Did the pile driving during the construction of the Offshore Wind Farm Egmond aan Zee, the Netherlands, impact porpoises?

The Dutch consortium "NoordzeeWind" has built the first offshore wind farm in Dutch North Sea waters, known as "Offshore Wind farm Egmond aan Zee" (OWEZ) Part of the construction works consisted of driving 36 monopiles into the sea floor, during April-June 2006. The noise levels that attended this activity may have been detrimental to marine life forms. Cetaceans in particular are sensitive to very high noise levels and a possible impact on the most abundant cetacean living off the Dutch coast, the harbour porpoise was therefore studied. Direct observations were hard to conduct, given the low... Mehr ...