NJ allots $3.7M to study offshore wind’s impacts on environment

Will examine turbines’ effects on animals, fish and birds

TRENTON - New Jersey officials pledged $3.7 million for scientific research and monitoring of the environmental impacts of offshore wind energy off the Jersey Shore.

Support for offshore wind remains politically polarized. Critics argue that construction and operation of ocean wind turbines would harm marine animals and outweigh environmental benefits.

Advocates counter that inaction on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more harm to the ocean environment due to warming water temperatures and ocean acidification.

The new award, announced Monday by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette and New Jersey Board of Public Utilities President Christine Guhl-Sadovy, will fund the state’s Offshore Wind Research and Monitoring Initiative.

The initiative supports projects that will document the distribution of whales, dolphins and seals and the turbines’ impact on the animals; study fish and crustaceans off the Jersey Shore; and study the populations and impacts on endangered shorebirds, such as the red knot, piping plover and roseate tern.

Critics have called for a slowdown or halt to offshore wind projects. During a public hearing last week before the Board of Public Utilities, an attorney for the Long Branch-based environmental organization Clean Ocean Action urged the board to stop approving offshore wind projects until more extensive scientific research on their impacts was available.

Save Long Beach Island Inc., another critic, sued federal agencies over the offshore wind approvals. The organization says the projects off New Jersey pose a threat to the endangered North Atlantic right whale as well as other marine animals.

According to the National Marine Fisheries Service,

whales face serious threats from ship strikes, entanglement with fishing gear and climate change. Agency officials have said that no evidence suggests whales have been harmed from offshore wind work.

New Jersey’s Research and Monitoring Initiative will continue to fund studies on offshore wind’s environment impacts through each project’s construction, operation and eventual decommissioning. Some of the other research that will be funded with the money are:

● Rutgers University will receive $97,462 to study how the turbine bases affect the “cold pool,” a cold bottom layer of ocean that influences thermal layers within the Atlantic Ocean.

● The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries will receive $47,383 to conduct aerial surveys of whales, particularly the North Atlantic right whale.

● Rutgers University will receive $929,593 to tag and study humpback and fin whales in and around the offshore wind lease areas.

● Various agencies will divide $1.3 million to track bird and bat migrations off the New Jersey coast.

● The Coonamessett Farm Foundation will receive $1 million to study various species of sea turtles that migrate off the Jersey Shore.

“As we continue to pursue a 100% clean energy economy by 2035, it’s imperative that we not only protect the interests of our ratepayers but safeguard the vitality of our marine ecosystems as well,” Guhl-Sadovy, president of the Board of Public Utilities, said Monday in a news release. “The Research Monitoring Initiative is a crucial piece of our comprehensive efforts to responsibly develop New Jersey’s nation-leading offshore wind industry.”

Since its creation in 2021, the Research and Monitoring Initiative has received $13 million in funding, according to state officials.