Assessing Impacts of Offshore Wind Development: An Analysis of the Minimization of Economic Exposure of the Scallop Fishery Through the Regulatory Process

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ABSTRACT Offshore wind energy has expanded as a source of clean energy in the United States since the first US offshore wind farm began operations off the coast of Rhode Island in 2016. The emergence of offshore wind has increased the need to manage ocean use across multiple stakeholder groups, a difficult and contentious process. We use 15 years of scallop ( Placopecten magellanicus ) fishery data to describe how offshore wind may expose one of the most valuable commercial fisheries in the United States to economic risks. Our analysis shows that the current configuration of approved offshore wind lease areas off the northeastern coast of the United States is expected to result in relatively small economic exposure for the scallop fishery. We also illustrate how the measured development process, which includes ample opportunity for stakeholder input, has mitigated exposure through minimization or avoidance by characterizing the change in impacted activity through two case studies. We find moderate to strong levels of exposure mitigation across our three scallop fleet métiers within the Central Atlantic (CA) region. In contrast, exposure mitigation was more variable in the New York Bight (NYB) region suggesting mitigation methods in the NYB are not as effective for the scallop fishery as the CA. The open development process that allowed for early stakeholder engagement has largely mitigated the potential for economic risk of offshore wind on the scallop industry by approving the siting of offshore wind development in less utilized or less productive scalloping areas.

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