By Tony Hagen • editor@newjersey.sierraclub.org
The Delaware River was once chock-full of Atlantic sturgeon, but populations of these legendary leaping fish have plummeted more than 99% since the 1800s. Just 250 adults or fewer return to the river each year to spawn. Scientists determined this by analyzing the DNA of juvenile sturgeon to gauge the size of the adult pool.
The numbers aren’t much better elsewhere on the East Coast. Heavy river traffic (vessel strikes), poor water quality, and dredging have been identified as culprits in the demise of this species. A New York Bight study noted evidence of sturgeon inbreeding in the Delaware and Hudson rivers.
River conservationists have raised the concern that dredging and ocean traffic associated with the wind turbine marshalling area in Salem will make it harder for sturgeon to survive in the Delaware.
The wind port will be where turbines are assembled and shipped out to sea for installation. Separately, components for these turbines will be manufactured just south of Camden in Paulsboro. These are massive facilities accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, and they are intended to supply not just a few wind turbine farms but what New Jersey hopes will become a long-term industry feeding wind turbine projects all along the Atlantic Coast.
The dredging at Salem will be extensive, but presumably short-term only, with some long-term maintenance required. Far more impactful is the annual dredging of the Delaware, during which millions of cubic yards of sand, clay, and silt are removed along the river’s full navigable length. The navigable channel was recently deepened from 40 to 45 feet, creating more river disturbance.
Dredging for navigation channels has significantly altered depth, rates of sedimentation, substrate, and water flow in some areas, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported in a recent overview of sturgeon conservation efforts.
How much additional vessel traffic will result from these wind ports? New York’s ambitions for a piece of the wind industry are equal to if not greater than New Jersey’s, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) did a Hudson River analysis of traffic expected to result from wind turbine activity. New Jersey and New York have similar targets for wind turbine completion: 11 gigawatts by 2040 and 9 gigawatts by 2035, respectively, and so a comparison is valid.
NYSERDA projected a total of 1,642 construction vessel round trips per year to 9 wind farms planned through 2035, and 20 to 50 operations and maintenance trips each year for each of those farms, once built.
“The relative increase in vessel traffic incurred by offshore wind projects [OSW]… is small compared with the total volume of vessel traffic anticipated over time,” authors of the study concluded, or in the low hundreds of annual trips compared with tens or hundreds of thousands of non-OSW trips.
These numbers notwithstanding, it is not safe to assume there will not be any collateral damage to the Delaware River sturgeon population from wind port construction and operation.
Both the Paulsboro and Salem port projects are already well advanced in construction and could commence operations as soon as 2024. It is implausible to think these can be stopped and relocated now. Construction crews have been advised to modify their activities so sturgeon have a better chance of surviving, and such precautions should be extended to all forms of river activity.
In its conservation overview, NOAA reported there is evidence the sturgeon population in the New York Bight is increasing, albeit slowly, since the implementation of a 1998 fishing moratorium. “Atlantic sturgeon recovery will likely be slow because it is a late-maturing species,” NOAA said. Female sturgeon do not reproduce until age 15, although they may live until well over age 50.
Resources
NY Bight Study: bit.ly/3Ojl985
NY SERDA Report: bit.ly/3WgGaCy
NOAA Overview: bit.ly/3WmaKKI