Feds Host Second Maine Ocean Energy Interagency Task Force Meeting
by Ron Huber
Four tentative ocean windfarm zones off Midcoast and Southern Maine unveiled.
On November 16, 2010 the Federal Bureau of Ocean Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) held the second in its series of federal/Maine interagency meetings aimed at sectioning off parts of federal and EEZ waters off Maine into ocean wind energy leases. The federal agency has already held similar meetings with other New England coastal states.
Meeting participants learned that the Baldacci administration has identified four preliminary deepwater offshore wind areas off Midcoast and southern Maine; and that at least three companies have filed notices of interest with the state about developing windpower projects off Maine.
Those in attendance also learned that while state and federal agencies are on the verge of signing a “Letter of Intent to Coordinate Review and Approval Processes,” the New England Fishery Management Council has opted out of participating, citing a lack of resources.
Attendees – half of whom took part by conference call – included Governor Baldacci advisor Karin Tilberg, State GIS coordinator Matt Nixon, and members of DMR, DIFW, MDEP, DECD, PUC, DOC, MCP and LURC; state senators Dennis Damon & Chris Rector also attended by phone. Federal officials included representatives of BOEMRE, NMFS, USFWS, USCG, EPA, NPS and BIA.
The four sites that made the state's first cut include waters east of Jeffrey’s Ledge, another area between Fippennies Bank and Cashes Ledge; one between Platts Bank and the Harris Ground, and a final one off Penobscot Bay between the Bounties and the Clay Bank.
Nixon said the sites were picked almost entirely for having the lowest level of commercial shipping traffic and dredge and drag fisheries in the western GOM (based on VMS data). Once lobstering, recreational fisheries, bird migration and other data gets factored in, he said, the sizes and locations of ocean windpower-suitable areas could change markedly.
The map reveals the Administration’s nervousness about picking specific offshore windmill locations: it is stamped in red with qualifiers: “DRAFT: Not Agency or Administration Policy”; “Significant Additional Stakeholder and Biological Input needed” and “SUBJECT TO CHANGE.”
In a September 20, 2010 memo, NEFMC executive director Paul Howard acknowledged receiving calls from officials of the three New England states where BOEMRE is running interagency task forces(Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine,) asking for NEFMC involvement. However the Council has opted not to participate, because, Howard wrote, “the Council does not have the resources to do so.”
If Maine becomes a signatory to the “Letter of Intent to Coordinate Review and Approval Processes,” the state “will work to coordinate their environmental reviews of the Maine Pioneer Pilot Project, through their participation as cooperating agencies in BOEMRE’s NEPA review or other comparable means.” This to avoid redundancy in meeting information requests by state agencies about any project. Tilberg said she will accept comments on the Letter of Intent until November 30th
University of Maine ornithologist Rebecca Holburton told attendees that recent radar and sound studies show that areas off the Maine coast are far more heavily used by migrating birds than previously understood. She also warned the task force that, due to the lack of any licensing standards for “environmental consultants,” data and conclusions provided to wind power applications by members of that profession can be of very suspect quality. She called for oversight and regulation of Maine’s environmental consultants.
The emerging issue of windfarm impacts on coastal water currents due to the technology’s ‘upwelling’ effect on the water column was brought up. The work of Norwegian meteorologist Goran Brostrom was cited. The task force was urged by Penobscot Bay Watch to ensure that ocean windfarms are not placed within the Eastern Maine Coastal Current or other currents used for larval transport by lobsters and finfish.
While Lapointe worried that the proposed timelines were unrealistic, and Tilberg had concerns over how state and federal regulations would mesh, MDEP’s Beth Nagusky said that the one stop shopping process she used when working with FERC on tidal power applicants was effective and applicable to offshore wind projects.
The names of three windpower applicants who have notified the Department of Conservation of their interest in siting windfarms off Maine are presently being withheld by the agency. But the time approaches when they must either proceed to formally apply to the state or go elsewhere.