Offshore Wind Wire

By Peter Brennan

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service last month criticized the draft Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan for “data gaps.”

The Ocean Management Plan is designed to zone state waters for large-scale offshore wind development. A final version is due Dec. 31.  Massachusetts officials say the comprehensive plan is the first of its kind in the nation.

In a Nov. 23 letter to Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Coastal Zone Management Deerin Babb-Brott, Thomas Chapman, supervisor of the New England Field Office of the Fish and Wildlife Service, extolled the draft plan as “valuable and timely” but said more information was needed.  The Fish and Wildlife Service is an agency of the Department of the Interior tasked to manage the nation’s National Wildlife Refuges (NWR).

“The Plan contains no impact analysis” Chapman wrote. “A commercial wind facility is possible off Nomans Land Island National Wildlife Refuge and smaller-scale wind facilities could be constructed off Monomoy and Nantucket NWRs. The performance indicators which are part of the evaluation measures for the Plan, including the suggested environmental indicators, are insufficient to determine actual impacts to wildlife.”

Of particular concern to the Fish and Wildlife Service was the lack of data on the impact of turbines on migratory birds.

“While we are not in principle opposed to the designation of the area off Nomans Land Island NWR as a potential wind energy area, we emphatically state that considerably more detailed information about migratory birds, including their flight patterns and use of the waters and food sources located within the potential wind facility areas, will be required before the Service can support any specific project proposal,” Chapman wrote.

Chapman also criticized the plan for its lack of detail on the six national wildlife refuges that are in the planning area.

“Wherever the presence of these six NWRs is mentioned in the document, it is merely to acknowledge their existence. This is not sufficient.” Chapman wrote. “At a minimum, the conservation status of these lands and waters needs to be better recognized and the Service needs to be included as an active participant.”