Abstract
The goal of this effort is to conduct a baseline ecological assessment of two wind planning areas (shown below in Figure 2.2) along the U.S. Atlantic coast (Table 1.1) to identify the potential environmental impact of offshore wind energy construction. Our goal was to establish a baseline of seasonal activity of focal species using passive acoustic monitoring to understand their acoustic presence and calling patterns, and establish the baseline noise conditions of the areas. These baseline data would be used to evaluate potential changes that may result from future wind energy construction and operation.
We sought to investigate two suites of organisms as part of this project. The first are three species of baleen whales (North Atlantic right whales, fin whales, and humpback whales) that are thought to potentially migrate through or near the wind planning area. These species are protected by both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and as federally protected species, any human activities must seek to minimize any possible impact (either direct or indirect) to members of the population. The second group of organisms is comprised of two species of acoustically active fishes (black drum [Pogonias cromis] and oyster toadfish [Opsanus tau]) that produce sounds as part of their life history. Both black drum and toadfish are distributed along the entirety of the U.S. Atlantic coast, and produce well-characterized sounds in agonistic and reproductive contexts (Mok and Gilmore 1983); these fish choruses are some of the most prominent sounds of the biological sound spectrum (Tavolga 1965; Urick 1983). Because toadfish are benthic and poor swimmers, though black drum are demersal and much better swimmers, differences in the calling patterns between these two species following construction may indicate different degrees of impact on the marine benthic compared to the pelagic community.
This project had two complementary components to the biological species monitoring. ESS Group, Inc. conducted a literature-based habitat assessment of both wind planning areas to investigate the benthic habitat and evaluate the natural resources occurring in these areas. Marine Acoustics, Inc. created a sound propagation model to estimate the spatial extent and magnitude of noise produced by wind turbine construction activities.