Save LBI report correlates time, location with traffic increase, calls for stop until issue studied
LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP — A report released Nov. 2 purports to link a rash of marine mammal deaths off New Jersey and New York to offshore wind energy survey vessel work.
The report was written by Bob Stern, Ph.D., president of Save Long Beach Island Inc., with help from Rutgers University computer science professor Apostolos Gerasoulis and Save LBI member Denise Boccia.
Stern said “The Evidence that the Offshore Wind Energy Vessel Surveys are the Cause of the Recent New Jersey Whale and Dolphin Deaths” presents a correlation between the recent surge in marine mammal fatalities along the two states’ coastlines and the presence of offshore wind energy vessel surveys.
“These findings present a significant challenge to the existing stance of federal and state government agencies, which have previously denied any connection between these events,” Stern stated in a news release announcing the report’s findings.
Stern, who earned a doctorate in applied mathematics and aeronautical engineering, said during a telephone interview last week that he has a work background in the analysis of environmental impact statements. He said he managed the office in the federal Energy Department that oversees approval of EIS for 12 years.
Save LBI is one of three citizen organizations, along with Ocean City-based Protect Our Coast NJ Inc. and Defend Brigantine Beach Inc., that filed suit in Superior Court in New Jersey challenging the state Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of Ørsted’s Ocean Wind 1 project.
The report states there has been an unprecedented spike in the number of whale deaths that coincides with an increase in survey vessels and that the time and place of the deaths coincides with the presence of survey vessels.
It further states that the use of an “unsupported low noise source level” and a “high transmission loss factor” underestimates the noise range from the vessels and the number of animals affected.
The report states the primary impact on the disturbance of their behavior, which it stated can lead to serious harm and fatality, was not meaningfully addressed in survey approvals, nor is the cumulative effect of multiple vessels operating concurrently in the same area.
“The agencies and government officials promoting the offshore wind projects repeatedly state that the survey vessels offshore using high-intensity noise devices to characterize the seabed for wind turbine placement are not the cause of the recent whale and dolphin deaths,” the report states. “They say that there is no evidence linking the two, but at the same time, present no evidence to support their conclusion.”
The findings also state there have been many whale stranding events worldwide associated with noise devices with similar horizontally directed and more impacting noise patterns, and that no other plausible cause of the deaths has been put forward.
“The report’s analysis strongly suggests that vessel surveys are not only a plausible cause, but potentially the primary factor behind the recent spike in whale and dolphin mortalities,” the release stated.
Using charts and graphs, the report states a spike in whale and dolphin deaths off the New Jersey/New York coasts spanned December 2022 through March 2023. Lesser but notable spikes had occurred along the East Coast beginning in 2016.
The data show at the same time, the number of vessel surveys off New Jersey increased from two in November to six in December 2022. Elsewhere, deaths began in 2016 when surveying started. Other charts correlate the time and place of whale deaths with the presence of survey vessels.
The report also describes at length how the range of elevated noise from the vessels can harm or disturb whales’ behavior, purporting that it has been underestimated.
“It relied on an improper low noise source level of 203 dB for the maximum noise-controlling Dura-Spark unit, obtained from a much smaller, less powerful surrogate device, as opposed to using a higher source level of 211 dB from measured data for the Dura-Spark unit itself,” the report states. “The elevated noise levels from the survey devices are in the frequency range of the whales hearing and vocalizations, and will disturb their behavior which can then lead indirectly to serious harm and fatality.”
The report concluded that the vessel surveys are the likely cause of the recent spike in whale and dolphin deaths “based on the physics of noise propagation in a shallow water environment, real-world observations of the locations and times of the whale deaths and the vessels, the data from the New Jersey Marine Mammal Stranding Center, the lack of any serious alternative causes having been put forth, and injecting some common sense.”
Save LBI insists the surveys should cease at least until a thorough, independent investigation is conducted and has taken steps toward that goal.
In a letter dated Nov. 9 addressed to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the organization urged the agency to re-evaluate its stance.
Additionally, Save has initiated legal action, aiming to compel the agency to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the events.
“While we are optimistic about a favorable outcome in court, we maintain that litigation should not be required for the responsible agency to fully explore such a glaringly evident issue,” Stern stated.
The report is available at savelbi.org/marinelife-whales and at savelbi.org.
An email to NOAA Administrator Richard W. Spinrad, Ph.D., Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, was not returned but Andrea Wasilew of NOAA Fisheries public affairs provided a link to a hearing held in January 2023 in response to the whale strandings.
During that hearing, Lauren Gaches, NOAA Fisheries public affairs director, said the agency has been monitoring an unusual mortality event for humpback whales with elevated strandings along the entire East Coast since January 2016.
She said 178 humpback whales are included in the unusual mortality event. Partial or full necropsy examinations were conducted on about half of the whales, Gaches said.
“Of the whales examined, about 40% had evidence of human interaction, either ship strike or entanglement. And to date, no whale mortality has been attributed to offshore wind activities,” she said.
Gaches said there several factors may have been driving the interactions, including climate change and an larger population.
She said climate change is driving marine species closer to shore in search of food and that as the humpback whale population has grown, its occurrence in the Mid-Atlantic has increased.
“More whales in the water and traveled areas by boats of all sizes increases the risk of vessel strikes,” Gaches said.
Temporary reprieve?
While Ocean City and Cape May County officials were celebrating the decision Oct. 31 by Ørsted to walk away from its planned projects directly off the coast, Stern said the Danish wind power company still holds the lease to the area and could sell it or develop it at a later date.
“You can’t really say that it’s over in that area,” Stern said.
He did say, however, that “economic realities are settling in,” with rising costs requiring additional subsidies, electricity rate hikes and tax money to make them viable.
Stern also said he believes the wind power companies “realize that there is significant opposition to this along the Jersey shore, and we’re not just people flailing around and being angry but competent, intelligent people who are organized and opposed to them.”
He said that makes investors think twice about backing a project that could include rising costs associated with delays and litigation.
Ocean Wind 1 called for as many as 98 wind turbines 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic and Cape May counties meant to produce 1,100 megawatts of power for New Jersey homes and businesses.
Meanwhile, there are multiple wind farms in various stages, from proposed to working through the regulatory process, planned for the East Coast.
Save LBI and Defend Brigantine stand to be much more directly affected by Atlantic Shores, a three-phase project slated to include 350+ wind turbines as close as 9 miles off the New Jersey and New York coastlines.
“We expect the state to approve that and its funding,” Stern said. “It would have to agree to prices that Atlantic Shores is asking, which have gone up. We will see how much in subsidies they want, but expect the state will approve to fund that and in about two months, the impact statement will be finished and we expect the federal government to approve it.”
