NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service today announced that it is seeking comments by Monday, Feb. 5 on its proposal to authorize Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC to take 14 species of marine mammals by Level B harassment, incidental to marine site characterization surveys in federal waters off New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.
The surveys would involve the use of a single beam and multibeam echosounder, gradiometers, shallow penetration sub-bottom profilers, and a medium penetration sub-bottom profiler.
NMFS yesterday also announced that it is seeking comments by Monday, Feb. 5 on its proposal to issue regulations and an authorization for US Wind, Inc. to take 19 species of marine mammals by Level A (5 species) and Level B (14 species) harassment, incidental to the company’s construction of a wind energy development lease and associated export cable corridors in federal waters offshore Maryland, which would transmit power to a landfall site in Delaware.
The project would specifically involve the installation of up to 114 wind turbine generators, 4 offshore substations, 1 meteorological tower, and inter-array and export cables.
