Protestors to picket Norwegian offshore windfarm meeting in Portland.

Protestors to picket Norwegian ocean windfarm meeting in Portland on December 8th.

STATOIL is here! Will they plunder  Maine's offshore wind ?

Cite "betrayal" by Dept of Interior, risk to fisheries, ask for King of Norway's help

South Portland, Maine. Tomorrow's meeting of the  US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in South Portland will have an unexpected beginning, as demonstrators concerned about Norwegian energy giant Statoil's ocean windmill plan for waters off Maine greet incoming meeting goers with a variety of signs and props, near the entrance to the event's location, the Marriott Sable Oaks Hotel.

Protestors say:

1. They feel betrayed by US Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar.  On August 18th, Salazar promised that there would be no windmills in "Fishery Sensitive Areas".

Yet the area chosen by  Norwegian state-owned energy giant Statoil, say protestors,  is well known by fishermen and scientists alike for its important role in transporting the larvae of lobsters, scallops and other  seafood species down the coast of southern Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
"There's nothing more sensitive than this part of their life cycles" said Ron Huber of Penobscot Bay Watch. "Disrupting them could cost millions in lost fishing income. What is Salazar thinking?"

2. Norway is risking American fisheries. Norwegian research shows that energy extraction by ocean windmills generates large localized upwellings of seawater beneath the ocean windmills, "sufficiently enough that the local ecosystem will most likely be strongly influenced by the presence of a wind farm." according to  Norwegian meteorological researcher Goran Brostrom.
When ocean wind mills operate, millions of gallons of water are pulled from the seafloor to the surface.

"It seems that Statoil is proposing ocean windfarms here because it is better to risk Maine's coastal marine ecosystem than Norway's. Why not do its experimenting off its own coast?"

3.Norway's King can help. Huber said a letter is being sent to King Harald V of Norway, asking that he convene an international colloquium or conference to get to the bottom of the upwellings issue.

"His Majesty is extremely knowledgeable about ocean windpower. He neds to understand It is vital that this important knowledge gap be filled, as nations around the seven seas are poised to start setting out thousands of  ocean windmills. Only someone of his stature, credibility and influence can make such a conference happen. This is portant to carry out to prevent any major marine ecological blunders by well meaning nations seeking renewable energy."

4. Maine citizens will not be allowed to speak or ask questions on the record during the event.  While the decisions made at the BOEM meeting will affect all Maine citizens, and will cover areas that of vital importance to fishermen and environmentalists alike, those citizens are banned from speaking during the daylong event.

"This is a disgrace and a slap in the face to all Mainers." Huber said. "The federal government and a foreign government are going to decide the future of the waters off Maine and we citizens are to keep our mouths shut?"  Huber said that he and other demonstrators will have their mouths taped shut while attending the meeting, to get the point across.

"They tried this last year," he said. We complained to Olympia Snowe and Governor Baldacci, and they changed their tune.  Hopefully, Governor Lepage has the pull that his predecessor has and can let Maine people speak at this event."

For more information on Maine and offshore wind  Click here

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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?"

Offshore Wind Energy: Coastal Stakeholders event. Panel 3 audio from Dec 14th mtg

The Island Institute sponsored: Offshore Ocean energy: Tools and Information for Coastal Stakeholders on December 14, 2010. Panel three of the meeting included people and organizations in Rhode Island & Massachusetts, states which are further into the offshore wind planning & decisionmaking than Maine.The panel also includes a rep of tidal energy developer ORPC.  Moderated by Dave McGlinchey, Manomet Center for Conservation Science.

Panel 3 Lessons Learned from Siting Renewable Energy Projects
* Introduction by Dave MccGlinchey 2 minutes

* Kim Gaffett, Mayor Block Island. 15 min

* Rick Ballavance,Rhode Island Party & Charterboat Association 15 min

* John Weber, Massachusetts Coastal Zone Mgmt 20 min
* Glen Marquis, Ocean Renewable Power Company 13 min

* Question and Answer Session 19 min

2018: Gulf of Maine Ocean wind wannabes eyeing sites off Jeffreys Ledge, Cashes Ledge, Platts Bank & the Bounties. NEFMC bails.

Learn what places the state has picked so far  and listen to the speakers at the federal/state ocean energy task force meeting held at the statehouse in Augusta on Tuesday, November 16, 2010.  CLICK HERE or scroll down this page.

Four important facts to come out of the meeting:   

  1. The map below is the state's first rough cut of suitable areas, s supplied to the meeting by Matt Nixon, GIS specialist for State Planning office. It shows four potential deepwater ocean wind areas off Midcoast and Southern Maine. His preliminary review of Gulf of Maine  trawl and dredge fishery VMS tracking data and commercial shipping use data.  Achieving the status of potential locations for ocean windfarming are:   a location east of the northern half of Jeffrey's Ledge;  one between Fippennies Bank and Cashes Ledge; one between Platts Bank and  the Harris Ground, and one between  the Bounties and the Clay Bank offshore of Penobscot Bay.

  Entitled  "Preliminary Draft Analysis of Characteristics needed for Deepwater Ocean Wind" the map reveals

the Baldacci Administration's nervousness about picking offshore windmill locations, by being stamped in red multiple times with such qualifiers as "DRAFT: Not Agency or Administration Policy" and  "Significant Additional Stakeholder and Biological Input needed",  "Draft: For discussion purposes only", and SUBJECT TO CHANGE."   Nothing is final yet, Nixon insists:  "Extensive additional user input needed". OK, Matt, we get it!  

2. At least  three companies have written the Bureau of Parks and Lands expressing interest in building and operating ocean windmills in federal waters off Maine. That according to Dan Prichard of the Bureau of Parks and Lands, who  would not identify the companies or their desired  locations, stating confidentiality of ongoing  negotiations

3. NEFMC tucks tail. The New England Fishery Management Council,  has opted out of participating in oversight of this fishing ground takeover. This from Paul J. Howard, Council's  executive director. Howard says that while he's has been receiving calls from officials of the three New England states where BOEMRE is running  interagency  task forces (Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine) asking the NEFMC to get involved, "the Council does not have the resources to do so."

Howard wrote that is was good enough that NMFS's Northeast regional office participates in the BOEMRE task forces, noting however, that  NMFS regional administrator Pat Kurkul "suggested we are better off getting involved with NROC  (Northeast Regional Ocean Council)  than individual task forces."   But Howard notes that  "NROC is not coordinating these activities following the newly signed Presidential Executive Order about ocean planning".  NROC is  a state/federal partnership created in 2005  to "engage in regional protection and balanced use of ocean and coastal resources" by the six New England states.  So nobody appears to be guarding the Gulf of Maine fisheries chicken coop from the energy foxes? !

4th  the state may sign a revised "Letter of Intent to Coordinate Review and Approval Processes"(pdf) with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy.  This is much more of a legal document than the now renamed "charter" of the last meeting, Listen below to Audio  Parts 14 and 15 for details on the changes the state requested be made in the letter.

New Lepage Administration Tilberg, a special advisor to outgoing governor John Baldacci, will be departing her post as state lead in the BOEMRE process at the end of the year. Kathleen Leyden, head of Maine coastal program will replace her pro-tem, but look to the Lepage Administration making its own picks for marine resource, coastal program, and ocean energy leadership slots

Offshore wind IS a marine resource. We've seen the results when other newly exploited marine resources get piled on by everyone who can afford to be out there.  While the agencies stress that nothing is settled, the process is similar to the one used to select waters off Monhegan, Boon and Damariscove Islands for ocean windpower test sites. Things are moving quickly, and with few exceptions, the public has not been watching its public servants working on this planned  major change in ocean management. And they've gotten to be "uppity servants", secure in their tenure,

The greatest environmental  protection brought to the Gulf of Maine by Maine's Coastal Program &Seagrant/Cooperative extension, are their almost perfect inertia  No matter what committees or task forces the Maine legislature spawns, no matter how many  powerpoint sessions Maine's dedicated circus troupe of ocean and coastal planning  bureaucrats host up and down our coast, the results will be the same:
A glossy coffeetable book-sized report, calls for more funding to allow the Coastal Program/Cooperative Extension/Seagrant community and their private consultant allies  to trek from catered meeting to catered meeting. For more study. And then....Nothing.

For when it comes to such potentially threatening energy extractive industries  to our  Gulf of Maine as industrial class wind and tidal power extraction, (or on such matters  as aquaculture, marine protected areas & "bay management") Coastal Program & Co seem to have adapted and revised the Hippocratic: "first do nothing harmful!" philosophy to  "First do nothing!". It is a strategy that has been phenomenally successful in thwarting efforts to manage human impacts on the se waters and their wild inhabitants.

MEETING RECORDINGS (mp3s)

1 Introduction 7 minutes
2 General introductions. 5 Minutes
3 Introduction by Karin Tilberg 5 minutes
4. Introduction by Maureen Bornholdt 3 minutes
5. Aditi Mirani, Boemre 4 minutes
6. Matt Nixon Me State Planning Office on "Maps & Gaps" 24 minutes
7 Deirdre Gilbert with Island Institute slides 7 minutes
8. DMR Commissioner George LaPointe 1 minute
9. Matt Nixon on Recreational Fisheries 1 minute.
10. Matt Nixon on commercial vessel traffic maps 5 minutes
11. Nixon on "Non-Consumptive" resources, incl viewshed 6 minutes
12. Nixon summarizes data gaps and needs 9 minutes
13.* Karin Tilberg summarizes GIS data value. 3 minutes
14. Karin Tilbert on Federal Letter of Intent to Coordinate Review and Approval Processes. 10 minutes
15. Karin Tilberg takes questions on Federal Letter changes and does wrap up. 21 minutes.
16. Professor Rebecca Holberton, University of Maine ornithologist. 8 minutes
17 Ron Huber, Penobscot Bay Watch, on RFI respondents and water current issues. 8 minutes