Ever since the Block Island Wind Farm first became an idea more than a decade ago, the commercial fishing industry has that warned offshore turbines will industrialize the ocean and negatively impact ecosystems.

The executive director of the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island recently expressed those concerns to ecoRI News. Fred Mattera said:

“What I like is using good, sound science to make decisions. We have been impetuous. It is human nature to build things first and face the consequences later.”

“I actually wish [wind farms] would just go away and we start to build nuclear plants. Industrializing the ocean is not the way to manage an ecosystem.”

Offshore wind turbines, especially during construction, certainly add to the cacophony of underwater noise created by yachts (mega or otherwise), container ships, barges, oil and gas drilling, sonar, and military exercises that stress marine mammals and other sea life.

Centuries of commercial fishing and whaling also industrialized the oceans. They have had a profound impact on the marine environment. Combined with the extraction, transportation, and the burning of fossil fuels at sea, these two industries have caused significant marine distress.

Let’s examine Mattera’s call for sound science.

Bottom trawling is a widespread industrial fishing practice that involves dragging heavy nets, large metal doors, and chains over the seafloor. About a quarter of the wild seafood that the world consumes comes from the ocean floor. Cod, founder, skate, sole, and other bottom-dwelling species that roam this space get caught in huge nets.

These massive nets annually capture millions of tons of fish worth billions of dollars. They also catch and kill sponges, starfish, worms, and other bottom-dwellers. This bycatch slaughter disrupts an intricate ecosystem.

“Trawling destroys the natural seafloor habitat by essentially rototilling the seabed. All of the bottom-dwelling plants and animals are affected, if not outright destroyed, by tearing up root systems or animal burrows,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey. “Resuspending bottom sediment changes the entire chemistry of the water, including nutrient levels.”

The federal agency noted resuspended sediment can lower light levels in the water and reduce photosynthesis in ocean-dwelling plants, the foundation of the marine food web.

Bottom trawling smooths out the wrinkles of canyons on the continental slope, making marine mountainsides look more like plowed fields and changing the habitat of sea creatures, according to a 2012 study.

A 2016 study called bottom trawling “the most widespread anthropogenic activity that impacts the seabed on the continental shelf.” It noted estimates have suggested that an area half the size of the world’s continental shelf is trawled every year.

“The global calculations were a big surprise, and we calculated them at least 10 times to make sure we were not making a mistake,” said one of the study’s co-authors. “I am still in awe of these results and their environmental implications.”

Globally, 8.6 million square miles “are subject to chronic commercial trawling and dredging each year,” with 3.7 million square miles “occurring in soft sediment of continental shelves,” according to another study published in 2016.

A 2017 study referred to bottom trawling as “the most widespread source of physical disturbance to the world’s seabed.”

Commercial fishing gear that is dragged along the seafloor to capture species that live on, in, or near the ocean bottom has long been criticized for damaging fragile habitats and catching innumerable non-target species.

Basically, bottom trawling eradicates ecosystems. Hundreds of pounds of dead discards are common in a single tow. There’s little difference between bottom trawling and strip mining or clear-cutting.

Otter trawling, which is used to catch cod, flounder, haddock, and other groundfish, is the most common fishing method in New England. It uses two large metal doors to hold open the net as it drags along the seafloor. It was found to be the least harmful of the methods researchers assessed. Otter trawls killed 6% percent of the marine organisms in the way each time the net passed, according to the 2017 study.

The researchers also studied beam trawling, a method that uses a metal beam to hold open the net; towed dredges that drag a toothed metal bar along the seafloor, used in New England’s scallop fishery; and hydraulic dredges, which use a jet of water to loosen the seabed to capture surf clams and ocean quahogs living in the sediment.

Hydraulic dredges caused the most damage, killing 41% of animal and plant life on the seabed. The study found trawling removes 6% to 41% of faunal biomass per pass. The amount of damage caused by each gear type depends on how deep the machinery penetrates the seafloor. The further it penetrates, the more damage caused.

The researchers also found that ecosystem recovery times post-trawling ranged between 1.9 and 6.4 years depending on the fishery and the environmental circumstances.

In areas that have cold-water corals or glass sponges, however, recovery times can stretch from decades to centuries. Those species grow slowly, or once they are wiped out, it is harder for their larvae or juveniles to re-establish. Habitats with gravel or cobblestones can take a decade or more to recover.

Sandy habitats that are typical of large areas of the continental shelf can recover from trawling in just a few months, especially if they are only trawled once or twice annually, according to the study.

Dragging nets through the sand isn’t just a threat to marine life, however. A study published in January found that stirring up carbon-rich sediment on the seafloor releases about 370 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, roughly the same as running 100 coal-fired power plants.

A similar study published in 2021 found that bottom trawling unlocks a significant amount of carbon from the seafloor.

The world’s oceans absorb about a quarter of all the carbon dioxide that humans belch into the air. In fact, more CO2 is stored in the sea than in all the soil and plants on Earth. The oceans, however, aren’t a closed system. They both absorb and emit carbon, and most climate policies don’t take emissions from ocean-based activities such as bottom trawling into account.

I’m not advocating that we ban fishing, nor am I trying to disparage the occupation. My point is to highlight the industry’s collective disconnect with reality. Commercial fishing already has and will further suffer from the impacts of global warming. The continued burning of fossil fuels is a far greater threat to the industry (and to human and non-human life) than offshore wind turbines.

During the past two centuries, the world’s oceans have absorbed more than 150 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted from human activities, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Ocean carbon dioxide concentrations are now higher than at any time during the past 800,000 years, and the “current rate of increase is likely unprecedented.”

Ocean acidification, caused by our relentless burning of fossil fuels, is likely to alter the oceanic food web and stress a human food supply. It’s bad news for marine life with calcium carbonate in their shells or skeletons, such as corals, crabs, and mollusks. Studies have found that more acidic salt waters make it more difficult for mussels, oysters, and scallops to develop their hardened protection.

A 2015 study listed Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut among the states whose shellfish industries are at long-term economic risk from the impact of ocean acidification.

A 2021 report produced by the Massachusetts Special Legislative Commission on Ocean Acidification found the industry could suffer serious losses by the end of the century if the problem goes unaddressed.

Acidification affects other life vital to the marine ecosystem, including reef-building corals and pteropods — tiny snails eaten by numerous species, including whales. Acidic seawater also makes it more difficult for some species, such as clownfish, to sense predators, for sharks to hunt prey, and for squid to develop.

In the laboratory, many harmful algal species produce more toxins and bloom faster in acidified waters. “A similar response in the wild could harm people eating contaminated shellfish and sicken fish and marine mammals,” according to NOAA.

The Gulf of Maine’s kelp forests, a foundation for marine life, face widespread collapse as the oceans warm, The Boston Globe’s David Abel recently reported.

Let’s examine Mattera’s call for ecosystem management.

During the Obama administration, efforts to create a marine national monument protection area in the Atlantic, off the New England coast, were met with significant opposition from the fishing industry.

Cashes Ledge is a roughly 500-square-mile undersea mountain chain about 80 miles east of Gloucester, Mass. The chain includes a large kelp forest that provides habitat for a diverse collection of marine life, including Atlantic cod.

The area has been closed to bottom trawling since the early 2000s, but other fishing methods are allowed.

Supporters of making it a marine monument area argued that this important ecosystem needs to be better protected — essentially the same argument the commercial fishing industry has made about siting wind turbines near Cox’s Ledge, a rich fishing habitat about 25 miles southeast of Point Judith, R.I.

The hypocrisy is rich in the industry’s arguments. Protect our fishing areas from other uses — even ones that could help the industry in the long run — but ignore our presence.

The fishing industry, most notably the four fisheries — lobster, red crab, swordfish, and whiting — that regularly work Cashes Ledge, claimed big, well-funded environmental organizations were using their money and power to marginalize them. They alleged non-governmental organizations were negotiating with government regulators behind closed doors.

They suggested these NGOs should use the money they spend on lawsuits to help develop better science, which they said would better protect marine resources and create better management practices.

Science has repeatedly warned us about the devastating impacts that have and will continue to result from the climate crisis. Quickly and dramatically reducing fossil fuel burning is the solution.

Gillnetting is a regular commercial fishing practice. It is widely used in Rhode Island waters. The net can be a mile or more long, sits on the bottom, and comes up about 10 feet. Fish that swim into the net get their gills ensnared and can’t escape.

When the net is hauled up, the fish and other creatures caught are sorted. Those who are desired and legal for sale are put on ice and those who are unwanted or not of legal size are thrown overboard. Since these fish have been trapped by their gills, most of the discarded are dead.

Research has estimated that about 300,000 whales and dolphins die annually due to entanglement in fishing gear, according to the International Whaling Commission (IWC). That’s a lot of takes.

“Entanglement is also a serious welfare issue,” according to the IWC. “It can lead to drowning as trapped animals cannot reach the surface to breathe, to laceration and infection as heavy ropes bite through skin, and to starvation as animals towing heavy fishing gear cannot feed effectively.”

Earlier this year a North Atlantic right whale was killed and washed up on Martha’s Vineyard with clear injuries from rope entanglements. NOAA conducted an investigation, concluding the whale died from chronic entanglement of commercial fishing gear linked to the Maine lobster industry.

Endangered North Atlantic right whales face multiple stressors in the “highly industrialized waters” of the western North Atlantic, most notably entanglements in fishing gear and collisions with vessels, according to a 2022 study.

The study noted entanglements typically occur in fixed fishing gear, including lobster and crab pots, and gillnets after a whale collides with ropes in the water column.

A 30-year assessment of entanglement scars (1980-2009) showed nearly 83% of the North Atlantic right whale population has been entangled at least once, and some individuals as many as seven times.

While most fishing gear interactions result in only scars, the rate of serious entanglements — those with attached gear or severe injuries — has been increasing and entanglements are now the leading cause of serious injury and mortality in this species.

Abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear is a major contributor to ocean pollution, with extensive social, economic, and environmental impacts, according to a 2022 research article.

The authors estimated that nearly 2% of all fishing gear — some 84 square miles of trawl nets, 1,144 square miles of gillnets, 28,977 square miles of purse seine nets, 459,556 miles of longline mainlines, 13 billion longline hooks, and some 25 million pots and traps — are lost to the ocean annually.

“Ghost fishing results in potentially substantial losses of protein resources, habitat damage, and the ensnarement of threatened and endangered species,” according to the paper.

A 2019 report by Greenpeace estimated that 640,000 tons of ghost gear enters the oceans annually. The organization has estimated ghost gear makes up 10% of marine plastic waste.

Ghost gear often ensnares animals that aren’t being harvested. Diamondback terrapins provide a case study of how this debris can impact animal populations.

These turtles inhabit salt marshes along the East Coast, including in southern New England, where people also fish for blue crabs. Blue crabs are caught using a metal cage that is dropped to the marsh floor and tied to a buoy. If the buoy becomes detached, fishers may not be able to find the gear, and it becomes a ghost pot.

These pots have tiny openings that allow crabs to enter but not escape. Terrapins also swim into the pots, attracted by the bait. Since they are social animals, a single pot can capture more than one turtle.

In a single Georgia tidal marsh, 130 diamondback terrapin carcasses were observed in abandoned crab pots, consisting of more than double the remaining estimated population, according to the authors of a 2009 paper.

To my knowledge, no offshore wind opponent has showed up at a public meeting outraged by this pollution, or carrying a bag of locally collected ghost gear.

Note: In pelagic trawling, the net is placed on the surface of open water and is used to catch anchovies, shrimp, tuna, herring, and mackerel. These trawls are generally much larger than bottom trawls and can be towed by one or two boats.

Frank Carini can be reached at [email protected]. His opinions don’t reflect those of ecoRI News.