GEORGE PLAVIN/Capital Press
PORTLAND — A push to develop massive floating wind farms off the West Coast is raising concerns over potential impacts on commercial and tribal fisheries.
The Biden administration has called for deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy to combat climate change by 2030. Depending on where the turbines are placed, they could displace highly productive fishing grounds that account for billions of dollars and thousands of jobs in Oregon, Washington and California.
Projects must be planned carefully using the best available science to mitigate potential damage, according to a panel of experts who spoke Wednesday at the Northwest Offshore Wind Conference in Portland.
Momentum is already building toward harnessing offshore wind in the Pacific Ocean.
Last year, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management conducted its first auction of leases to develop projects in five areas off the coast of California. The sale resulted in five winning bids from companies totaling $757 million.
BOEM has also identified two offshore wind “call areas” off the coast of southern Oregon — including one that covers 1,364 square miles of ocean near Coos Bay, and another spanning 448 square miles near Brookings. The agency plans to release a draft report sometime in the next several months that summarizes where within these two call areas wind energy may be sited to minimize conflicts, followed by a 30-day public comment period.
Sippel, who has worked more than 25 years as a marine fisheries scientist, said the fishing industry has a lot at stake as the process unfolds.
“We have some of the most closely monitored and regularly assessed fisheries in the world,” he said.
Tommy Moore, oceanographer for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, said the West Coast is home to some of the most productive fisheries in the world thanks to the California Current, which provides a wind-driven upwelling of nutrient-rich water from the ocean floor.
While the current’s patterns are not always easy to predict, Moore said that disruptions from wind turbines in one area can have a ripple effect throughout the system.
Moore said Northwest tribes are not necessarily opposed to offshore wind, but any consultation with them must be “formalized, ongoing and meaningful.”
Treaty rights allow tribes to hunt, fish and gather on land ceded to the U.S. government, and establish that they are co-managers of the shared resources.
“Anything that impacts tribal treaty rights affects their way of life, their culture and their well-being,” Moore said.
Mike Conroy, West Coast director for the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, said the give-and-take between fishing and offshore wind are complex, since many commercial fishermen participate in more than one fishery — meaning they fish in different locations and in different boats throughout the year.
Certain vessels, such as trawlers, are less maneuverable around rigid infrastructure in the ocean, namely wind turbines. That could make it difficult to fish around them without potentially damaging expensive nets.
According to NOAA Fisheries, fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington harvest close to 1 billion pounds of seafood worth nearly $1 billion annually. Conroy said that if U.S. seafood producers can’t satisfy that demand, it will increase reliance on foreign imports.
“Fisheries are integral to the nation’s food security,” he said.
Caren Braby, marine resources program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said information provided by fish tickets and log books are “invaluable” to crafting smart policies around West Coast offshore wind. Braby said climate change is having an effect on fisheries, contributing to hypoxia and ocean acidification. Offshore wind could be part of the solution going forward, but regulators should closely engage with fishermen to help interpret data and make informed decisions.
“If we marginalize fisheries in our effort to seek a clean energy future … we’re going to lose a lot, culturally and scientifically, and even food security for the U.S.,” Braby said. “Those, I would suggest, are trade-offs that we need to think very hard about, and try to minimize impacts where we can.”
Several weeks ago, the New York Times ran a big story about how the oil and gas industry was quietly funding fishing industry objections to wind power off the Northeast coast. I’m beginning to wonder if the same thing is going on here. It’s a big ocean, and I have yet to hear a whole lot of specifics of how exactly some turbines in the ocean are going to be a big problem for fishing. I’m hearing lots of moaning and groaning, but very few specifics. I hope some reporter starts looking for a hidden agenda here.
I don’t think that the fishing industry is being duplicitous about its concerns, and environmental concerns about wind farms are not trivial in any case. Europe, which has a headstart on wind power generation, is experiencing heavy investment by petrochemical giants such as BP, Shell, and others. It is likely that a similar phenomenon will occur in the U.S. as more wind power generation projects come online and the costs of long-term investment in wind power generation here lessen in relation to traditional energy extraction. It’s no small thing that plenty of wealthy, well-connected investors wish to keep wind farms out of their coastal neighborhoods.