Maine's floating windpower project. The backstory & unfilled gaps in knowledge 2005 - 2014

Below find details about the Maine offshore windpower initiative from 2005 to the present:  government documents,  simulations, audio recordings of Maine's legislature, offshore wind industry fishermen and public; scientific/technical reports, birder concerns and more, relating to the proposal to set up floating windmills off Monhegan, Maine.

Agency and NGO Background Documents

* Early Maine offshore wind timeline: January 2005 to February 2010  

* Letters, memos, reports that the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands produced & received in 2009 & 2010 while selecting & approving the Monhegan offshore windpower site. 359 pages

* Results from 2010 FOIA request about offshore Maine windpower to US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (79 pages)

Audio recordings. MP3s.

Maine Fishermens Forums Ocean windpower talks

2012 Fishermens Forum Ocean windpower meeting

2011 Fishermens Forum Ocean windpower meeting

2010 Fishermens Forum Ocean windpower meeting 

2009 Fishermen's Forum Ocean windpower meeting

Other recordings of importance

LEGISLATURE

March 11,18,23,24 2010 Legislative hearing & 3 worksessions on Maine offshore wind law,

February 16, 2010 Audio of DeepCwind presentation to Monhegan Islanders on 2/16/10

July 11, 2013 Webinar "Making History with Volturnus" (wmv) 

June 26, 2012  Statoil info meeting, Rockland, Maine: six interviews 

(Including Jake Ward of DeepCwind)

June 16, 2012 MPBN interviews Habib Dagher and John Ferland

February 16, 2010 DeepCwind presentation to Monhegan Islanders.

November 29, 2009 Maine Offshore Energy '09 

June 15-18, 2009 Energy Ocean 2009

SITING, SCENIC IMPACTS & SIMULATIONS  

Dr. Habib Dagher of UMaine has repeatedly stated the importance of siting ocean windmills sufficiently offshore that they are over the horizon from the mainland. Listen to two excerpted quotes and then the full recordings. 

* Two excerpts from audio statements by UME's Habib Dagher (May 20, 2010 & August  11, 2011)  

* August 11, 2011   Listen to Dr Dagher answer a question about siting the windmills 20 or more miles offshore. Island Institute presentation at Strand Theater, Rockland.

* May 20, 2010  Listen to Dr. Dagher's 45 minute talk at the Rockport Opera House calling for them to be 20 to 50 miles offshore.   45 minutes.   

SIMULATIONS

* Simulated windfarms off southern New England coast at various distances Cape wind project)

* Simulation of Volturnus floating windturbines' likely impact on Maine lobster larvae (1 min long)  Aqua Ventus floating windturbines location off off Monhegan will create a large windshadow and ocean current-slowing zone, where  induced upwelling and downwelling waters in the energy footprint of the turbines may divert downeast lobster larvae-bearing coastal current away from the midcoast.  See Jumars 2010 report, below, for details

EFFECTS ON BIRDS

* Strong concerns from the birding community about  the Monhegan offshore wind site.

SCIENCE. 

University of Maine's "research cluster" of faculty scientists reviewing or taking part in the offshore wind process.

April 20, 2012  New ocean windfarm fishery impact study: drop in local species; increases in exotics.   The effect of floating wind on the plankton and other sealife that relies on  surface water currents.

January 2012 Ocean windmills, turbulence avoidance and zooplankton.

* 2010 Report. Dr. Peter Jumars, Director of the UMaine School of Marine Sciences.  Read Page 13 of his report "Anticipated Environmental Effects of Offshore Windpower Development in the Gulf of Maine". Dr. Jumars cites Norwegian govt scientist Göran Broström's report "On the influence of large wind farms on the upper ocean circulation." (Norwegian Meteorological Institute, 2008) .Göran Broström wrote that the ocean windfarms  reduce wind energy striking the waters  surrounding the turbine  "sufficiently enough that the local ecosystem will most likely be strongly influenced by the presence of a wind farm". Dr Jumars wrote: "This effect could be important offshore because deep waters of the Gulf of Maine stratify in summer. Would it be bad or good?" 

* October 2007  About the "wind shadow" effect of offshore windfarms

* May 1, 2012 Study of the nature of the "Gigawatt wakes" that windturbines create behind them. Viewed from an efficiency point of view but useful to ecological point of view also.

Maine offshore wind extraction plan decision in motion. Public Input deadline June 9th.

Whatever you call it, whether you support it or not, the University of Maine and a host of Maine companies and companies from away are banded together and plan to start assembling (onshore) the first two prototype 2/3 size deep water floating ocean windmills, for anchoring at a site two miles south of Monhegan Island.

Like all windmills, these two  floaters will affect the natural ecosystem and environment, around them, and a host of human resource values as well. They will be chosen from among the three alternatives in the picture.
 
They will also be the precursors to deploying an armada of  full sized utility scale deepwater floating ocean windmills further offshore in the Gulf of Maine.

The DeepCwind strategy for this environmentas assessment appears to be to pretend these prototypes are not a step in the path to deploying a fullsized ocean windfarm in the Gulf of Maine. Thus no  need to consider  indirect or culmulative or secondary impacts.

So it is also important for this environmental assessment to acknowledge and examine the effects that THOSE big ones could have on the Gulf of Maine's  ecology and environment. Not only the effects within the footprint of the prototypes. But where they lead. 

DEADLINE Before the US Dept of Energy releases the millions to DeepCwind to proceed,  the public is given until June 9, 2011, to submit comments offering their point of view or facts that the agency needs to take into consideration . Email comments to  laura.margason@go.doe.gov.  Snail-mail your comments to the US Dept of Energy, c/o Laura Margason, 1617 Cole Boulevard, Golden, CO 80401. Be  sure to refer to DOE/EA 1792. 

These would be comments on the plan, the possible adverse impacts both in the footprint of the prototype windmills and beyond that would be affected. The following linked documents should be be enough to enable you to send them comments that will make a difference.

BACKGROUND MATERIALS

Department of Energy's Deepcwind  EA Documents. (pdfs)

DOE Public Notice of Draft Environmental Assessment 1page

Draft Environmental Assessment 108 pages

Scoping materials 40 pages.   Agencies, lobstermens Association etc

Letters and Consultation 34 pages   Agency letters on endangered species

DeepCwind's 2011 report on their project
www.penbay.org/wind/ocean/deepcwind/deepcwind2011report.html

DeepCwind website http://www.deepwind.org

Audio recordings of DeepCwind official Habib Dagher

* October 19, 2010  Habib Dagher speaks at 1st annual Maine Deepwater Offshore Wind Conference (one hour)

* May 20, 2010  Habib Dagher speaks at public meeting at Rockport opera House - one hour

* Habib Dagher at two work sessions of the Utility and Energy Committee on LD 1810 An Act To Implement the recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force

 March 18, 2010  Work session    Dr Habib Dagher 12 minutes

 March 23, 2010 Work Session  Dr Habib Dagher,  10 minutes *  Dr. Habib Dagher, Q&A  8 minutes

MORE INFO http://penbay.org/wind/mainewind.html

Please take action to protect our wild seawinds!

LD 1810: bill opens all Maine state waters to wind farming; all private land to wind power transmission towers

The nightmare is real.  Fresh introduced comes LD 1810 An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force

This long complicated, nearly unreadable bill will: 

 

1. Open all private Maine land to wind power transmission lines and towers for ocean-extracted electricity.

 

2. Open all Maine's state marine waters (within 3 miles of shore) to  wind turbines by the thousands, in 30 year leases that will  quickly centralize to  ownership by global Big Energy.

Results?  Legislators are being told to ignore the fine print of the bill and simply give big industry lasting control over Maine's coastal waters, and the right to force right of ways for their wind powerlines through all private property on the Maine mainland. 

 

Some highlights (or lowlights) of the bill:

* Landowners  will be required by law to allow erection of power transmission towers on their land and the clearing of powerline right of ways through their property, if this will facilitate the movement of electricity from nearshore windmills onto the Grid.

 

* Herring fishermen, scallopers and groundfishermen will effectively be forced out of 100s of square miles of state waters because of the extensive cables and bridle arrays used to move electricity and  support and stabilize these mammoth turbine structures

 

* Lobstermen and other fixed gear fishermen will be forbidden to fish among the cables and bridles surrounding the towers, unless they sign releases exempting the  wind industry from responsiblity for gear loss  or vessel damage from entanglement.

 

* Windjammers will be told to try the Scylla and Charybdis CHallenge : schooners must race in the lanes between the rows of turbines  waving their blades. One false tack and... off with your tops'ls!.  Or they can abandon those waters for other places to bring tourists seeking natural Maine waters.

 Tough luck, humpies, right whales and puffins: time for the Big Thrum to fill Maine waters and sea airs with the sound of wind-nappers de-energizing the local marine environment, kilowatt after kilowatt, till the local plankton lose their rhythm. If they can't dance, they won't be part of our evolution. 

 

Did someone say birds?   Bah! One of the first ocean areas believed to be targeted by  the industry is the waters near Metinic Island in Penobscot bay. Half of Metinic is part of the National Wildlife Refuge System and is considred nationally as an "Important Bird Area".  Wind plantations near Metinic will thin out these migrants most efficiently.

 

Bottom Line: 

If wind extraction technology and operation is subjected to the same standards of the state's conservation and environmental laws and regs  as fishing gear, oil and coal plants and other industrial technology is, this discussion would be taking place before the Board of Environmental Protection, and  every person in Maine who wanted to would be able to put his or her two cents in.

Instead   LD 1810 EXEMPTS  GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY FROM  THESE BASIC ELEMENTS OF DEMOCRACY AND CONSERVATION. TELL YOUR LEGISLATOR TO REJECT IT.

Wind industry's promoters believe they have spread enough bribes donations around the ENGOs and political class to get the legislators the desire and political cover to suspend Maine's environmental laws.

DON'T LET 'EM  If they aren't stopped now, this industry will  leap onto Maine's bays and coves  with nary a review of their impacts beyond the most comically cursory checklist.

Instead of  land-rushing Maine's coastal waters with this terrifying  LD 1810, let's learn from the mistakes Maine wind developers made on land, and figure out how not to make a mess off Maine's shores. Let the global corporations wait while coastal towns and ocean interests create ordinances and laws to protect themselves from the rapacious investors who are backing this invasion plan to the hilt

Monhegan & the Ivory windTower

Will it be Town vs Gown, there in the chilly waters off Monhegan?

Depending on who you listen to or read, there are many answers to that question.


What's known is:

  * November 7, 2008  Governor Baldacci signed Executive Order 20 FY 08/09, establishing  the Ocean Energy Task Force

* The State Planning Office's Special Projects Office 

implemented. the order and set up the Task Force meetings. 

* The Task Force delivered an 87 page Final Report (pdf)  on strategies to: meet  the goals established in the Maine Wind Energy Act, Title 35-A, section 3404(2)(B) :  install at least 2,000 megawatts of wind capacity by 2015 and at least 3,000 megawatts by 2020, 300 of which could be located in coastal waters.  

* LD  1465 An Act To Facilitate Testing and Demonstration of Renewable Ocean Energy Technology is passed by the Maine Legislature and signed byGovernor Baldacci. It becomes 38 MRSA 480HH  in state law.

* Summer 2009  the U.S. Department of Energy awarded an $8 million grant to  Dr. Habib Dagher and his team at the University of Maine. The team includes more than 30 partners from outside of academia, including private companies interested in offshore wind development. Dagher testifies before Congress  that Maine has the potential to produce about 130 gigawatts of power in deep water — 60 to 900 meters deep — within 50 nautical miles of the coast.

 

* December 15, 2009 Maine State Planning office designates a 2 and 1/3 square mile area south of Monhegan as the  Maine Offshore Wind Energy Research Center

* January 2010. The University receives 12.4 million more in stimulus money for offshore wind development

 

* University  proposes to install one 100-kilowatt floating wind turbine and one 10-kilowatt floating wind  turbine.  A maximum of two offshore wind turbines is allowed at any given time in the wind energy test area.

* Media Coverage Suzanne Pude, the Island Institute's Wind energy point person  wrote an article recently, detailing the above.  As did Alice McFadden, publisher of the Free Press in "Monhegan Site Chosen as UMaine's Offshore Wind Research Facility"

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

The Monhegan wind test area lies in deep water tucked between two  important fishing grounds: the  Monhegan Inner Sou'Sou'west Ground and the Monhegan Western Ground. As described in "Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine"   See clickable map here. Monhegan is lowest green spot on map

Monhegan Inner Sou'Sou'west Ground. "This ground takes its name from its bearing, lying SSW from Monhegan Light, distant 5 miles. Its width is 1 1/2 miles, its length NNE and SSW is 1 1/4 miles. It has a sharp, broken, rocky bottom, including a small shoal of 20 fathoms and some hummocks of rather greater depths. The deepest water is in the neighborhood of 50 fathoms. Fishing here is from May until July for codfish and pollock: hake and cusk are in the deep water in the spring months and halibut on the shoal in July and September. This ground is principally fished by trawls, but there is considerable hand lining in September and October. Gillnetting, too, has become more common of later years"


Monhegan Western Ground." This is a somewhat extensive ground lying about 4 1/2 miles WSW from Monhegan Island. The depths range from 22 to 45 fathoms. The bottom is rocky and gravelly and in places much broken. This is a good spring ground for cod and a summer ground for hake and cusk in 40 to 50 fathoms. Pollock are found here in September and October. Its length is 4 or 5 miles, and its greatest breadth is 2 miles on the eastern portion, gradually narrowing westward to about 1 mile. The ground runs SE, and NW. It is fished by hand lines, trawls, and gill nets. Marks: Bring houses on New Harbor over the white cliff on Pemaquid 6 miles from New Harbor."

Coming Up Next Time: What problems could these windmills bring off the mouth of Penobscot Bay?