Stantec to conduct landmark ecological study for offshore wind siting

Environmental consulting and engineering firm Stantec has announced its plans to launch a significant pilot study focused on evaluating bat and bird movements off the coast of Maine. The project, the first phase of which will run from late July through October this year, will collect data on migration patterns of bats and birds in the Gulf of Maine and represents the first such study of its kind on the Atlantic coast. It is designed to help provide baseline data for the planning of offshore wind projects in the region and is expected to form the basis for future research in other offshore areas.

Maine’s Ocean Energy Task Force, established by Governor Baldacci, is currently evaluating potential wind energy demonstration sites in Maine coastal waters.

The study was prompted in part by Stantec’s recent work for the Cape Wind project off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Stantec conducted evaluations of avian impacts for the Minerals Management Service’s Environmental Impact Statement for that project, which included an analysis of risks to two endangered bird species. During the course of that research, Stantec’s wildlife biologists noted a scarcity of data on regional offshore migration patterns for birds and nearly no information regarding bats in the offshore environment.

“We’ve collected this kind of data for more than 100 onshore wind farms and know how valuable it is in determining the viability of a wind power site,” says Steve Pelletier, a principal scientist at Stantec. “With such little information out there on offshore bat and bird movement, we felt we could apply our experience to help fill that void, while at the same time conduct tests on equipment and methods for our future surveys.”

Over the next several months Stantec will operate a number of radar units and arrays of digital acoustic bat detector systems at select sites located 6 to 20 miles off of the coast of Maine, covering a transect of nearly 150 miles from Casco Bay north to Machias Seal Island. Stantec scientists will be monitoring the data for information on the offshore presence or absence, timing, flight heights, and passage rates of bats and birds moving south during the late summer and fall migration season. These findings will be compared to similar data collected onshore. Combined, these efforts represent the first substantive attempt to collect such migration data in the Gulf of Maine and help develop a regional picture.