Penobscot Bay Blog: DeepCwind

request was for "Public records in custody of you or your staff dating from April 1, 2016 to November 14, 2016 that pertain to the Maine Aquaventus /Volturnus floating ocean wind turbines project, slated to occupy the Maine Offshore Wind Test Center. (FOPB letter is page 34)

Much ado about trying to tweak the rules to make the state offshore wind test center into a permanent windpower site - which it certainly was not intended to be!

A bit of groaning about opposition from Protect Monhegan folks

FOAA Part One Pages 1-12 PDF Articles sent to each other

FOAA Part 2 Pages 13-34 PDF Emails between the people listed below

People and email addresses used within the FOAA'd material:

State Agencies

Kathleen Leyden <Kathleen.Leyden@maine.gov> Dir Maine Coastal Prog (MCP)

Mark Bergeron <Mark.Bergeron@maine.gov> Dir DEP Bureau of Lands

Robert G. Marvinney <Robert.G.Marvinney@maine.gov> ME Geologic Survey

Patrick C. Woodcock <Patrick.C.Woodcock@maine.gov> Governor's Energy Office

Meredith Mendelson <Meredith.Mendelson@maine.gov> DMR Deputy Commissioner

Philip deMaynadier <Phillip.deMaynadier@maine.gov> DIFW Coordinator

Todd Burrowes <Todd.Burrowes@maine.gov> MCP federal consistency reviewer

Peggy Bensinger <Peggy.Bensinger@maine.gov> MDEP's Asst AG

Matthew Nixon <Matthew.E.Nixon@maine.gov> MCP GIS & Ocean Planning

Monhegan Residents

* Barbara Hitchcock <barbaramonhegan@gmail.com> Monhegan residen,t Hitchcock House

* Laura T Singer <lsinger@maine.rr.com> Monhegan Resident

Wind Industry

* Beth Nagusky <bnagusky@leedco.org> Lake Erie Energy Development. Former head ME Governor's Energy Office- Baldacci

* Val Stori <val@cleanegroup.org> Clean Energy Group, http://www.cleanegroup.org/blog-author/val-stori/

* Info@windindustry.com "Website for the windindustry"

Jun 10, 2016

Maine offshore wind funding 2016 : French naval contractor getting a big piece of the pie?

Perched at the mouth of Penobscot Bay, Monhegan Island could soon find itself hosting a French company with no experience with offshore windpower. DCNS has become a partner in Maine Aqua Ventus, the University of Maine-led consortium working to develop and deploy two fullsize prototype floating wind turbines off in state waters off Monhegan.

With contractors like DCNS, $40 million won't be going very far. What's DCNS' bite of the Maine Aqua Ventus funding pie? Why them and not BIW or another Maine company?

DCNS cites "Our knowledge of complex systems and maritime technologies, as well as our expertise in managing complex programs..." as reason for hiring out-of-country.

Those skills are not to be found here in the Dawn State? DCNS is simply a big naval contractor that, having snapped up some tidal power businesses, now proposes to expand into ocean windpower, of which they, by their own admission have zero experience.
Milking the cash cow. How much do the various individuals within the ivory tower & the consultancies feeding off this grant expect to earn? Not to mention expense accounts and junketing around our windy world, as consumed much of DOE's seed grant that ended up with Dagher's Folly, a dwarf prototype too small and frail to be tested at Maine's ocean wind test center! Don't think it can't happen again. Leadership of the consortium whose prototype failed the DOE competition hasn't changed. Maine is back in only because of the inability of the winner states to follow through. Do we really expect different results from the same crew that mismanaged its federal seed money? Isn't that the definition of.......naive? Worse: Statoil's shortlived wind effort here was a model of transparency compared to the DeepCwind team's consistent opacity. It took litigation to free up information about their offshore wind test center selection process. Top windie Habib Dagher absolutely refuses to debate with critics of "his" project or even appear on a wind energy panel if an "unbeliever" is allowed too.
In short Maine's ocean wind power consortium, under whichever name: DeepCwind or Maine Aquaventus has always been more like a private Game of Thrones: a great wasteful scramble for personal advantage, with the smallfolk not welcome.

Maine can do better than that

May 8, 2014

Dagher gets knife in back from US Dept of Energy - Maine's not an ocean windpower grant finalist!

Appears that the feds figured out the good doctor Dagher just isn't ready for prime time.

Maine didn't get the $46 million dollar grant to build two fullsize floating windturbines off Monhegan.

The UMaine-led floating ocean winturbines project has suffered terribly from the near paranoid insularity of the project under Principle Investigator Dagher, who spurned suggestions from anyone outside his charmed circle. (Charmed by the allure of all those tens of millions and what a grand time they would've had expending it

DeepCwind is getting three million federal bucks in the nationwide competitino. but according to a University source this 3 million isn't even enough to make a single full size prototype. One that can actually be tested, unlike the ridiculous toy windmill that the Maine the windies rushed out and wouldn't take out to the test area - They knew it would sink!

So the feds took a look at this furtive public-be-damned-operation that UMaine engineering professor Habib Dagher, Principal Investigator for the DeepCwind Consortium and its spin off progeny has been running.

They gazed upon the tiny toy windturbine bobbing off Castine. Too shabbily built to be safely tested at the test site off Monhegan, the design inspired no confidence among the grantors. Where did the money given DeepCwind to buld a fullscale prototype go? they must have wondered!

This is an important stay. The University and its hangers-on in the DeepCwind Consortium presumably figured that if they could get away with soiling Monhegan's viewshed with its heavy public use and high scenic values, then all marine viewsheds of the Maine coast are vulnerable. Maine has spent too many years stewarding

Floating off shore windpower extraction is worth trying out, but not when it is needlessly view-polluting; or within the Gulf's ecologically (hence economically) vital coastal currents. Nor are great sweeping blades the only way to extract energy from the seawind. Dr. Dagher should follow his own advice and commit to siting his floaters beyond the curvature of the earth from any inhabited part of Maine.

The scent of imminent Big Money may have pushed that civic responsibility from his mind. Now that DeepCwind Consortium and its spinoff children are no longer suffering that temptation, perhaps they will step outside of their echo chamber and listen - really LISTEN -to the existing Gulf of Maine communities of interest about how to avoid wrecking or damaging their existing economic and cultural sectors and the manylayered heavily webbed ecosystem that fills these waters.

Jan 12, 2014

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.

May 25, 2012

DeepCwind won't deploy floating test turbine this year

Bad news for devotees of Habib Dagher's plan to install floating deepwater windpower extractors in the Gulf of Maine. But good news for wild & scenic Gulf of Maine.

The Spring 2012 deployment of the DeepCwind Consortium's prototype floating wind turbine off Monhegan has been delayed until 2013. This according to a May 24, 2012 story in the weekly Free Press of Midcoast Maine : "Deep Water Wind Test Turbine Postponed Until 2013"

Writer Christine Parris noted that the DeepCwind Consortium is having problems gaining several government permits and has been forced to push back launch of its prototype windmill until next spring.

She wrote:
"Dagher said that some permits were still pending for the Monhegan site, but that he expected them to be approved in the next two to three months, which will push the launch date to next summer. "

"still pending?" It seemed like the permits were settled more than a year ago. I wonder which ones they're having trouble with? Or is that a mask for investment woes?

Or could this be proxy war between Statoil with their Maine Hywind project and the University of Maine led DeepCwind Consortium? Statoil with their Maine Hywind project, and DeepCwind Consortium with their Monhegan Test site? If so, Statoil's deep pockets & its deepwater experience will pose a major challenge for Maine's home team DeepCwind to overcome, if they are to compete.

Dr Dagher has declined to respond to an inquiry on exactly which permits remained to be acquired.

The mind boggles

Read Full Article

Jan 12, 2012

Ocean windmills, turbulence avoidance and zooplankton.

A recent paper by University of New Hampshire professor James Pringle What is the windage of zooplankton? Turbulence avoidance and the wind-driven transport of plankton reveals how strategies used by migrating zooplankton to get where they're going can have unexpected consequences when the wind blows or stops blowing. Something that would-be deepwater windpower extractors need to keep in mind

As Bay Blog readers know, Maine's East and West Coastal Currents are migratory thruways for the zoooplankton phase larvae of lobsters, sea scallops and many other marine animals These currents rise in the Bay of Fundy, passing Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts and interfacing with other currents deeper in the Gulf of Maine. See currents here (flash video)

Dr Pringle has discovered that migrating zooplankton avoid turbulent waters while travelling. When they encounter it, they descend and try going under the turbulence, even if their phytoplankton prey is more abundant in the turbulent water.

But these peace-seeking plankton can run into a problem. When they leave the surface currents they have been migrating on, and are no longer near the surface, they leave the migratory thruway they were in. If they go too deep while trying to go under the turbulence, they may come into contact with and settle upon the seafloor ecosystem at that location. Or they may be washed outward to settle on the archipelagoes of seamounts of the Gulf of Maine - while their siblings continue down the Maine Coastal Current.

It is not unreasonable to hypothesize that the sea surface turbulence and water column turbulence and destratification stimulated by operating deepwater ocean windmills will be just what zooplankton avoid. and finding it impossible to go under the

What is the windage of zooplankton? Turbulence avoidance and the wind-driven transport of planktonBy James M. Pringle, UNH
ABSTRACT
Observations of turbulence avoidance in zooplankton are compared to estimates of the wind-driven turbulence in the upper ocean. Turbulence avoidance is found to prevent the transport of zooplankton in the surface Ekman layer at realistic wind speeds.Plankton that avoid turbulence by moving deeper are no longer transported by the wind-driven Ekman currents near the surface because they are no longer near the surface. Turbulence avoidance is shown to lead to near-shore retention in wind-driven upwelling systems, and to a reduction of the delivery of zooplankton to Georges Bank from the deeper waters of the Gulf of Maine."
End of abstract

Oct 2, 2011

DeepCwind: Feds declare "no significant impacts" to Monhegan or GOM. Okay funding

Monhegan's viewshed and soundshed will change for the first time in some time, as the University of Maine and its DeepCwind Consortium finally get their multimillion dollar check cut by the US Dept of Energy to build the various components of America's first offshore wind turbine and tow them out to a site 2 miles south of the island.

Happily UMaine has chosen to build a prototype for floating deepwater floating windpower extracting structures (see image), rather than the stick-in-the-mud steel & concrete thickets that other states have envisioned off their coasts.

Key dimensions
* Blade length 13m (42.7ft)
* Rotor Diameter 27 m (88ft)
* Tower height: 13.7 m (44.9)
* Upper hull hgt: 23.4m ( 77ft)

Key Materials
Blades: fiber reinforced polyester resin
Tower: Steel
Hull: Steel
Mooring Lines: HMPE Polyethylene
Anchors: Steel boxes filled w/ copper slag

It is the belief of the developers of the DeepCwind prototype, that they will learn sufficiently from this test bed over a two to three year period, to build and safely and cost-effectively deploy a great armada of floating deepwater turbines 25 and more miles off Maine. Time will tell if they are right.

Below are links to all the documents used in the Department of Energy's decisionmaking process that has finally approved University of Maine’s "Deepwater Offshore Floating Wind Turbine Testing and Demonstration Project, Gulf of Maine" aka DOE/EA 1792 (pdf)

Notice of Availability (PDF 78 KB)
Scoping Letters (PDF 1.7 MB)
Agency Correspondence (PDF 7.4 MB)
Draft EA Comment Matrix and other Draft and Final EA Material (PDF 303 KB)
Design Changes Between the Draft EA and Final EA (PDF 489 KB)
Final Environmental Assessment (PDF 3.8 MB)
Finding of No Significant Impacts (FONSI) (PDF 478 KB)

Sep 1, 2011

9/1/11 Fishermen's Voice publishes two articles questioning ocean windmills impacts

On September 1, 2011 Fishermen's Voice a newspaper that covers Maine and Gulf of Maine fishing news and issues, published two articles questioning ocean windmills' effect on Gulf of Maine fisheries, especially lobsters and lobstering:

* Offshore Lobstermen Concerned About Lack of Research on Impacts of Wind Plan
and
"Can Wind Turbines and Lobstering Mix?"

Jul 4, 2011

Monhegan Deathwatch: Centennarian to be slain by researchers with court order

Bellowing "move your easels!" University of Maine's DeepCwind engineering teams are moving to take down America's oldest art colony, the famed painters' isle Monhegan, a dozen miles off Maine's Midcoast. The Island's artifice-free natural scenic assets off its southern rim at Lobster Cove were ordered destroyed to make way for an experimental deepwater wind power test center, following a Superior Court denial of all appeals.

In protest of the imminent desecration, dozens of pieces of artwork donated by visiting artists who have had "Monhegan periods" over the decades will be sacrificed at a fiery Lobster Cove funeral in early August.

May 19, 2011

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!

May 16, 2011

DeepCwind: Feds release draft Environmental Assessment,

The US Department of Energy wants to know what YOU think about their proposal to award tens of millions of dollars to the University of Maine for its Deepwater Offshore Floating Wind Turbine Testing and Demonstration Project, in waters 2 to 3 miles south of Monhegan Island.(the lower left corner of aerial photo)

Here are the documents that the federal agency will use to make its decision via an Environmental Assessment - PLUS whatever information you bring to them between now and June 9, 2011.

Please read, think, mail comments to the DOE Golden Field Office, c/o Laura Margason, 1617 Cole Boulevard, Golden, CO 80401, or by email to laura.margason@go.doe.gov.

* Notice of Availability Public Notice from Dept of Energy about the below 3 things
* Draft Environmental Assessment A review of the environmental impacts that will arise from funding the DeepCwind Plan. Written after reviewing the agency and organizations letters and other scoping materials. 115 page pdf

* Draft EA Scoping Materials Letters from agencies, Maine Lobstermen's Association and Penobscot Bay Watch), about the issues that the Environmental Assessment should look into. 40 page pdf

* Consultation Letters Letters from agencies about protected living historic and archaeological resources in the waters proposed for the floating test windmills.

Related Information:
* Huber v Bureau of Parks & Lands Read about what is at risk at Monhegan and about the active lawsuit presently before Knox Superior Court contesting the state's granting a permit to the University off off Monhegan without considering the impact on irreplacement world class scenic vistas.used by generations of artists on Monhegan.

* Maine Deepwater Offshore Wind Report 2/23/11 University of Maine's recent study reviewing the DeepCwind plan and its possible impacts. (Split into chapters for easier reading)

May 6, 2011

Offshore Gulf of Maine Birds - Are new studies good news or bad for DeepCwind?

A symposium of bird researchers came together recently to compare and share the results and data mined from ongoing field studies documenting migratory bird movements in the Gulf of Maine. It was was described in a March 2011 news article The significance of this flocking together of avian eggheads is that it has become clear that many more birds of many more species than suspected are using Maine's offshore islands like Monhegan to migrate north and south each year. Like this redbellied woodpecker on Monhegan.

Certainly not what the DeepCwind folks wanted to hear. Now we'll see who much they respect the work of these university researchers.

UMaine ornithologist Rebecca Holbertson is quoted in the article “We found the islands had more brush and scrub habitat and a greater number and diversity of birds that we didn’t expect.....We easily, conservatively estimated over half a million birds were coming through the Penobscot Bay area alone. We had no idea of the magnitude of this."

.Image:Black scoters off Monhegan.

Remember this USFWS Cape Wind bird study excerpt? (the aerial and boat surveys mentioned in it were done by windpower environemental consultants:
"[T]he Cape Wind project aerial and boat surveys resulted in the observation of approximately 210 birds flying at turbine height while the [US Fish and Wildlife Service's] radar surveys conducted for the same project resulted in the tabulation of over 127,697 targets within the proposed rotor swept zone...."

That's what they're discovering up here now.
Will Ocean Windpower developers find sections of the Gulf of Maine never visited by birds? I can't think what else would be a happy discovery for Dagher and company. One can't help but worry that there aren't many places like that out there.
Stay tuned

Feb 24, 2011

DeepCwind Report misses the boat

Today's announcement by the public affairs staff of the University of Maine's DeepCwind Consortium of the release of its report is raising a few eyebrows.

"Not so fast!" I cautioned, being a critic of DeepCwind's controversial proposal to site its windpower research site in the middle of one of the world's most painted, most beloved, most fecund ocean places.

I was speaking with a TV producer, whose only crew was, alas, nearing Augusta whilst he himself was enroute to Orono, to cover Dr Dagher's latest Dog & Pony show, DeepCwind's report the "The Offshore Wind Report just issued by DeepCwind raises as many questions as it answers."

"Not only is Judge Jeffrey Hjelm of Knox Superior Court yet to rule on a lawsuit challenging the state's decision to allow the DeepCwind project to be sited off Monhegan," I said, "the Department of Energy is dragging its feet on deciding whether to fund the DeepCwind project with the tens of millions of bucks the Consortium expects and needs to get moving."

I read to him (and later emailed him) an email I'd gotten from the Department of Energy on why they were already a month late issuing their draft environmental Assessment. Showing how confused things are in fed land, the Dept of Energy's NEPA coordinator wrote that the "DeepCWind project is still going through internal DOE reviews and revisions. I would not be able to give you an exact date but we anticipate posting it for public review and comment in the next 3-8 weeks."

Three to eight weeks away from releasing even the first draft of the necessary Environmental Assessment that must be reviewed and commented on the promised multi-millions of dollars in federal funding become available. And it was supposed to come out in early February. DeepCwind's cash burn rate is one that has eaten up the last million dollars; the next millions may not come quite as quickly as they'd hoped.

I don't see why Dr Dagher and friends are celebrating: the Fat Lady hasn't even cleared her throat yet, let alone sung.

"While the Consortium's report is hefty, it does not address some of the most critical issues that now the Federal energy regulators are being faced with," I told the newsguy. "Is one of the other 2 sites along the Maine coast a better location, after all?"

Topping that list of concerns is a need to discover to what extent ocean windmills placed in the path of migrating lobster larvae will divert some of those young lobsters away from Penobscot Bay and out into the deep Gulf of Maine where survival is less likely.

University of Maine Marine scientist Pete Jumars acknowledges quite candidly in the report that the "upwelling" effects that extracting wind energy with an ocean windmill are now known to cause will make changes in the Gulf of Maine's water column. in the area beneath the windfarm and 'downstream in the passing currents.

Where are those locations? The state has picked four sites right smack in the midst of the critical Maine Coastal Current, including one the most easterly site, athwart a junction point where a large piece of the Eastern Maine Coastal Current diverts in to Penobscot Bay.

But inexplicably, beyond that acknowledgement, is action suggested? Poor Pete Jumars! Caught between the Scylla of scientific rigor and the Charybdis of Cianbro and the rest of the impatiently waiting companies and University of Maine's administrators . In a section of the report apparently written by him, Jumars accepts Brostrom's 2008 predictions of forced upwellings beneath operating ocean windmills - at 1 meter per day over large area (pg 5-47); notes that the effects would be noticeable "several kilometers" away (page 5-70); and recommends using upstream and downstream buoys, along with gliders to measure how powerful the upwelling force is, to help them address "potential concerns about increased phytodetrital fluxes to the seabed." (page 5-74 of the report.).

Bravo Dr! I mean it!

So is it time to prepare an EIS? While such a possibility probably leads to sleepless nights for Jumars, Dr. Dagher and the rest of the deepwater offshore windpower extraction crew, it may be necesssary, unless DeepCwind agrees to a few small but important additional improvements to their research plan. Calling Bob Steneck!

Because while an artificial upwelling is a good thing at the right season, if and when a floating wind farm is anchored within in the Eastern Maine Coastal Current, (as State Planning Office proposes), the oasis of nutrients may confuse and divert passing lobster larvae into perceiving they've reached a good home. A lethal error: given the lack of possibilities for burrowing on a submerged windmill shaft, the lobsters cannot hide, to the great joy of predaceous fishes and seals attracted to the floating poles.

Worse, the natural predators of freeswimming lobster larvae could soon be exploiting the floating windmills' submerged habitats, using them as bases from which to prey on the passing baby lobsters, which travel in great numbers every year to Penobscot Bay and points south from Canadian waters of the northern Gulf of Maine.

Finally, the endless plume of water brought up from the seafloor beneath the anchored ocean windfarm is dense and cold. It may form a kind of blockage to the passing warmer surface current water and could divert some of the Eastern Maine Coastal Current away from the coast, baby lobsters and all, to an uncertain fate.

But DeepCwind Consortium doesn’t want to deal with the upwelling issues beyond hoping for the best and hoping on dealing with whatever problems crop up after the fact.

I think the US Department of Energy will have to take on that question, if the court doesn't first.

Stay tuned!"

BACKGROUND

1. EMAIL from Dept of Energy on delaying decision

From: Margason, Laura <laura.margason@go.doe.gov>
Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 9:48 AM
Subject: RE: DOE/EA-1792 draft env assessment UMaine DeepCwind - update?
To: Ron Huber <coastwatch@gmail.com>

Mr. Huber,

At this time, the draft Environmental Assessment for the University of
Maine's DeepCWind project is still going through internal DOE reviews
and revisions. I would not be able to give you an exact date but we
anticipate posting it for public review and comment in the next 3-8
weeks. I do have you and your organization on our mailing list for this
project and you will receive a postcard Notice of Availability when it
is out for public review. All our documents are put onto the Golden
Field Office Public Reading Room web site for the public to access.
The web site is http://www.eere.energy.gov/golden/NEPA_DEA.aspx

Thank you,
Laura Margason, NEPA Specialist, 720.356.1322

2. BROSTROM CITED BY UMAINE RESEARCHER IN RECENT PRESENTATION
Go to page 13 of Pete Jumar's pdf file of his recent presentation; it is the Brostrom paper, with Dr. Jumar's side notes on it

Feb 3, 2011

While Judge Hjelm considers Huber v BPL, a Federal agency's release of a draft EA on financing DeepCWind's start-up project off Monhegan could be a game changer.

All sides in the question of what standards ocean windmills will have to meet off Maine await two big decisions:

1. Knox County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Hjelm's upcoming decision in Huber v Bureau of Parks & Lands over the sufficiency of the state agency's review of the probable scenic impacts and impacts to migrating seabirds, if the University of Maine's planned deepwater wind test center two miles off the southern tip of Monhegan Island goes forward.

2. This month's release by the US Department of Energy of a draft environmental assessment of the environmental impact of its proposal to give twenty million dollars to the University of Maine for a pair of deepwater wind projects. See earlier DOE notice. The plans include::

(A) One or more prototype 1/3 sized floating windmills (plus undersea test structures), off Monhegan, &
(B) A single full scale operational 5 megawatt deepwater floating windmill, to be towed to an as-yet only dimly defined location, either off Monhegan or "20 to 50 miles" offshore, according to the University.

The agency's assessment must be carried out according the National Environmental Policy Act and the agency's own strict NEPA guidelines (11pg pdf file; ignore the "SUN" references). According to the guidelines, the two DOE officials involved: Kurt Rautenstrauch and Laura Margason must:

*"Identify any adverse environmental effects that cannot be avoided should this proposed action be implemented."
* "Evaluate viable alternatives to the proposed action, including a no action alternative."
* "Describe the relationship between local short-term uses of the environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity."
* "Characterize any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources that would be involved should this proposed action be implemented."

Link to the information and issues supplied by Penobscot Bay Watch to the DOE.

If Judge Hjelm takes an approach similar to the one he took in Huber v MDOT, he will wait to see the Department of Energy's draft EA: Will the agency agree with Penobscot Bay Watch that more needs to be considered bird-wise, beauty-wise, lobster larvae-wise, currents-impact-wise? If so, then he may rule in in Huber's favor. If not, not.

Stay tuned.

Dec 4, 2010

Ocean WindRush boosters should look before leaping offshore.

The federal decision to fast-track the siting of ocean windmills off the US mid Atlantic and New England coasts ("Smart from the Start") risks leaving many environmental issues that could affect the future of Maine fisheries environment unexplored until irretrievable commitments are made.

To make things worse, New England Fishery Management Council, which has been spending years developing Essential Fish Habitat protection in these same waters, has washed its hands of the issue and will not represent the commercial fishermen's interests in the federal ocean wind process.

Organizations like CLF, NRCM & Environment Maine too, are doing nobody any good. Their uncritical endorsement of the Obama Adminstration's decision to weaken marine environmental laws in order to "expedite" the leasing and permitting of offshore windpower extraction, runs counter to their own mission statements of conserving Maine's and the Gulf of Maine's living marine resources.

CLF should know better; the latter two organizations have very little experience with ocean conservation issues Both of them, however also vigorously supported weakening of Maine's land conservation laws, in order to "expedite" the permitting and licensing of mountaintops for windpower extraction by large absentee energy companies. Unsurprisingly, all three organizations take money from the wind power industry

All three ENGOs have fallen prey to an end-justifies-the-means philosophy which holds that the Carbon Crisis requires we literally destroy our villages locally to save them globally. A noble sentiment; but one not necessarily shared by a majority of the villagers whose lives and livelihoods they so blithely propose to alter. they so blithely

For a windrush is ON. Windfarm-able ocean zones are proposed from Maine, in the path of the Eastern Maine Coastal Current, and all the way down the Atlantic coast to Florida, where the Gulf Stream itself may be affected as it passes through vast ocean windfarms planned off along the south Atlantic and midAtlantic coasts.

We know ocean windmills generate fogbanks. We also know that something happens to ocean hydrology when all that energy is diverted away from the intended Ekman Transport into the water column - the force that puts windpower into the ocean, but we aren't surewhow much.

But the stakes are large For instance, one of the areas proposed for ocean windfarming off Maine is in the route of a current that transports lobster larvae from waters off Lubec south to Penobscot Bay.

Will diverting any of that current east into the Gulf of Maine's deep basins take a lot of larvae with it? NRCM, Environment Maine and other groups need to look before they blindly leap onboard the federal offshore windrush.

We've seen the results when other newly exploited marine resources get piled on by everyone who can afford to be out there. Unless other states follow Maine's lead of promoting floating deepwater windmills, well offshore, states will find it impossible to reposition ocean windfarms if they are found later to destabilize the Atlantic coast's currents.

Natural Resources Council of Maine, Environment Maine and other land conservation groups groups should proceed with caution when entering ocean wind energy policy issues.

BACKGROUND
* On the influence of large wind farms on the upper ocean circulation Göran Broström, NMI

Another Brostrom piece summarizing the first one.

A Google translation of a interested-public article "Windmills at Sea Will affect the Climate" by Brostrom aboutf his findings Google does some sketchy things when translating verbatim from Norwegian to English,

* Wake effects of large offshore wind farms identified from satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar

Merete B. Christiansen and Charlotte B. Hasager, Risoe National Laboratory, Denmark
Excerpt: "Wake effects were observed for downstream distances of 5-20 km, depending on the ambient wind speed, the atmospheric stability and the fraction of turbines operating during SAR data acquisitions."

*Wind power could alter currents: Discovery News story

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