Environmental Report
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Neart na Gaoithe Neart na Gaoithe Marine Licence Application for the Installation of a Pontoon Environmental Report December 2020 DOCUMENT REFERENCE: NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 PROTECT – NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED PAGE 1 OF 22 Marine Licence Application for the Installation of a Pontoon Neart na Gaoithe NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 Document Control SIGN OFF Name (Role) Signature Date Mark Halliday [Redacted] 07/12/2020 NnGOWL Operations and Maintenance Manager [Redacted] Claire Gilchrist 07/12/2020 NnGOWL Offshore Consents Manager DOCUMENT CONTROL Document Number NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 Document Title Marine Licence for the Installation of a Pontoon Rev. Date Description Prepared Checked Approved [dd mmm yyyy] Alexia Claire 1.0 26 Nov 2020 Final for Issue Chapman Gilchrist NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 PROTECT – NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED PAGE 2 OF 22 Marine Licence Application for the Installation of a Pontoon Neart na Gaoithe NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................ 4 1.1 Project Background ............................................................................................................................................... 4 1.2 Purpose of the Environmental Report ................................................................................................................... 4 2 Project Description ............................................................................................................................................................. 6 3 Scotland’s Marine National Plan ....................................................................................................................................... 10 4 Assessment of Potential Impacts ...................................................................................................................................... 11 4.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................................................. 11 4.2 Physical Processes ............................................................................................................................................... 11 4.3 Marine Habitats ................................................................................................................................................... 12 4.4 Birds..................................................................................................................................................................... 14 4.5 Otter .................................................................................................................................................................... 14 4.6 Navigation ........................................................................................................................................................... 15 4.7 Archaeology ......................................................................................................................................................... 16 4.8 Other Users ......................................................................................................................................................... 19 5 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................................... 21 6 References ........................................................................................................................................................................ 22 Figures Figure 1: Neart na Gaoithe Offshore Wind Farm .....................................................................................................................................5 Figure 2: Aerial View of Eyemouth Harbour ............................................................................................................................................8 Figure 3: Pontoon location with proposed O&M base in Eyemouth .......................................................................................................9 Figure 4: The harbour entrance, the Canyon, can be seen on the left side of the photograph, with Gunsgreen Basin located on the right side of the photograph..................................................................................................................................................................12 Figure 5: Photos around the Harbour showing the intertidal fauna and flora present. Photos taken on 09/09/2020 at low tide. ......13 Figure 6: Location of CANMORE archaeological assets of note .............................................................................................................18 Tables Table 1: Eyemouth Harbour Vessel Movements for July 2019 (Harbourmaster, pers. comm., September 2020) ................................15 NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 PROTECT – NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED PAGE 3 OF 22 Marine Licence Application for the Installation of a Pontoon Neart na Gaoithe NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 1 Introduction 1.1 Project Background 1. The Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) Offshore Wind Farm (Revised Design) received consent under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 from the Scottish Ministers on 3 December 2018 and was granted two Marine Licences by the Scottish Ministers, for the Wind Farm and the associated Offshore Transmission Works (OfTW), on 3 December 2018. The S36 consent and Wind Farm Marine Licence were revised by issue of a variation to the S36 Consent and Marine Licence 06677/19/0 on 4 June 2019, and the OfTW Marine Licence by the issue of Marine Licence 06678/19/1 on the 5 June 2019 and subsequently by MS-00008954 on the 12 October 2020. The Project is being developed by Neart na Gaoithe Offshore Wind Limited (NnGOWL). 2. The Wind Farm Area is located to the northeast of the Firth of Forth, 15.5 kilometres (km) directly east of Fife Ness on the east coast of Scotland (see Figure 1). The Wind Farm Area covers approximately 105 km2. Offshore Export Cables will be located within the 300 metre (m) wide Offshore Export Cable Corridor, running in an approximately southwest direction from the Wind Farm Area, making landfall at Thorntonloch beach to the south of Torness Power Station in East Lothian. Construction began in Quarter 3 of 2020 and is planned to be completed by Quarter 4 of 2022. 3. NnG Offshore Wind Farm comprises of the following main components: • 54 wind turbines with a maximum generating output of around 450 Megawatts (MW). • 54 jacket substructures installed on pre-piled foundations to support the wind turbines. • Two alternating current (AC) substation platforms, referred to as Offshore Substation Platforms (OSPs), to collect and transform the generated electricity from 66 kilovolts (kV) to 220 kV for transmission to shore. • Two jacket substructures installed on piled foundations, to support the OSPs. • A network of inter-array subsea cables, buried and/or mechanically protected, to connect strings of turbines together and to connect the turbines to the OSPs. • One interconnector cable connecting the OSPs to each other. • Two buried and/or mechanically protected subsea export cables to transmit the electricity from the OSPs to the onshore buried export cables at landfall at Thorntonloch. This will facilitate connection to the National Grid network. • Minor ancillary works such as the deployment of metocean buoys and permanent navigational marks. 1.2 Purpose of the Environmental Report 4. NnGOWL is seeking to apply for a Marine Licence from Marine Scotland Licensing Operations Team (MS-LOT) for the installation of a pontoon at their Operations & Maintenance (O&M) Base at Eyemouth Harbour. A Marine Licence is required for any marine construction works under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. 5. This Environmental Report is submitted in support of the Marine Licence application to provide an overview of the baseline environment and any potential impacts from the pontoon installation and operation. Consent for the onshore aspects of the O&M base at Eyemouth Harbour was granted on 14 September 2020 from the Scottish Borders Council under The Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997. 6. NnGOWL has secured exclusive use of the Gunsgreen Basin with existing pontoons for leisure craft and fishing vessels to be removed by Eyemouth Harbour Trust (EHT) prior to site handover. 7. A description of the pontoon is provided in Section 2, a description of the baseline environment is provided in Section 3 and an assessment of potential impacts is presented in Section 4. NNG-RHD-OEM-REP-0001 PROTECT – NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED PAGE 4 OF 22 120000 140000 160000 180000 200000 220000 ± 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 8 2 2 6 6 Legend: 0 0 Neart na Gaoithe Offshore Wind Farm Area 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 6 2 2 6 6 Neart na Gaoithe Export Cable Route Eyemouth Harbour 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 2 2 6 6 © The Crown Estate Scotland, 2020. © Haskoning DHV UK Ltd, 2020 Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right, 2020. © OpenStreetMap (and) contributors, CC-BY-SA. 0 0 0 0 0 0 Client: Project: 0 0 2 2 2 2 6 6 Marine Licence Application Neart na Gaoithe for the Installation of a Offshore Wind Limited Pontoon Title: Neart na Gaoithe Offshore Wind Farm 0 0 Figure: Drawing No: 0 0 PB9537-001-004 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 2 6 6 Revision: Date: Drawn: Checked: Size: Scale: P03 21/10/2020 FC ES A3 1:450,000 P02 02/09/2020