September 30, 2025 - The following was released by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center:
The Northeast Fisheries Science Center is soliciting public comment on the Draft Regional Standards for the Offshore Wind Project-Level Monitoring, or monitoring standards. These are the recommended regional monitoring standards for evaluating the effects of fixed-foundation offshore wind development.
Your feedback will help us refine the monitoring standards. The deadline to provide feedback is November 3, 2025. Click here to provide your feedback.
The monitoring standards focus on the Mid-Atlantic Bight and Southern New England portions of the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf ecosystem. They’re meant to guide the planning and implementation of monitoring programs. Monitoring programs will evaluate the effects of fixed-foundation offshore wind development on the marine ecosystem including:
Protected species
Fisheries species
Hydrodynamics and oceanography
Socio-economic conditions
The monitoring standards are based on the best scientific information available to achieve standardization of monitoring methods. Standardizing monitoring across individual wind projects—within and across lease areas—will ensure that data can be compared across all projects and used in ecosystem and socio-economic analyses and models. Information from analyses and models can then be used to inform future marine resource conservation and fishery management decisions.