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)

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!