencies in Dominion’s offshore wind permits

“In light of various alleged legal deficiencies underlying the federal government’s leasing and permitting of onshore and offshore wind projects, the consequences of which may lead to grave harm…” is the conclusion that guided President Trump’s Executive Order suspending wind project permitting.

From CFACT

By David Wojick

“In light of various alleged legal deficiencies underlying the federal government’s leasing and permitting of onshore and offshore wind projects, the consequences of which may lead to grave harm…” is the conclusion that guided President Trump’s Executive Order suspending wind project permitting.

CFACT has already criticized several offshore wind permitting cases for being inadequate due to the omission of important issues, making them incomplete. Some of the worst cases are listed below. Although Dominion was not the subject of all of these criticisms, they are undoubtedly affected by them. Plus Dominion permits were the focus of many of these criticisms going back more than two years.

These characteristics apply to every instance of a permit deficiency. A substantial approval is supported by a formal document. These include the authorized COP, the Final NEPA EIS, the ESA Biological Opinion, and the MMPA Incidental Take Authorization. In each case a critical issue is overlooked in one or more of these permitting documents, making them incomplete.

The relevant federal agency disregarded these deficiencies in each instance. However, the Trump administration is currently looking at the history and procedure of offshore wind permits. In each of the circumstances stated below, if the investigation is done correctly, they should discover incomplete approval paperwork, halt the approval until it is finished, and then reissue it.

The following are some of the worst permitting flaws that CFACT has found so far:

1. The NMFS Incidental Take Authorization has no EIS

The absence of an EIS for the NMFS harassment-taking permission is arguably the most obvious shortcoming. For Dominion, this is a huge takeover. Just about 60,000 mammal takings are permitted due to noise harassment during the Dominion project.

According to the authorization document, this authorization action requires an EIS in accordance with NEPA. The permission document then makes it clear that the harassment EIS is included in the Dominion project EIS as a whole. However, the taking is never mentioned in the project EIS. Therefore, until the necessary EIS is finished, we shouldn’t start construction. The authorization paperwork that is currently in place is lacking.

2. The impact of harassment is not considered in the Biological Opinion

The same argument—albeit one that is more complex—applies in the Biological Opinion. The BiOp gave the harassment authority a small section 3.8, but the project EIS does not even address it. The BiOp only lists the number of endangered whale species that are being harassed and claim to have prepared every feasible mitigation strategy.

There is no evaluation of the detrimental impacts of harassment, which is the problem of whale death. The BiOp does not state that such impacts exist, but other NMFS assessments do. This important problem of harassment-induced death is never discussed in the permit documentation.

Although it is now known that harassment kills whales, CFACT warned NMFS of this possibility long ago, especially for the Dominion project.

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 It is important to carefully assess the potentially fatal consequences of harassment.

 3. The turbine installation ship is not authorized to harass

 Another instance of harassment is the deployment of several thrusters to maintain position by the pile driving ship Orion, which has been laying Dominion’s monopile foundations.

 The thruster noise is above the harassment level, according to Rand Acoustics’ measurements. However, such noise has not been approved because it was not mentioned in the harassment application. It appears that Orion is unable to lawfully work on the project. This will probably apply to tower, turbine, and blade installations as well as any monopile installation ship.

 Before construction can continue, the Dominion project harassment authorization must be updated to account for all anticipated installation vessel noise.

 4. The use of suction caissons rather than pile driving is not considered

 One solution for wind turbine foundations that does away with the requirement for those tremendously noisy gigantic monopiles is the suction caisson. Monopiles pose the greatest damage to whales from offshore wind, but suction caissons pose minimal harm. For many years, offshore oil rigs have been anchored using the suction caisson technology. Although it is relatively new, offshore wind is obviously viable at the size of US offshore projects, as seen by the 900 MW project currently under construction off Taiwan by Ørsted, the largest developer in the world.

 In terms of minor mitigation measures to lessen the threat of construction to endangered whales, the Dominion COP, the BOEM EIS, and the NMFS harassment permission all go to considerable lengths. The use of suction caissons as an alternative to pile driving, which may greatly lessen the hazard to endangered whales, is not considered by any of them, though.

 These three permission documents need to be revised to account for suction caissons instead of pile driving.

 5. Breaking the “small numbers” requirement of the MMPA

 Only a limited number of each species of protected mammal are eligible for incidental take authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. More than 50,000 dolphins are covered by Dominion’s acoustic harassment permission, which is obviously a significant amount.

 Also 5% of the whole population of the critically endangered right whale is legally taken, which is by no means a tiny number. The overall quantity of taking would be many times the population if every leased project permitted this level of taking per MW.

 The Dominion COP must be redesigned in order to adhere to the MMPA small numbers requirement.

  6. Sediment plumes from ocean currents passing across wind facilities are not considered

 The notion that ocean current flow via a standing wind array will produce a continuing sediment plume, which could have a serious environmental impact, is now the subject of a substantial body of scientific literature. Only the temporary sediment plumes produced by cable trenching are considered in the Dominion Biological Opinion. The operational sediment plume, which can persist for as long as the project is in the ocean, is not taken into account. Here, the Clean Water Act might be relevant.

7. Failure to take into account the project’s contribution to the overall effects of several projects

Compared to the simpler aggregate of the individual initiatives, the cumulative impact can be far larger. Avoiding project combinations, for example, can greatly lengthen the amount of time spent in regions with a lot of ship activity or fishing. The right whale’s migratory path will be doubled by Dominion’s proposed second CVOW project.

Cumulative impact should be covered in all the key Dominion project evaluation documents, but none are.

 8. Operating noise is not considered

According to several studies, the massive turbine array’s operating noise will be higher than the acoustic harassment threshold. This noise is not covered by the Dominion harassment authority. The project cannot move further with the current construction and operation permit if it achieves this noise level. This impact must be included in the project assessment. Another potential problem is infrasound.

9. Physical presence-based harassment is not considered

Only acoustic harassment is covered by the Dominion harassment authorization. Harassment is defined by the MMPA as altering behavior. Avoiding the 150 square mile array of turbines is a significant behavioral shift that could have negative effects. As a result, the project’s physical presence—which is unapproved and has to be properly evaluated—is harassment.

Feds admit offshore wind can kill whales!

Despite public proclamations of innocence, it turns out BOEM and NOAA clearly acknowledge the deadly threat of offshore wind development to marine mammals. Not surprisingly they do it in documents that are subject to judicial review, lest they be caught fibbing.

From CFACT

By David Wojick 

Despite public proclamations of innocence, it turns out BOEM and NOAA clearly acknowledge the deadly threat of offshore wind development to marine mammals. Not surprisingly they do it in documents that are subject to judicial review, lest they be caught fibbing.

Of course these admissions are well hidden, buried in the depths of thousand page documents, but they are there to be found. These are the Draft Environmental Impact Statements (DEIS) that precede each offshore wind project. They are jointly prepared by BOEM and NOAA.

The key is that the overall project EIS includes the EIS for NOAA’s harassment authorizations for the construction of that project. In fact you can find this language by searching the DEIS for the word “harassment”. I am told that this is standard language which varies little from project to project.

The standard language says just what we have been saying! Harassment is likely to lead to dangerous behavior, including increased likelihood of deadly ship strikes and entanglements. It also says, as we have, that having multiple projects increases these risks.

Here is a good example of admitting that harassment is can cause harm. I could not have said it better.

“It is possible that pile driving could displace animals into areas with lower habitat quality or higher risk of vessel collision or fisheries interaction. Multiple construction activities within the same calendar year could potentially affect migration, foraging, calving, and individual fitness. The magnitude of impacts would depend upon the locations, duration, and timing of concurrent construction. Such impacts could be long term, of high intensity, and of high exposure level. Generally, the more frequently an individual’s normal behaviors are disrupted or the longer the duration of the disruption, the greater the potential for biologically significant consequences to individual fitness. The potential for biologically significant effects is expected to increase with the number of pile-driving events to which an individual is exposed.”

Empire Wind DEIS v.1, Page 3.15-14, PDF page 372

Empire_Wind_DEIS_Vol1Herunterladen

This warning is about risks created by pile driving but all forms of acoustic harassment fit this description. NOAA harassment authorizations are based on the estimated number of critters that will be exposed to unsafe sound levels. The source of the dangerous sounds is irrelevant. What matters most is the volume. Sound is a pressure wave; the louder the sound the greater the physical pressure on the hearing system. Pain and physical damage are possible.

In fact the infamous sonar surveying sounds, implicated in the whale deaths to date, can be much louder that the incredibly loud pile driving. Driving the enormous piles for the proposed wind projects is estimated to create sounds around 190 decibels, which is painfully loud in humans.

But some sonar equipment deliberately emits sounds over 200 decibels. Decibels is a log scale so this is not just 5% greater than 190; it is much greater.

Thus it makes no sense that NOAA claims sonar surveys have no significant impact and so do not fall under NEPA, while pile driving does. This is especially true when, as just happened, a dozen different projects are given simultaneous authorization to acoustically harass large numbers of whales.

What is important is that NOAA and a BOEM are clearly stating that the acoustic threats we have been warning about and suspecting are real. The telling correlations between sonar blasting and increased whale deaths cannot be waived away.

Correlation is not causation, but correlation between cause and predicted effect is very strong evidence that the cause is effective. NOAA and BOEM’s repeated insistence that there is no evidence offshore wind development is killing whales is clearly contradicted by their own Environmental Impact Statements.

Harassment kills.

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