VIRGINIA BEACH — Researchers with the Nature Conservancy and federal government are embarking on groundbreaking research off the coast of Virginia Beach to see how driving offshore wind turbines into the seafloor impacts fish behavior.
The research will provide guidance for how the government should craft environmental regulations for offshore wind development, which is increasing as the U.S. transitions from fossil fuel generation to renewable energy sources.
“The renewable energy sector is really critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kate Wilke, a marine scientist with the Nature Conservancy. “There really is a lot of scrutiny on this industry, and therefore we hope that that truly leads to better outcomes as the industry is developing and built out.”
While offshore wind has been slower to develop in the U.S. than in Europe or Asia, states along the East Coast have been racing to propose projects in recent years, especially after President Joe Biden announced a goal of having 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. That’s enough to power roughly 10 million homes.
Virginia set its own goal of developing 5.2 gigawatts of offshore wind as part of the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act, which seeks to decarbonize the state’s electric grid by 2050. Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest electric utility, is currently building a 2.6 gigawatt project that is expected to be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm when it’s complete.
The $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, also known as CVOW, will construct 176 turbines about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. While other projects along the East Coast have stalled because of economic pressures, Dominion has said CVOW is “on-time and on-budget.”
As the utility prepares to begin the drilling needed for the turbines, the Nature Conservancy is taking the opportunity to see how all the earth-shaking activity will affect fish.
“We are going to tag animals in such a way that it gives us the opportunity to observe behavior and gain an understanding of how that behavior may or may not change before versus during that construction activity,” said Brendan Runde, another scientist with the Nature Conservancy.
Scientists have studied how water animals react to noise from installing piles about 4 feet in diameter, but Runde explained Dominion’s turbines will be about 30 feet in diameter and need a hydraulic hammer to drive them into the seafloor. That activity creates “quite a bit of noise” and shakes up loose sediment, Runde said. The research will be the first of its kind with this close proximity to pile driving.
An environmental impact analysis of the project by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management previously found that noise from pile-driving activities “has the potential” to cause local, temporary displacement of some finfish and invertebrate species. The bureau noted that past research indicates that while “fishes may be startled, temporarily displaced, or change their schooling behaviors during pile-driving noise … when pile driving is completed, they are likely to resume normal behaviors relatively quickly.”
In the new study, Wilke, Runde, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers and Dominion will use a hook and line to catch about 90 fish, a mix of black sea bass, gray triggerfish, greater amberjack, summer flounder and channeled whelk, found in the vicinity of where the turbines will be located.
Tags about the size of a triple-A battery will then be placed on the fish. Because the tags are capable of communicating with three different sensors underwater, researchers will be able to track the fishes’ movement within about a 1 kilometer area.
“What we might see is that these animals, maybe on a day when there’s no pile driving, are utilizing the entire water column, or coming up and feeding maybe halfway up towards the surface. And then during pile driving, maybe they go and hide out at the base of the turbine near the seafloor,” said Runde. “And then the question would be, well, is that permanent, or is that something that goes away overnight, when driving stops, or does it last a week, a month, or perhaps the animals will leave entirely?”
The research, which will be conducted between now and 2027, will also look at how the electromagnetic field of underwater transmission lines affects fish behavior and how construction sound could impact whales. Scientists will use microphones near the seafloor to record the construction noise, while whale spotters on vessels used during construction could provide information about behavior changes.
“From those direct observations, we may be able to link that to our own acoustic data and further the knowledge of present data of these animals,” Runde said.
Dominion has committed to using a bubble curtain during installation on the monopiles to mitigate noise impacts.
“Our team is fully committed to ensuring we construct and operate CVOW in a manner that is protective of the environment as well as marine and avian species,” said Scott Lawton, an environmental technical adviser at Dominion, in a statement. “We look forward to working with the Nature Conservancy and NOAA to learn more about the relationship between offshore wind and fish behavior.”
Jon Hare, director of the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center, said that “given the expansion of wind energy development along the East Coast, our team at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center is excited to collaborate with the Nature Conservancy and to support this important work.”
“This research will help fill gaps in our understanding of how offshore wind development interacts with commercial and recreational fisheries, and will broaden our marine soundscapes research,” he said.
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