Ocean City’s elected officials may have an ally in their opposition to offshore wind farms, as commercial seafood industry representatives told the City Council Monday they are concerned about the towers’ impact on fishing.
The session was arranged by commercial fisherman George Topping, who researched the effects of marine-based installations. He was joined by Sonny Gwin and Wes Townsend of the Mid-Atlantic Fish Council for Maryland, and Meghan Lapp, of the Rhode Island seafood company, Seafreeze.
Lapp told the council that 3.6 million acres of ocean between Maine and North Carolina have been slated for offshore wind development. The irony, she said, is that the federal government in 1976 established a 200-mile economic zone off the country’s coast to prevent foreign fleets from depleting fish stocks in U.S. waters.
“Now we have these same fishing grounds being sold right out from under us to the Norwegian [or] Danish government, [as well as] French, Italian, [or] Spanish investors,” she said.
Additionally, Lapp said navigation could be more difficult and, possibly, dangerous near turbines.
Rotating turbine blades could cause malfunctions with marine navigation, communications, airborne radar, sonar and subsurface acoustical monitoring systems, Lapp said.
“False radar signals make navigating through lots of turbines difficult … especially at night or in bad weather,” she said.
“It’s going to be impractical and not safe because many wind farms [are being proposed] close to major shipping lanes,” she said. “When you have [oil] tankers … they don’t stop or turn easily.”
Wind farm areas will also limit critical fishery surveys conducted by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Lapp said.
“That should seriously concern anybody who has any connection to commercial or recreational fisheries,” she said. “If we don’t have a quota, if we don’t have management, we can’t really go fishing. Commercial fisheries cannot relocate, so we don’t have a lot of legal options,” she said. “If they put wind farms on open areas we can’t necessarily legally move, so that means we’re done.”
Lapp also said the Coast Guard has warned that wind turbines can result in a loss of HF radars that are used for search and rescue missions at sea.
Topper said proposed wind farms could also affect horseshoe crabs, whose blue blood is highly valued for medical applications.
In 2001 the National Marine Fisheries Service established a Horseshoe Crab sanctuary in federal waters off the mouth of the Delaware Bay
“We supply the blood for every hospital in this country, Europe and Asia, and also the military,” he said. “If they put the wind farm in the sanctuary area, we don’t have any idea what it’s going to do to the horseshoe crabs.”
Lapp also questioned the introduction of artificial reefs to foster marine life, noting recent studies concluded that sandy, or smooth bottom habitats, provide more biologically productive sediment sites.
“You will reduce overall biological composition of an area and your species composition will also probably decrease,” she said. “Putting in artificial reefs, according to science, is not a good thing in our region.”
Councilman John Gehrig, while offering to support the group’s efforts, asked if they were working to educate the recreational fishing industry about the concerns discussed.
“They’re being persuaded this wind farm is going to be good for them,” he said. “The wind companies are trying to fracture everything and they’re dishing out dollar bills.”
Topper said the effort to inform both commercial and recreational fishermen continues.
“Let’s put a halt to this for the next five years,” he said. “Let’s study … what the effects are going to be on whales, turtles and fish.”
Gwin said more research is needed before embracing offshore wind farms for clean energy production.
“It’s up to our representatives and the people to find the truth behind these things, so they don’t put them out there and destroy the environment for something they say is going to help the environment,” he said.
In hopes of encouraging more detailed analysis about the impact of offshore wind turbines Lapp said the commercial fishing industry has formed the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance
“We want to develop public / private partnerships [and] … start working on interagency coordination,” she said. “We have the oldest industry in the U.S. potentially going to be obliterated and everything is continuing along as planned.”
Mayor Rick Meehan said the wind farm permitting process is far from over, with numerous approvals yet to be met.
“I think each and every time we need to be present [and] maybe a few more people will open their eyes to the big picture here,” he said. “It’s a bigger issue than everybody has really imagined it to be.”
https://www.oceancitytoday.com/news/seafood-industry-no-wind/article_c6086672-8b83-11e8-990c-effdc678bfa8.html