Last week, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced it is rescinding all designated Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The rescission eliminates 13 areas originally identified by the BOEM as suitable for wind energy development in the Gulf of America, the development of which could have had catastrophic impacts on shrimpers’ access to traditional shrimping grounds. Now, only a single offshore wind lease remains in the entire Gulf of America
The remaining leased area affects 102,480 acres off the coast of Galveston, Texas and Lake Charles, Louisiana. For the past four years, SSA has worked extensively with the BOEM and NOAA to avoid, minimize, and mitigate any harm to the Gulf commercial shrimp fishery from the pursuit of offshore wind projects. Much of this work was centered on the state-of-the-art spatial suitability modeling performed by NOAA’s National Centers for Ocean Coastal Science (NCCOS). Such analysis is based in significant part on scientific shrimp fishing effort data collected from the shrimp fleet’s Electronic Logbooks (ELBs). As a result, BOEM specifically excluded well-documented areas of moderate to high shrimp fishing effort from the vast areas originally considered for offshore wind leases, reducing the acreage actually leased by 99.7% from the original 30-million-acre Call Area. SSA’s unparalleled success in deconflicting wind energy development and shrimping in the Gulf of America through a strategy of engagement and collaboration with both BOEM and NOAA was nationally recognized as the model for fisheries in other regions.
BOEM’s action results from Secretary’s Order (SO) 3437 – Ending Preferential Treatment for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources in Department Decision-Making – and the Presidential Memorandum of January 20, 2025 – Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the OCS from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects.
Learn more about the offshore wind that will remain in the Gulf of America: https://shrimpalliance.com/boem-announces-designation-of-two-wind-energy-areas-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-that-reflect-input-and-views-of-the-commercial-shrimp-industry/