NOAA and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today announced a Federal Survey Mitigation Strategy to address potential impacts from offshore wind development on National Marine Fisheries Service scientific surveys, saying that it “underscores the agencies’ shared commitment to the Biden-Harris Administration’s clean energy goals of responsibly advancing offshore wind energy production while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use.”
NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Janet Coit said that the strategy “will help ensure the quality of NOAA’s fisheries surveys and data are maintained while the nation develops offshore wind energy,” while BOEM Director Amanda Lefton noted her agency’s commitment to incorporating the best available science into decision-making processes and said that an “all-of-government approach” can help ensure responsible offshore wind development.
The strategy — which cites the use of ocean planning models to identify wind energy areas in the Gulf of Mexico as an example of how BOEM and NOAA can work together to avoid or minimize impacts of offshore wind on fisheries surveys — is intended to further 5 overarching goals, including mitigation of impacts, collaborative mitigation planning and implementation, adaptive implementation, and enhanced NOAA-BOEM coordination.
As part of the goal to collaboratively plan and implement mitigation measures and the related objective to provide information on the timing, methods, and extent of NOAA Fisheries’ surveys in wind energy development and approval processes, the strategy includes an action to ensure the availability of survey strata to marine spatial planning initiatives including ocean data portals, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science Siting and Sustainability projects, and OceanReports (estimated completion date of January 2023).
While the strategy is focused on New England and the Mid-Atlantic, NOAA said it will serve as a model to address impacts of wind on fisheries surveys in other regions.
