"Endangered Whales Unprotected With Wind Industry In Violation Of Sonar Limits, New Research Finds" by Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger
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"Endangered Whales Unprotected With Wind Industry In Violation Of Sonar Limits, New Research Finds" by Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger
"Filmmaker discovered high-decibel sonar levels while shooting “Thrown To The Wind,” about why the wind industry could make the North Atlantic Right Whales extinct"
The following is a critically important article published by Public. It exposes what appears to be collusion between the U.S. government agency NOAA – whose remit is to protect marine life and monitor oceanic conditions – and offshore wind developers.
There is no evidence that industrial wind turbines cause whale deaths off the East Coast, says the US government’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is charged with monitoring oceanic conditions and protecting marine life.
“I want to be unambiguous: There is no information supporting that any of the equipment used in support of offshore wind development could directly lead to the death of a whale,” said a representative from NOAA in January of this year.
But now, a new investigation by Save the Right Whales Coalition finds that sonar activity from offshore wind lease areas is producing high noise levels at distances that violate the limits set by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
Acoustics experts say the sound levels measured are similar to those of a loud jackhammer being used outside of your home.
This is significant because research finds that when North Atlantic right whales encounter high sonar levels, they flee. In the case of the East Coast, that means they flee into areas of greater vessel traffic, a main cause of death.
Sonar also causes whale mothers and their calves to separate, say marine biologists. Whales use sound to communicate. If they get separated, they can’t see each other. And if they can’t hear each other, the calves can die.
Dead whale found floating right next to a wind turbine base last week.
The investigation also finds that the wind industry and the government have made wrong assumptions about noise levels. Lisa Linowes, who led the investigation for the Save the Right Whales Coalition, sent her findings to NOAA in an open letter.
There are only 340 North Atlantic right whales left, down from over 400 just a few years ago. A NOAA scientist warned last year that any additional boat or sonar traffic could result in the species’ extinction.
NOAA did not respond to Public’s request to comment on Linowes’ letter
Lisa Linowes listening to the high-decibel sonar that is impacting the critically-endangered North Atlantic Right Whales (Credit: “Thrown to the Wind”)
The potential impact of the high-decibel sonar on whales is enormous, Linowes says.“Coast Guard data show roughly 15 separate sonar vessels are currently active within the New York and New Jersey wind lease areas,” she explains. “Each vessel may be producing sound levels that far exceed NMFS’s threshold standards for protecting marine life.”
Defenders of the wind industry say that 40% of whales likely died due to “human interaction,” such as entanglements in fishing gear, and none of the deaths were caused by wind turbine construction or operations.
But that 40% number is not accurate because it only refers to those whales on which a necropsy was performed. Notes NOAA on its website, "Partial or full necropsy examinations were conducted on approximately half of the [humpback] whales. Of the whales examined (approximately 90), about 40 percent had evidence of human interaction, either ship strike or entanglement."
A member of the acoustics team recording the high-decibel sonar, which is in violation of US government regulations (Credit: “Thrown To The Wind”)
Linowes says the data show that NOAA’s NMFS has misled the public about the efficacy of the wind industry’s efforts to mitigate the harm of sonar to the whales.
“NMFS has repeatedly claimed to the public that sufficient protective mitigations are in place,” she said. “In fact, the mitigations against Level B harassment (and potentially Level A impacts) imposed on applicants are not meaningful.”
In other words, the investigation reveals that the system designed to protect whales from extinction has broken down. NOAA’s NMFS, the body charged with their safety, has grossly neglected its duty to adequately monitor sonar levels, the first and foremost task of protecting the whales.
Why is that?
Bad Assumptions, Wrong Equipment, and Politics
US President Joe Biden walks with Coast Guard Vice Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan (C) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Richard Spinrad during a tour of aircraft before a briefing on hurricane preparedness at Andrews Air Force in Maryland on May 18, 2022. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
In April of this year, NOAA determined that a New Jersey wind farm project sponsored by Orsted, a Danish wind energy company, was “likely to adversely affect, but is not likely to jeopardize, the continued existence of any species” of whales and other marine animals.
The project, NOAA noted, will monitor any adverse effects, so any harm caused to endangered species, such as the North Atlantic right whale, will be detected.
And NOAA said concerns about sonar from wind lease areas affecting whales were deemed unfounded because NOAA has issued Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) containing mitigation measures meant to ensure marine mammals stay a sufficient distance away from the sonar so that the animal does not experience harmful noise levels. The setback distances defined in the IHA are predicated on the loudness of the sonar at the point when it fires.
But in May, Robert Rand of Rand Acoustics, LLC, measured high-decibel sonar emitted by a survey vessel in a wind lease off the coast of New Jersey. He found that the frequencies and sound power levels he captured with his own equipment did not match the equipment that NMFS cited in its IHA for the area.
The measurements NMFS accepted from this equipment were not accurate. This finding prompted Linowes and the Save Right Whales Coalition to conduct a comprehensive review of other IHAs, where it was discovered that NMFS had regularly accepted claims by project proponents that the sonar they would be using was materially quieter than the actual levels.
Consequently, since NMFS’ protective safety distances are derived from the sonar noise levels, the distances were set much shorter than they should have been.
NMFS requires that wind industry applicants use estimates of sonar noise levels according to a report sponsored by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released in 2016, commonly referred to as “Crocker 2016.” Should Crocker 2016 not include the specific sonar configuration that will be used, NMFS has allowed for a proxy to be selected from Crocker. But source levels are readily available, and there is, therefore, no reason to use proxy devices.
Despite this, the investigation found that all active IHAs in wind lease areas used a proxy from Crocker 2016 and in all cases, the sound levels defined for the proxy device were substantially lower than typical measures for the devices.
“This suggests that the use of proxy measurements rigged the safety calculations because the baseline sonar levels on proxy devices were lower than expected,” explained Linowes.”
In one example involving an IHA granted Equinor Wind, LLC, NMFS accepted Equinor’s selection of a quieter sonar device listed in Crocker 2016 as a proxy despite the IHA application clearly stating the manufacturer’s number for the sound level, which was much higher. No justification was provided.
The wind industry appears to be using proxy measurements for quieter sonar noise emissions to get around the requirement for larger protective setback distances. This is being done with the tacit authorization of NMFS, which has consistently accepted assertions about sonar levels from the wind industry without validating the levels.
Additionally, NMFS has consistently dismissed concerns about vessel noise levels even though there is clear evidence that dynamic positioning (DP) thrusters on vessels contribute to overall vessel noise and exceed NMFS’ threshold for continuous noise. NMFS stated that “sound produced through the use of DP thrusters is similar to that produced by transiting vessels, and DP thrusters are typically operated in a similarly predictable manner.”
Why do NOAA and NMFS insist that they are monitoring noise levels when they have failed to do so? Likely because they are under pressure to do so. Building massive wind energy projects on the East Coast is a high priority for the Biden administration. It appears that pressure is being put on NOAA and NMFS staffs to not do the research they need to do, accept the wind industry assumptions uncritically, and misrepresent what the research says.
Hard Science To The Rescue
NMFS should be aware that DB thrusters are typically not used in open ocean waters, explains Linowes. The thrusters are generally employed when a vessel requires highly specific positioning when traveling at 4 knots or less. This is the condition under which offshore wind sonar vessels operate in order to accurately map the seabed. NMFS has not provided any explanation for how this operational use is consistent with transiting vessels.
Said Linowes, “We are concerned that NMFS’s established recommendations for determining Level B harassment distances have been eroded and weakly enforced. Our findings suggest NMFS personnel either do not understand the parameters for sonar operation or that NMFS has been complicit in a deliberate act to weaken marine life protections for the benefit of an applicant.”
Both possibilities — that NMFS is either serving the interests of the wind industry or that its officials are unqualified for their role — are highly concerning. NOAA insists that its data shows wind industry activity does not cause whale deaths, but it is clear that it has not held the industry to acceptable standards and, while dismissing legitimate concerns, has demonstrated a pattern of negligence.
Linowes’ latest findings build upon her other research, finding a strong correlation between wind industry activities and the increase in whale deaths from 2017 to today. The combination of this research, sources tell Public, should result in a Congressional investigation and hearings.
There is reason for hope. Ørsted, the wind energy giant building the projects, is demanding more in taxpayer money. “In order to make wildly fluctuating power, they'll need promises of $150-200 per MWh,” says energy analyst Mark Nelson. “Yet Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York just closed excellent nuclear plants making just as much energy but costing $35-55 per MWh!”
And based on the growing public attention on social media to the growing body of science tying whale deaths to the wind industry, it appears that public attitudes are changing. The public and policymakers are increasingly skeptical when NOAA and NMFS claim that the spike in whale deaths off the East Coast has nothing to do with the spike in sonar and boat traffic.
If you haven’t already, I recommend watching the short documentary film, “Thrown To The Wind” which is embedded in the article below.
Filmmaker discovered high-decibel sonar levels while shooting “Thrown To The Wind,” about why the wind industry could make the North Atlantic Right Whales extinct
By Michael Shellenberger • 14 August 2023
The increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, U.S. government officials say. Their scientists have done the research, they say, to prove that whatever is killing the whales is completely unrelated to the wind industry.
But now, a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” by Director and Producer Jonah Markowitz, proves that the US government officials have been lying. The full film, which is at the bottom of this article, documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows that the wind industry’s increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths.
The documentary may not stop the industrial wind projects from being built. After all, the wind projects were going forward despite urgent warnings from leading conservation groups and a top scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
But “Thrown To The Wind” exposes the reality that the U.S. government agencies, and the scientists who work for them, either haven’t done the basic mapping and acoustic research to back up their claims, have done the research badly, or found what we found, and are covering it up.
There appear to be at least two distinct mechanisms by which wind industry activities are killing whales. The first is through boat traffic in areas where that hasn’t historically been traffic. And the second is through high-decibel sonar mapping that can disorient whales, separate mothers from their calves, and send them into harm’s way, either into boat traffic or poorer feeding grounds.
Whatever the case, “Thrown To The Wind” blows the lid off a major scientific scandal and will have an exponentially larger effect than past warnings.
A big part of the reason is the high quality of the filmmaking. Shot in the hand-held style made famous by Paul Greengrass, the creator and director of the Jason Bourne movies, Markowitz’s “Thrown To The Wind” gives the experience of being on the ocean, in the forests, and in the room with the film’s stars, Lisa Linowes, who correlated the whale deaths to wind industry activity with Eric Turner, and Rob Rand.
And the commitment by Markowitz to investigative documentary filmmaking led him to go out on the ocean with Rand to measure the sound of industrial wind activity. It was on that trip that Rand and his team discovered high-decibel sound emissions that appear to violate NOAA’s protective standards for marine life.
When combined with the work of Linowes and Turner, correlating whale deaths with wind industry vessel traffic, Rand’s acoustic research should have far-reaching implications, including halting all industrial wind activity along the East Coast.
Why, ultimately, do we think that “Thrown To The Wind” will have an exponentially larger effect than past warnings? Because of the integrity of the filmmakers, who include, beyond Markowitz, Editor Jorge Garcia-Spitz, Executive Producer and Public co-founder Leighton Woodhouse, and the researchers: Linowes, Turner, and Rand.
Given the evidence presented in “Thrown To The Wind,” it’s clear that the American people and our representatives cannot trust NOAA and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the two government agencies that have betrayed the public’s trust, repeatedly, for years, in service to powerful industrial interests.
Because politics has corrupted the normal scientific and regulatory process for protecting the North Atlantic Right Whales, we are urging elected officials at the federal and state level to conduct an investigation, issue subpoenas, and hold public hearings.
I have been involved in a lot of great causes in the 35 years that I have been politically active. This one, saving the whales, is easily one of the most noble and important. It’s clearly hit a nerve: over 20,000 people have re-posted, and 5 million people total, across twotweets, have viewed the posts with the embedded trailer for “Thrown To The Wind” on social media over the last 48 hours.
Saving the North Atlantic Right Whale is a goal that is within reach and well worth pursuing. Yes, its numbers have plummeted from over 400 to just 340 at the last estimate. But the species will likely rebound if the sonar mapping and new boat activity in previously untrafficked areas is ended.
We have done our part. As Linowes, Rand, and Turner can attest, the data acquisition and analysis haven’t been easy. Nor has the filmmaking. The high quality of the final product speaks to the love and passion felt for the subject by everyone involved.
Now it’s your turn. What would you do to save the North Atlantic Right Whales from extinction? Would you pay as much as you might to see a forgettable Hollywood movie to watch, “Thrown to the Wind”?
In the end, we believe that simply watching “Thrown To The Wind” and encouraging your friends and family to watch it will help change how we think about the problem. Viewers will see that the increase in whale and other cetacean deaths is, in reality, due to the wind industry, despite what U.S. government officials, and their obedient stenographers in the corporate news media, have said.
"Thrown To The Wind" - Full Film
Director and Producer: Jonah Markowitz
Editor: Jorge Garcia-Spitz
Executive Producers: Leighton Woodhouse and Michael Shellenberger
The following related post includes information and further research regarding the use of sonar and the recent deaths of whales in Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Bali and elsewhere around the world.
