LONG BEACH ISLAND - Save LBI, the non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting the oceans from the destructive impacts of offshore wind, has announced its intent to file a petition with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration to allow the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale to migrate safely and survive as a species.
The petition will ask NOAA to designate a migration corridor along the East Coast as a critical habitat for the North Atlantic right whale, whose current population totals less than 340.
In order to survive, the North Atlantic right whale must migrate annually up and down the East Coast from its feeding grounds to its calving grounds.
According to Save LBI President Bob Stern, the whale population continues to decline and the whales now face a new ominous threat from the noise generated from offshore wind turbines placed in its migratory paths.
NOAA has established two critical habitat areas for the right whale – one off the coast of New England that is primarily for feeding, and one off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina that are primarily for calving. However, NOAA has yet to designate a critical habitat for migration between these areas.
“Protecting this ‘missing-link’ region, which is equally essential to ensuring the whale's survival, will enable it to migrate safely from one critical habitat to the other,” Stern said in a release.
On Jan. 23, Save LBI provided the required 30-day notice to the affected states along the proposed critical habitat migration corridor.
Save LBI’s petition claims that significant and persistent operational noise from the proposed newer and larger offshore wind turbines, which includes the federally-approved Atlantic Shores South project 8.7 miles off the coast of Atlantic City, Brigantine, and southern LBI, will at a minimum impede, and potentially block, the right whale from traversing the proposed critical habitat migration area.
“For this reason, Save LBI is asking the NOAA to prohibit the placement of wind turbines in the proposed corridor, as well as in a surrounding buffer zone to address the elevated noise transmitted beyond the perimeter of a wind complex,” Stern said.
Establishing a wind-turbine-free zone along the East Coast will also preserve other important uses of the sea, such as navigation and defense, and preserve the seafood, maritime, and tourism industries of the affected states, he said.
For more information, see [email protected].
