Offshore wind farms are becoming part of America and the world's renewable energy landscape.

And now the Gulf of Maine is being considered a possible site for offshore wind development.

In this series of stories, you'll learn about this emerging technology and what it might mean for you, our coastal communities and the Gulf of Maine's natural environment.

In this story, part nine of 11, we'll dive into the interactions of offshore wind energy with others that are connected to the ocean.

One of the things that comes to a realization very, very quickly is that the ocean is a busy place.

Us landlubbers tend to think of this as this broad expanse of essentially a desert that no one's out there.

When you actually go and look at where people are and the tracks of boat, it is a very, very busy place.

If the wind farm project makes it to the construction phase, the Gulf of Maine will become a lot busier.

It's not known at this time how many turbines will sit far ashore, but it is likely to be a substantial number.

Other than the commercial fishery, there's a lot of activity out there that could be affected.

A number of long standing ocean users are I think, understandably, quite concerned about the development of offshore wind energy.

It frankly represents probably the single biggest change in use of the US continental shelves that most of us will see in our lifetimes.

There's going to be more permanent physical structures out in the water, and that's going to create operational and navigational challenges for anyone just moving around or especially trying to catch fish out in the water.

In an average year, the Coast Guard in northern New England probably conducts 250 to 300 search and rescue cases a year across the entire region.

So the Coast Guard is interested in offshore wind development because our first concern is always the safety of navigation for all the vessels that are out there.

And we have an interest in balancing new uses of our waterways, like offshore wind with traditional users like, the, you know, the commercial vessels that bring cargo and goods into our ports or the commercial fishing fleet.

And so we're cognizant that, you know, putting offshore wind turbines, that are very tall, that's just one of the other hazards that our planners need to be aware of as we plan search and rescue missions.

And obviously, our boat operators and our pilots and our aircraft are very aware of where the turbines are and factor that into their mission planning as well.

In addition to the concerns about offshore mariners, commercial offshore wind farms are seen as a potential threat to indigenous culture and history.

I'm not opposed to clean energy.

I'm not opposed to offshore wind.

I'm not opposed.

I just want to do the research and due diligence to ensure that you're doing it in a responsible way, and you're not affecting my relatives.

Archeology as a science has archeological evidence that shows we've been here, minimally, 12,000 years.

So 12,000 years.

The glacial maximum was out ended pretty much where the Cape sea line is now.

And so those areas were exposed back then.

We were living out in front of those.

And as the glacial maximum receded, we moved with it.

And our position is that because we once lived on those lands, you can't confirm or deny that you're not going to impact archeological sites or burials out in those areas.

You know, there are relatives.

We have responsibilities to take care of them and ensure that they are not disturbed.

The presence of wind farms, I think, is undoubtedly going to change how certain mariners navigate the routes they take on the water.

We may see fishermen, in particular, and maybe even some of the larger cargo ships that do want to transit through wind farms, try to fish within wind farms.

So we need to be ready for that.

We need to make sure we have the navigational aids.

And I'm talking about oceanographic data, real time oceanographic data that those mariners are going to need to plan their routes, to plan their fishing strategies and and to move and work safely in those environments.

We're constantly adapting to changes as industry changes.

Along with some challenges that Captain Baker sees with offshore wind arrays in the Gulf, he thinks there may be some benefits too.

Offshore wind is in its infancy here in the United States, but it's a very mature industry in Europe.

And as we've, spoken to our counterparts that conduct search and rescue or other coastguard missions in Europe, one of the things that they pointed out is when we see wind infrastructure, built out in a particular part of the ocean, there's more vessels in that area, the folks servicing the wind turbines, sometimes the turbines themselves can have sensors or cameras on them that actually give us a greater awareness of what's going on in a part of the ocean where perhaps folks weren't operating in previously.

And so there's absolutely the chance that we might be more aware of the activity and if a mariner where to get into trouble, we might have better information about what's happening to them if they're near a wind turbine.

It's just one factor that we're thinking about as we watch industry build out their projects.

The Winds of Change in the Gulf of Maine series is a co-production of New Hampshire, PBS and New Hampshire Sea Grant, with support from the University of New Hampshire.

Production funding was provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.