Current plans are to place wind turbines in the shallow coastal waters off the NE US coast. This plan has turbines sitting on large (30 m diameter) tubes inserted into the ocean bottom in a regular grid with a nominal 1 nautical mile spacing. These turbines are connected with cables that are buried in the sandy bottom. They are also surrounded by a scour pad make of large rocks. Â
There are a number of valuable bottom fisheries (surf clams, quahogs and scallops, among others) that already use the shelf as a fishing ground. These fisheries uses hydraulic dredges to extract bivalves from the bottom sediment. These dredges cannot work in the scour areas and may snag the power distribution cables. Due to operational concerns by the boat operators, they may not choose to travel through the wind farm grid. Â
CCPO is researching the economic impact to the fishery of excluding fishing from the wind farm areas and from adding to fishing cost by restricting boats from travelling directly to the remaining fishing areas through wind farms. This research is being funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). Â
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