Take Action
To make your comment on the Draft Environmental Assessment, go to this link and submit by attaching your letter or typing in the comment box:
The deadline to submit comments is Friday May 31.
Sample Letter with Key Recommendations
(please personalize):
Example Subject Line: Comments on BOEM’s Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for site assessment and characterization activities
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Dear Director Klein,
I am writing to urge BOEM to amend its Oregon Wind Energy EA to require greater precautions to reduce impacts of site characterization activities on Oregon’s cherished wildlife. I urge BOEM to conduct a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), including a west coast wide cumulative impacts analysis to broadly review impacts for all species that transit multiple planned wind energy development zones. BOEM’s decision to separate the analysis of site characterization activities from actual development and construction of wind energy arrays make the analysis disjointed and piecemeal. This is counter to the intent of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires a thoughtful analysis of environmental impacts and alternatives to effectively reduce impacts.
For site characterization activities, the greatest risks to wildlife include vessel collisions, impacts from acoustic assessment, seafloor disturbance, and impacts from lights.
To mitigate for these impacts, I encourage BOEM to require lessees to follow all Best Management Practices and more specifically to:
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- Prohibit site characterization activities during times of highest risk for marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds. These include periods of high migration, of molt for alcid seabirds, and when mother-calf pairs are present;
- Require generous clearance zone and exclusion zone distances prior to activities that could injure or harass large whales;
- Require shutdown of activities if large whales are detected;
- Require mandatory 10-knot vessel speed restrictions on all vessels to reduce risk of collisions;
- Require underwater noise reduction to the fullest extent feasible;
- Require that for surveys in waters deeper than 100 m, survey equipment should be deployed using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) operated 40 m above the seafloor;
- Require mandatory reporting of all large whale and sea turtle detections as well as detections of seabird species of concern, including short and black tailed albatross, tufted puffins, and storm petrels;
- Require robust baseline monitoring protocols to characterize distribution, foraging activities, and presence, habitat, and migration patterns of large whale species, killer whales, migratory birds, and sea turtles;
- Ensure that lighting on vessels and buoys is minimized and shielded downward to reduce risks of light-driven attraction of birds
- Require that buoy anchoring systems be sited to avoid sensitive seafloor habitat areas, such as coral forests.
Thank you, (your name)
