MATOS - Mid-Atlantic Acoustic Telemetry Observation System

Project Title: Assessing the impact of EMF on local elasmobranch species from an offshore wind farm export cable.

MATOS Project Code: LICABLE

Data Type: Data

Project Duration: May 2022 - December 2025

Project Description: The Ørsted South Fork Wind Farm (ØSFWF) is an offshore wind project in development 35 miles east of Montauk Point and is expected to be New York State’s first operational offshore wind farm. While offshore renewable energy development poses potential environmental impacts that are not fully understood, one potential source of impact, common to all offshore renewable energy technologies, comes from this transmission of power to shore. Undersea power transmission export cables generate electromagnetic fields (EMFs) that may impact marine organisms. This project uses acoustic telemetry arrays to evaluate effects of EMFs on behavior and movement pre-, during, and post-construction using movement metrics such as acceleration, depth, 2-d and 3-d position, and residency on local species.

Objectives:

To assess the fine scale 2D movement patterns of acoustically tagged fish within the Shinnecock AR
To determine movement between AR regions and between the offshore ARs and their associated estuaries

Principal Investigator:	Bradley Peterson (School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University)
Email:	bradley.peterson@stonybrook.edu

Point of Contact:	Brittney Scannell
Email:	brittney.scannell@stonybrook.edu

SBU Sunrise Wind Cable Export Study