Abstract
Vineyard Wind contracted the School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) for ‘Phase 1: Development of Monitoring Plan’, which involved collaborating with the fishing industry, regulatory agencies and Vineyard Wind to plan pre- and post-construction assessments of fisheries, associated ecological conditions, and socio-economic aspects of fisheries, in and around the Vineyard Wind offshore wind lease area, as designated by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, on the US Outer Continental Shelf. The purpose of this report is to help answer questions and provide information that can further the public understanding of potential impacts of offshore wind development and possible means of mitigation of any such impacts. This information will help inform future permitting and public policy decisions. This effort is part of a larger framework of monitoring and assessment that is expected to be augmented by other sources of funding.
A scoping exercise was completed to identify what questions and information would be most useful in achieving the purpose of this assessment work. In developing this scope, SMAST researchers solicited input from the various fisheries active in the region, policy makers, regulators and academia. The main outcome of the scoping phase will be a plan to conduct one or more pre- and post-construction assessments, and a schedule and budget to conduct the assessments.
SMAST organized and hosted a series of workshops, with fishermen and regulators to present a relatively expansive set of monitoring component options and to identify which elements are most important to local fisheries and which are most important to regulators. The outreach mechanism was email, phone calls, networking at other meetings (e.g., New England Fishery Management Council process) and port visits (e.g., New Bedford and Pt Judith). Outreach included commercial and recreational fishermen and fishing organizations involved in fisheries that are active in the development area (e.g., squid-mackerel-butterfish, scup-sea bass-fluke, southern New England groundfish, scallop, monkfish-skate, lobster-crab). Monitoring components include (but are not be limited to) fishery assessments, fishery resources surveys, tagging, oceanographic monitoring and modeling, socioeconomic analysis, and geostatistical integration of monitoring components. Optional design features such as important indicator species and seasonality of monitoring were presented and discussed.