Surveying the Possibilities and Pitfalls of West Coast Offshore Wind and What It Means for Fishing
At first glance, West Coast offshore wind energy (OSW) seems like a great idea.
Think about it: Clean, renewable power generated efficiently, far enough from the coast that turbines are out of sight, out of mind. Besides, with climate change smashing ruthless consequences on California, the country and the planet, urgency for fossil-free electricity is real and present.
That helped inspire the Biden-Harris Administration to fast-track OSW projects along U.S. coastal states.
Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland spoke to that effort in announcing the recent green light for the Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island, the Department’s fourth approval of a commercial-scale, offshore wind energy project.
“President Biden has set an ambitious goal of achieving 30 GW [gigawatts, enough to power 10 million homes] of offshore wind by 2030—and I am more confident than ever that we will meet it,” Haaland said. “Together with industry, labor and partners from coast to coast, we are building an entirely new industry off the east and west and Gulf coasts.”
DEEPENING MYSTERY
Delve a little into the unknowns involved with offshore wind, however, and things get a lot more complicated. Fast.
That’s particularly true for fisheries, a maritime industry operating in the areas where many OSW sites will take hold.
And there’s another group that can’t speak up: the marine life which will be exposed to potentially harmful impacts, including but not limited to electromagnetic fields emitted by transmission cables bringing the energy to shore. A recent study showed some crab species may be among those susceptible to negative impacts.
It was with that in mind that Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust invited Mike Conroy, a long-time fisheries expert and current West Coast director for the nonprofit Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), to give a wind energy presentation in Moss Landing this spring.
The meeting was intended to inform local fishermen about OSW, since to this point the turbine leasing areas have been far from Monterey Bay.
“While the true impacts of OSW on fisheries, fishing communities and the marine environment remain unknown,” Conroy says, “fishermen are already feeling impacts in terms of reduction in value of permits and vessels and the opportunity costs of forgoing fishing activities to participate in a seemingly countless number of meetings related to OSW developments off the U.S. West Coast.”
RODA was formed by fishermen in response to the OSW activity in the U.S. RODA represents more than 240 fishing industry associations and companies, from across the U.S., focused on making oncoming offshore developments and fishing activities more compatible.
“We let [wind] developers know we’re interested in having a say,” Conroy says, “and let fishermen know who they would be interacting with too. That’s the goal, anyway—some developers are more amenable to dialogue than others.”
Conroy’s talk traversed a lot. Some key takeaways:
• RODA isn’t against offshore development projects. It is opposed to build-out that’s done irresponsibly and in ways that ignore wider impacts, including effects on fishing communities and food security.
• The floating towers proposed make the Statue of Liberty look like a toy, with the two models under consideration reaching 590 and 853 feet, with propellers stretching as much as nearly 500 feet across. (The Mother of Freedom stands 305 feet tall.) How they cope with storm conditions miles from land is an open question. Like one longtime fisherman at the talk likes to say, “Nature is persistent.”
• There is an ocean of money involved. The highest bids from wind energy companies to lease federal near-shore territory along California total $757,100,000. Those leases went into effect June 1, 2023.
• Said California leases cover two large areas of water off of Morro Bay and Humboldt Bay, roughly 583 square miles all told, and are owned by a handful of companies who would coexist side by side amid uncharted waters.
• The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is the federal authority tasked with issuing leases and managing development of offshore renewable energy projects—and more broadly U.S. Outer Continental Shelf energy and mineral resources—in an environmentally and economically responsible way.
• California State Assembly Bill 525, passed in 2021, mandates the California Energy Commission prepare a strategic plan to evaluate the best approach to build-out, workforce development, port infrastructure, transmission functionality (i.e., how to relay the electricity to land), and minimize impacts on native tribes, fisheries and national defense. A draft of that plan should arrive by the end of September.
• Other relevant bills are also moving through the California state legislature. Those include SB 286, which would require Coastal Commission permits for development, and calls for the establishment of the California Offshore Wind Energy Fisheries Working Group. It also looks at what compensation disenfranchised fisherfolk could receive. AB 80 (to provide the ecosystem science as offshore wind expands) and AB 3 (which addresses port infrastructure) are also in process.
Yes, the amount of moving parts can be overwhelming. Conroy sums it up succinctly, however, by way of possibilities and pitfalls.
“Offshore wind is promising, and is going to cause impacts. What those impacts will be and the severity thereof remain unknown, identifying those impacts should be prioritized so we know what they are before we start,” he says. “Just like dams [in rivers] have become major social and ecological problems, we don’t want to be putting up turbines in a hurry only to be taking them down.”
He adds this: “If we are going to destroy the marine ecosystem by industrializing the ocean, we probably shouldn’t. Today, we don’t have the information to know if it’s going to do that.”
CLEAN IS GOOD (AND COMPLICATED)
Energy developers like Equinor, a Norway-based firm that self-describes as a “major player in oil, gas and wind power in the U.S.,” prefers to focus on less dangerous elements of OSW.
Equinor is among those who have secured a lease to float turbines off Morro Bay.
Its representatives had this to say in response to questions from MBFT.
“Equinor believes that the fishing industry and offshore wind farm developments can coexist. Once complete, our operational wind farms will remain open to fishing, just as we have at our [United Kingdom] wind projects,” the Equinox statement reads. “The planning and development of these projects will take many years, and we look forward to using this time to develop a strategy and build relationships with the local fishing industry.”
Equinox also highlights a chance to create jobs while moving away from polluting alternatives.
“California is at a moment of crucial transition,” the statement continues. “The state’s pivot from fossil fuels to renewable generation offers the opportunity to reinvest in the state’s communities and create a pathway to transfer skills and experience from California’s oil and gas workforce to renewable projects.”
A LOT OF MOVING PARTS
Former Monterey and Santa Cruz harbormaster Steve Scheiblauer, who serves as chairman of MBFT’s board, was there for the OSW informational meeting.
His primary concern is that hundreds of floating turbines will trigger an open-ended amount of predictable and unpredictable issues.
“What we’re talking about are pretty darn large industrial scale developments,” he says. “That affects people fishing in those areas and the coastal economy, and then you have cascading effects.”
He cites a number of them. A partial list includes:
1) Shipping lane adjustments that further complicate fishery access, pushing boats on longer and more expensive trips to avoid turbines;
2) Safely routing transmission cables, whose electrical outputs can mess with boat, salmon, tuna, crab, whale and myriad other forms of marine-based navigation;
3) Maintenance costs and pollution around soaring wind mills;
4) Extended port closures while turbines are being assembled and installed;
5) Disrupted coverage as insurance agencies refuse to insure any fisherfolk when near turbines;
6) Downstream economic impacts on harbors, processors, shippers, restaurants and local/regional consumers
“You take away a big chunk of an industry [like West Coast fisheries] and it changes things for a lot more than the fishery,” he says.
Other unprecedented plot twists await, including the environmental impacts.
A study by Communications Earth & Environment, an open access journal from Nature Portfolio, shows ocean surface wind speeds are slowed downwind of turbines capturing their energy. Since wind moving across the Pacific’s surface drives the upwelling process that is the primary driver of the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem’s productivity, it’s very much a concern what might happen when wind intensities change.
Dick Ogg, a commercial fisherman based in Bodega Bay, was also at the meeting.
Ogg serves as director of the Bodega Bay Community Fishing Association and tracks a number of issues on behalf of the fleet. Combined with his 40-plus years as an electrical contractor, the idea of giant wind turbines offshore makes him wary of what happens when that much electricity surges into the near-shore ocean.
“We’re talking about an electrical field that’s going to be seen and heard by animals for thousands of miles,” he says. “How will it affect their migratory patterns? Will it draw bait fish? Repel them? There’s no data on it.”
Ogg is among 19 different people who signed a letter to California Energy Commission Chair David Hochschild and his fellow commissioners June 16, 2023, asking for prudence.
Across 12 pages it dives into tribal fishery rights, lost tax revenues, potential food insecurity and diminished fisherman recruitment. In the end it boils down to an appeal stated in the introduction.
“There are many reasons…to proceed carefully when weighing the numerous known and likely impacts to the state’s ocean environment, food supply, and the effects of the massive industrialization of the ocean,” it reads in part. “Producing 25 GW of OSW power could well do great harm and outweigh whatever benefits to climate change are desired.”
Ogg is more direct.
“Industrialization of our ocean is not acceptable—it’s beyond my understanding that man thinks this is the right thing to do,” he says. “This is not green energy. This is not a good thing for our environment and ocean. This is wrong.”
Appointments to the working group—known to insiders as the “7C working group” after the administrative action that created it—should be finalized by early fall.
That group will face a deep list of questions.
Conroy and others are curious about what a floating OSW farm of this size will look like. At some point, those questions will be addressed by the wind companies when they share their construction and operation plans—though BOEM and other permitting authorities needn’t wait to start conducting research now.
“I’d hope developers have thought this through, but we won’t know until we see their plans,” Conroy says. “We’ve been asking these questions for five years—and will continue to do so.”
WHAT’S NEXT • OTHER RESOURCES
• Per the terms of their leases with BOEM, the lessees off California are preparing Fisheries Communications Plans (FCPs). These plans describe “the strategies that the Lessee intends to use for communicating with commercial fishing communities prior to and during activities in support of the submission of” required plans. Lessees are required to share their FCPs with interested commercial fishing communities for review and comment and host a meeting to discuss them.
• BOEM has indicated they intend to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the five lease sites off California, as they did for the six lease sites in the New York Bight last year. This effort could start later this year.
• There may also be progress on a pilot project proposed in State waters off Vandenburg Space Force base. The CADEMO Offshore Wind Energy Demonstration Project would be a four floating turbine project being considered by the California State Lands Commission.
• In addition, a report published earlier this year entitled Fisheries and Offshore Wind Interactions: Synthesis of Science. This report was prepared by BOEM, NOAA and RODA. Work is already underway to plan an appendix to this report focused on floating OSW infrastructure.