Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump targeted the offshore wind industry during a three hour interview with Joe Rogan last week. The former president said “windmills” were harming whales and said he would eliminate offshore wind power on the first day of his second term.

“I want to be a whale psychiatrist. It drives the whales crazy. And something happens to them, but for whatever reason, they’re washed ashore and you know, they’re ignored by these environmentalists. But they don’t talk about it.” Trump said.

Trump has argued that it’s the operational vibrations of the massive structures that drive the whales crazy, but rather the construction and ship activity that experts say is causing the animals harm.

Inevitable impacts

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) concluded the same in a new report on the environmental impacts of six wind leases off the New York and New Jersey coasts. The report finds that the noise could harm fish, marine mammals, sea turtles and birds, leading to habitat displacement and disruption of migration patterns.

The report includes details of mitigation measures that can be taken, but concludes that offshore wind development “would result in unavoidable negative effects”.

Robert Rand, founder of the acoustic consulting company Rand Acousticsanalyzed noise levels from pile driving and sonar survey vessels. Both independent studies found that incidental harassment clearanceswhich are permits that offshore wind developers must obtain to conduct activities that could threaten marine life, do not impose sufficient mitigation requirements to protect marine life.

Rand said Just the news that the report shows that federal agencies may be moving away from their insistence that offshore wind does not harm marine wildlife. “Any concession by federal agencies that they are harming marine species is both a step in the right direction and a condemnation of the agencies charged with implementing the MMPA (Marine Mammal Protection Act) and ESA (Endangered Species Act),” a Rand said.

Offshore wind tower installation requires monopiles 30 feet wide hit the bottom of the sea with special ships. Rand said his studies showed that even with all the noise controls the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) requires, driving the pile produces a sound as loud as 2,000 psi seismic air guns. The equivalent noise level in the air is a 155 mm howitzer exploding every two seconds, he said.

Rand said the developers have no feasible means of noise control, other than keeping a sufficient distance from any marine wildlife. However, NOAA allows cars inside the habitat of whales and endangered marine species, so safety distances cannot be maintained.

Nothing new

Dr. David Wojick, Senior Policy Advisor for a Committee for a Constructive Tomorrowhe said Just the news that the BOEM report for wind lease areas contains no new findings. He said there are draft environmental impact statements that precede every wind project. These are prepared jointly between BOEM and NOAA, such as environmental impact statement (EIS) report. for the Empire Wind project off the coast of New York. These include an environmental impact assessment for NOAA’s harassment authorizations.

The EIS report for Empire Wind states: “It is possible that piling control may move animals to areas of lower habitat quality or greater risk of vessel collision or interaction with fisheries.”

“Note that this does not say that any whales were actually killed, and that is important. They still claim there is no evidence that whales are being killed,” Wojick said. He said offshore wind developers are getting Level A and Level B Harassment Clearance. Level A harassment includes activities that could lead to permanent deafness in marine animals, Wojick explained, and the permits estimate the number of animals that will be affected in this way. Developers are required to implement various mitigation measures, which should prevent activities from exceeding this number.

He said denials by environmental groups, federal agencies and offshore wind developers exploit the lack of direct causation to deny any harm to whales. Whale advocates have difficulty proving that a particular whale died as a result of injuries caused by noise from offshore wind development, because deaths are incidental to reactions and injuries caused by noise levels, they say.

“Of course, no one is claiming that piling or sonar surveys are killing whales. That’s a trick I use,” Wojick said. Compared to a child throwing fireworks on the sidewalk and some dogs turning up dead on the street. While the dog’s autopsy shows that it was hit by a car, it was the fireworks that sent the dog into traffic.

“Instead of maintaining its statutory mandate, NOAA has issued hundreds of thousands of ‘takes’ for noise damage, including actions on the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, an already noise-burdened species with the classification of “Major” risk. the most serious classification,” Rand said. “This is shameful and unacceptable.”

Other impacts

Rand said there are other issues the report and federal agencies have yet to address. A 2017 study found that seismic air guns with noise levels comparable to pilots kill krill and zooplankton, which whales consume for food. A complex food chain with zooplankton, he said, exists throughout the ocean, and killing them will have a direct impact on the marine food web.

“I find it disturbing that so-called environmental groups have aimed at seismic gunsfor decades due to noise damage to whales, but equally shockingly loud noise levels from moving offshore wind piles bring no reaction at all. Noise damage is noise damage,” Rand said.

That many opponents of offshore wind power pointed out following the broken blade incident off the shores of Nantucket, Rand said the impacts of the blade incidents were not considered in any of the environmental impact assessments.

While it is true that direct causal proof that offshore wind harms whales is lacking, there is evidence that these projects harm whales. Industry critics say more attention should be paid to how these impacts are caused increased mortality of whales in the Atlantic Ocean.