Glauconite, a tricky green mineral, has complicated another offshore wind project along the East Coast. Its presence will likely force wind developer Ørsted to build fewer turbines in its Sunrise Wind project south of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Sunrise Wind may be capped at 80 to 87 turbines, instead of as many as 94, according to the project’s final environmental impact report, released last week. Ørsted cites “glauconite feasibility issues” with installing turbine foundations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s report.
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The Sunrise Wind project, about 40 miles south of New Bedford, will connect to the New York power grid. It’s the second confirmed offshore wind project along the East Coast that has rejected proposed turbine layouts due to the presence of glauconite. Empire Wind, off Long Island, has also had to do so, The Light reported in October.
BOEM, the U.S. ocean energy bureau, appears to be taking steps to address glauconite’s challenge to offshore wind development, its report last week signals.
“BOEM is developing further guidelines for developers to avoid these issues in the future,” read an agency response to a comment on the Sunrise Wind project. The comment was critical of the later timing of geological surveys, which can identify whether glauconite is present and might create an issue with certain turbine layouts.
BOEM did not provide a response to emailed questions on the agency’s comment about developing guidelines to avoid further issues.
The NOAA Fisheries Atlantic office, which cooperates with BOEM in reviewing projects, has also expressed concern with geological surveys occurring “late in the process.” In the case of Sunrise Wind, the fisheries agency said the timing reduced the government’s options for avoiding or minimizing impacts on marine resources.
Glauconite’s presence caused BOEM to reject a proposed wind turbine layout, preferred by NOAA Fisheries, that would have excluded Sunrise Wind’s turbines from a key area of Atlantic cod spawning habitat.
In response to a request for comment, a Sunrise Wind spokesperson said by email, “Impacts due to glauconite are not expected to affect this project.”
When glauconite blocks turbine installation
When glauconite is manipulated under pressure and friction, it starts to crush, changing from sand-like to clay-like. That can pose a challenge when offshore wind developers install turbine foundations into the seafloor. The clay creates greater resistance, presenting a higher risk of pile refusal — meaning the developer might fail to install the turbine foundation to its necessary depth.
The presence of glauconite in the Sunrise Wind lease area prompted the development of a new alternative turbine layout, published last week.
“Up to a total of 87 [wind turbine generators] would be developed under this alternative that prioritizes relocating [turbines] out of the Priority Areas identified by [NOAA Fisheries], while considering feasibility due to pile refusal risk from the presence of glauconite sands in the southeastern portion of the Lease Area,” BOEM wrote.
The 31 red dots in the map represent turbine locations that are “infeasible” for installation due to glauconite. They are concentrated in the southeastern area of the lease, which abuts another lease owned by Ørsted.
A Sunrise Wind spokesperson did not answer the question of whether Ørsted has also found glauconite at that lease.
Another project in the Massachusetts/Rhode Island wind energy area, Beacon Wind, has confirmed the presence of glauconite.
Public data on glauconite’s presence along the Atlantic outer continental shelf is decades old and captures only a limited sampling of the expansive continental shelf. Developers are still conducting surveys and geotechnical analysis, and they treat the information they have gathered (such as exactly where glauconite is) as proprietary.
The U.S. Geological Survey is undertaking a study to identify where glauconite is already known to be based on that older data. Meanwhile, developers are conducting lab tests to understand how the mineral might behave during pile driving.
What does this mean for potential project impacts?
In an earlier phase of environmental review, BOEM included two proposed wind turbine layouts that would have excluded Sunrise Wind turbines from an important area for Atlantic cod spawning. Both were later rejected as infeasible due to glauconite.
One of those layouts would have relocated up to eight turbines from the northwest portion, an area NOAA Fisheries marked as its highest priority to exclude from development in order to avoid or minimize impacts to cod spawning habitats.
Pursuing either of the rejected alternatives would only allow Ørsted to install between 63 to 72 turbines, which would not be enough to meet power agreements with New York.
BOEM, in a statement on the report released last week, said it developed the new preferred alternative with 84 turbines to “accommodate geotechnical feasibility of the project, reduce impacts to benthic [sea bottom] habitat and Atlantic cod, and meet the energy needs of New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.”
BOEM states that the new alternative, called the “Fisheries Habitat Impact Minimization Alternative,” will minimize impacts on habitats and fish.
Reducing the number of turbines by as much as 14 will also reduce “the total area disturbed for construction” and the “total acres of habitat that would be converted from native habitat conditions to engineered hard surface and armored areas,” said BOEM in the final environmental impact report.
However, BOEM acknowledged in its report that the “size or extent” of the new layout’s impacts won’t differ much from the original proposed action on the “more complex habitats” in the northwestern part of the lease, which is where Atlantic cod spawn.
Calls for earlier surveying to detect glauconite
In September, the NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic office told BOEM that the “newly identified” feasibility issues presented by glauconite “substantially reduced” options for minimizing project impacts on cod and their spawning habitat. As a result, the fisheries agency determined the proposed project would result in “significant adverse impacts” to the cod habitat.
“This situation shows why the site assessment surveys need to be completed earlier in the process so that findings can be considered in project design to reduce environmental impacts,” wrote Louis Chiarella, assistant regional administrator for habitat and ecosystem in NOAA Fisheries’ Greater Atlantic office.
“Receipt of this information late in the process has limited options that may have been available (e.g. alternative foundation types) at the early planning phase, which may have allowed for further reductions in impacts” to NOAA resources, he wrote.
According to the Sunrise Wind spokesperson, the developer conducted numerous geological surveys throughout the lease area between 2019 and 2023.
The New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils, in a letter to BOEM on the Sunrise Wind project, also cited the timing of geological surveys as an issue in its ability to review offshore wind projects.
The councils stated that a full geophysical site assessment should be completed before developing the draft environmental impact report. That way, agencies and the public can review and analyze possible turbine layouts that will not be rendered infeasible by glauconite.
During these site assessment surveys, developers obtain a highly detailed view of geological conditions, which will guide where and how they can best install the turbines. It’s also when they may find glauconite.
“It is not clear if the entire project area has been surveyed,” the fishery council wrote in February, “and if there will be the same geotechnical challenges that arose in Empire Wind 1’s project area, where some turbine locations and associated alternatives were determined to be infeasible.”
With the Empire Wind project, developer Equinor worked on an alternative with the fishing industry to minimize potential impacts. However, it was later deemed inviable due to the presence of glauconite.
In response to the council, BOEM said the entire Sunrise Wind lease area was surveyed at that point, but “not in full detail on the eastern side,” which is where the developer found feasibility issues with glauconite, the report shows.
“It seems like a systemic problem that all of these surveys aren’t happening early enough to understand that they are going to have to exclude some areas from construction,” Michelle Bachman, NEFMC’s fishery analyst for habitat and offshore wind, told The Light.
“The comment we were trying to make is to do this work sooner as a matter of public process and trying to do the best by habitat conservation,” Bachman said, “[so] that we’re not having alternatives becoming infeasible after the public has had an opportunity to review them.”
The NOAA Fisheries Atlantic office has expressed concern that geological survey work is occurring late in the process for another project, SouthCoast Wind, which also lies south of Martha’s Vineyard.
NOAA Fisheries did not respond to emailed questions about the Sunrise Wind report and its comments on the timing of geological surveys before publication.
BOEM plans to issue its final decision on the nearly 1-gigawatt Sunrise Wind project early next year.
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Dec. 22, 2023, to include additional information from the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils.
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
Thank you, Anastasia Lennon and the New Bedford Light, for being a national leader in reporting on the multitude of issues associated with offshore wind electricity generation! The glauconite siting problem is obviously an important one which, along with other environmental and fishery issues, must be carefully researched and considered by federal agencies when leasing and permitting new offshore sites.
Glauconite is Kryptonite to ocean wind turbines. Kryptonite is a fictional green crystalline material that appears to take strength away from Superman.
In 2010 Massachusetts had a land-based wind agenda of 2000 megawatts of wind power by 2020. There are only 100 today and the 2025 ocean wind agenda looks to be falling short again.