The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has announced the availability of its final Environmental Assessment (EA), which considers possible impacts from issuing leases for potential offshore wind development off the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia coasts, including site assessment and site characterization activities such as geophysical, geological, and archaeological surveys.
The EA concluded that there would be no significant impacts from lease issuance.
Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of the Interior has approved the nation’s first eight commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects. BOEM has held four offshore wind lease auctions, including sales offshore New York, New Jersey, and the Carolinas; and the first-ever sales offshore the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts.
BOEM is exploring additional opportunities for offshore wind energy development in the U.S., including in the Gulf of Maine and elsewhere off the Central Atlantic coast.
On December 11, 2023, the Department of the Interior announced a proposed offshore wind lease sale for two Wind Energy Areas in the Central Atlantic: one offshore the states of Delaware and Maryland, and one offshore the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In January of this year, BOEM published its draft EA that assessed the potential impacts associated with site assessment and characterization activities associated with issuing wind energy leases in the Central Atlantic.
BOEM plans to hold a sale in the Central Atlantic later this year.