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!

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)

Sears Island - Maine Supreme Judicial Court rules on Huber v MDOT.

 The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has sent Sears Island activists back to the starting gate, ruling May 3rd to uphold a 2010 Superior Court decision that litigation is premature until Maine DOT actually accepts an application to build a container port on Sears Island.  

The state has sought to build a variety of facilities on the island since the mid 20th century, but opposition in the 1980s from Sierra Club and other conservationists in the 1990s and early 2000s has kept the island port-free and almost completely undeveloped.

Plaintiff Ron Huber of Penobscot Bay Watch, was disappointed but not surprised by the court's verdict. 

"I knew that the state's failure to attract a port wannabee would influence their decision," Huber said, "but had hoped the Law Court would examine the constitutionality of  Public Law Chapter 277 "An Act Regarding the Management and Use of Sears Island,"  This is the law that gives the Legislature's Transportation Committee veto power over all Sears Island management decisions.  I still strongly  believe it violates the Maine Constitution's Article 3: "Distribution of powers".

"Over the  years" said Huber, who filed his lawsuit as a private citizen, "the state has unsuccessfully sought applicants for one after another ecologically short-sighted schemes.  This latest plan for a container port on Sears Island would convert one of midcoast Maine's top inshore fish nursery shoals (map) for atlantic cod and a wide variety of fishes and shellfishes that inhabit these irreplaceable sunlit shallows, full of eelgrass-rich shoals and intertidal kelp beds west of Sears Island,  into a dredged-out, ecologically  low quality container port harbor," he said.

  Sierra Club's otherwise exemplary history of defending Sears Island has been tarnished by the present day Maine Sierra Club chapter. The chapter leadership, without polling its members, joined with the Baldacci administration in a Joint Use committee  and in , the face of much criticism  in 2009 joined with Maine Coastal Heritage Trust in  accepting a compromise that  surrenders part of Sears Island to port development, provided the rest of the island is kept free of development.  That compromise triggered Huber's lawsuit.

"I've got news for  Sierra Club and for Maine DOT: you can't replace nursery  shoals at the mouth of Penobscot River with anything but more shoals at the mouth of Penobscot River." Huber said. "An industrial port on-island  would be as bad for Penobscot Bay's cod and other saltwater fishes as building a new dam below Bangor would be for salmon, sturgeon and other diadromous fishes that rely on nursery habitats upriver. "

Maine's Supreme Judicial Court  found it could no more get a grip on the ecologically and constitutionally sticky issues raised by  the case than the Knox County Superior Court could, he said.

Huber, who was part of the successful fight to thwart Angus King's port plan for the island  said that the ruling leaves the door open for he or other plaintiffs to file a fresh case if Maine DOT does get an applicant to build a port on Sears Island. 

"I have a message for Maine DOT" he said:  "Go ahead....Make My Day."

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

MIT fishery researchers finally turn to wild plankton management.

After all, if your freshly hatched cod, flounder, haddock , scallops, lobsters etc don't have the right food available - and in the right quantity - they starve to death before they're as big as a grain of rice.  See this report from Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute.  So:  


MIT SeaGrant Performance Measure 2010-2014:
 * Tools and training for accurate evaluation of planktonic food sources as they relate to climate change and other factors delivered to NMFS, MA DMF, and other state and local agencies.

MIT SeaGrant Target 2010-2014:
* Five top-level fisheries managers will be trained and their agencies able to evaluate planktonic food resources, changes in blooms and overall productivity.

Go for it, MIT!

Recent stories about ocean wind from U Maine's online newspaper.

Recent articles about ocean wind power plans from U Maine's online newspaper.

Maine Fishermen's Forum 2011 seminar "Bringing Back the Fish" Listen to recordings

Maine Fishermen's Forum 2011.   

Recording  of "Bringing Back the Fish" seminar.

 

Why are some fishing grounds empty when others  show increases in several important New England groundfish stocks? Why aren’t the fish found on inshore grounds along much of New England’s coast? Listen to 5 fishermen, a government scientist and a conservationist discuss how the Gulf of Maine fishes have changed over their fishing careers and lifetimes, and what's to be done.

Audio of "Bringing Back the Fish"
1. Billy Chaprales, F/V Reuby. 2 minutes
2. Glenn Libby, F/V Skipper. 5 minutes
3. Jake Kritzer NEFMC. 2 minutes
4. Jason Joyce, F/V Andanamra. 6 minutes
5. Jim Odlin, Atlantic Trawlers. 6 minutes
6. Q&A 1. 12 minutes
7. Q&A 2. 5 minutes
8. Q&A 3. 16 minutes
9. Q&A 4. 17 minutes
10. Q&A 5. 4minutes

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

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. 

Penobscot Bay Watch needs help burning the past.

Though it is in the end a dishonorable and unhealthy burning of our distant ancestors, operating a petrol-powered  personal vehicle is one of those things that one must do to travel regionally in the absence of a regional public transit system, such as is largely the regrettable case of the towns around Penobscot Bay.


Your BayBlogger is looking for a recently-stickered beater for of $2,000 US or less that would ferry the Watch to meetings, hearings, expeditions and investigations around Penobscot Bay and  along with the occasional jaunt to state agency offices in Augusta and Bangor.  Or donate it outright and take a state tax deduction for that value.

Contact the Penobscot Bay Blog at coastwatch@gmail.com or tel 207-593-2744, if you have or know of such a machine.

When it comes to offshore windpower, the Shadow knows....

The ocean windpower extraction industry is now nervous about how more serious than earlier believed is the problem of "wind shadow" when positioning the mega windcomplexes envisioned off the Atlantic coast far enough apart to not reduce the wind too much between them.  The data from the Norwegian and other european ocean windmill operations is in and it is not pretty.

Read the January 10, 2011 letter from Blue Water Wind to federal wind agency BOEMRE: "...mitigation of potential shadowing effects on the Mid‐Atlantic Wind Park off Delaware must be considered"..."In this case, NRG Bluewater’s analysis indicates that turbines in the northern reaches of the Maryland RFI area will shadow some of the southernmost turbines of the proposed Mid‐Atlantic Wind Park." 

QUESTION: If impact of shadowing is enough to affect the performance of ocean windmills miles away, what affect must  wind energy extraction be having on the energetics of the oceanic ecosystem in the air and water currents flowing though these windparks? The significance of this on coastal currents is only beginning to be understood . Could Penobscot Bay lose its lobsters?  Could the Chesapeake lose its blue crabs? 

The Shadow knows....or those who plan to make those shadows.

Theoretically, yes, if larvae-bearing surface currents are slightly diverted from their landward wind drift by the giant wind armadas proposed to be stationed off the atlantic coast, from Maine to North Carolina, they could very well end of missing their home bays.

Last month's offshore Maine Wind Conference - links to all speakers' written remarks

Courtesy of the Island Institute, here are pdf files of  speakers’ presentations at the December 14, 2010 offshore windpower conference in Belfast, Maine, Link to Panel 3 audio included.

Panel I – Ocean Energy Goals in Maine

• “Governor’s Ocean Energy Task Force: State of Maine goals and other outcomes” – Representative Stacey Fitts, Maine Legislature
• “DeepCwind Consortium Research & Test Program Update” – Jake Ward, University of Maine
• “Deep-water Offshore Wind Energy Pilot Projects: Request for Proposals” – Mitchell Tannebaum, Maine Public Utilities Commission 

Panel II – Understanding the “Critical Factors”

• “20 Cents to 10 Cents: Economics of Offshore Wind Power” – Dr. Gary Hunt, University of Maine
• Wind Industry Supply Chain: Local Impacts and Opportunities” –  Paul Williamson, Maine Wind Industry Initiative
• “Anticipated environmental effects of offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine” – Dr. Pete Jumars, University of Maine
• “Ecological and Human Uses: How do we share the ocean?” – George Lapointe, Maine Department of Marine Resources

Panel III - Lessons Learned From Siting Renewable Energy Projects AUDIO of panel

• Kim Gaffett, Town of New Shoreham, Rhode Island
• “Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan: Ocean SAMP Fisheries Stakeholders” – Rick Bellavance, Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association
• “The Massachusetts Ocean Plan” – John Weber, Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management
• “Tidal Energy Development in Maine: Lessons Learned” – Glen Marquis, Ocean Renewable Power Corporation

Maine legislation calls for cutting aerial pesticide notification zone by 90%.

LD 16. An Act To Revise Notification Requirements for Pesticides Applications Using Aircraft or Air-carrier Equipment. Sponsor: Representative Jeffrey Timberlake of Turner, Maine. (9 cosponsors)

summary

This bill changes the notification criteria regarding the application of pesticides by aircraft or air-carrier equipment to a person on a notification registry from 1,320 feet to 100 feet. It also changes the distance requiring notification when pesticides are sprayed into the crowns of fruit trees or Christmas trees using air-carrier equipment from 500 feet to 50 feet.

SPONSOR: Representative Jeffrey Timberlake of Turner.
COSPONSORS:  Representative BLACK of Wilton; Representative CRAFTS of Lisbon, Representative DAVIS of Sangerville, , Representative DUNPHY of Embden, Representative LIBBY of Waterboro, Representative LONG of Sherman, Senator MASON of Androscoggin, Representative VALENTINO of Saco, Representative WOOD of Sabattus

TEXT OF BILL

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:

Sec. 1. 22 MRSA §1471-Z, sub-§3,  as enacted by PL 2009, c. 584, §2, is amended to read:

3. Criteria requiring notification.  A land manager is required to notify a person whose property is on the registry if:

A. Pesticides are being applied using aircraft and the registered property lies within 1,320 100 feet of the intended spray area;

B. Pesticides are being applied using air-carrier equipment and the registered property lies within 1,320 100 feet of the intended spray area; or

C. Notwithstanding paragraph B, pesticides are being applied using air-carrier equipment into the crowns of fruit trees or Christmas trees and the registered property lies within 500 50 feet of the intended spray area. This paragraph is repealed January 1, 2012.

Mainers are farming their lobsters. Confirmed.

In his 2010 report "Use of Herring Bait to Farm Lobsters in the Gulf of Maine"  Gulf of Maine research institute researcher Jonathan H. Grabowski, says it is "human augmentation" of wild lobsters' natural diets with herring bait that keeps the population of lobsters high and steady.

Is that really "farming"?  Well, yes. Not exactly "herding" the lobsters, but establishing diffused underwater CAFO concentrated animal feedlot operations, only in the case of lobsters, DAFOs Dynamic Animal Feedlot Operations that travel with the migrating lobsters. A sort of crustacean welfare.

 

Of course these feedlots require the hunter/gatherer herring fleets that ply the Gulf of Maine, zone by seasonal zone, seeking out and tapping into the great schools that also feed other fishes, the marine mammals and seabirds.

 

Last year these boats made  60,000 metric tons of herring  (about 132 million individual fishes)  directly available to the bristly palates of  Maine's lobsters via the lobster traps. (Herring average about a pound each, and  about three pounds of bait are used per  pound of lobster captured).

There are myriad other elements to this watery agribusiness from boatbuilders to regulators and tax gatherers, but the care we take in these two fisheries are key to the success of the whole enterprise as it value-adds its way into the greater economy.

(photo courtesy Lobster Adventure)

Rockland Harbor, 2nd day of Christmas

No Partidges in a Pear Tree, but how about Pigeons on a Power Line? I took a quick chilly trip to my city's harbor. Below and  at the link are some photos of birds and boats of Rockland's harbor, as afternoon waned, this December 26, 2010, as Maine awaits the snowstorm heading north from the midAtlantic.

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Dragon shedding again?

Dragon Cement Products' clinker hill in Thomaston, Maine, which was supposed to shrinking, seems to be GROWING And ERODING.

Clinker is cement maker's waste: like dottle in a meerschaum pipe. Imperfectly burnt stuff .

In the photo the jagged horizontal line on the side of the snow-covered clinker mountain is where the artificial soil put on it to prevent erosion (in response to a lawsuit by Neighbors for a Safe Dragon) has collapsed.

This is baring the cement waste to the elements, leading to erosion and to the leaching of toxic clinker funk into a marsh leading into the Weskeag River.

BOEMRE & state meeting November 16, 2010, Augusta ME. AUDIO

11/16/10.Augusta. Federal & Maine state ocean wind officials meet for second time & discuss opening offshore grounds to energy leasing. Listen to them!

* Agenda (pdf) 

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

(PREVIOUS MEETING 9/14/10 BELFAST, CLICK HERE)

My visit to the Governor's office - a final Baldacci freedom of information moment

Drove through the sleety rain from the Penobscot Bay coast to Augusta, pleasantly surprised to discover my  mp3  was full of Yes and Jon Anderson's Olias of Sunhillow. The miles melted away as the Camden Hills rose and receded, and the lakes shimmered past, their frozen edges portending icefishing in times to come.
 
Suddenly it was Augusta and then flash forward and the patient receptionist at Governor Baldacci's office  has registered my appointment and bade me wait in the seating nook under the grand staircase of the echoey empty Hall of Flags, where lobbyists awaiting the Governor cool their heels.  

The capitol is absolutely throbbing with political life forms (except in still-barely-Governor Baldacci's office, where the dutiful staff  have boxes piled up around their cubicles, but continue to answer constituent calls otherwise do the gubernatorial thing to the bitter end, when the lights go out on the Baldacci Administration.)


But in a flash Karla Black was there, leading me to the empty governor's conference room, where about two reams of paper documents await my inspection.   Ever efficient Black has provided mini-postits to stick on "keeper pages" that I want copied.

Then the door shut and I was alone with my roughly thousand pages of documents, and 2 hours to peruse them and select which to keep which not.  (For I know I have a great multitude of them already through a federal FOIA request of BOEMRE (pronounced "Bummer"). Why pay a quarter a page for 100s of pages I've already got?)

So I took the stack and split the trump into months.  Then It was time for the Great Sift:  I started speed reading these government emails (all of which were addressed to Karin Tilberg, the Governor's special assistant for renewable energy, either directly or she was cc'd,).  Key names like Maureen Bornholdt, Habib Dagher,  Aditi Mirani, Stacy Fitts.....like my own name.  

Hah! How they howled, it turns out, as I lashed them - the feds and state officials -by blog and by tweet, by facebook  and e-lists, and in the mainstream and  fishery press!  A handful of aroused coasters came down on the governor and politicians and bade them threaten not their livelihoods, forcing officials state and federal to parley to come up with rebuttals or, worse, to come up with means of ignoring the concerns.


On through the pages I plowed, in their tens and hundreds. Some months held but a mere dozen or two emails, another month  half a ream's worth.....An hour and a half passed before I sat back and surveyed the documents divided into keepers and leavers. 

Then it was time, and I stacked them into two stacks, picked up my debris, and returned to the quietly busy governor's office. (No sign of His Nibs).The receptionist pressed a button and Karla Black came out from the inner sanctum. From governor country. Public stay out.

Karla was a little surprised at how many  pages I wanted  - about 250. The last time there I'd only kept  dozen out of of  around 300 pages.

She warned me that the cost would be 25 cents/page. (I'd hoped it was a dime, like MDEP sometimes charges per page). But then she cut me a deal on postage, so we parted amicably amd I sailed back down Route 17, homeward bound.

DeepCwind - will it get DeepSixed by Republican Pork Hawks?

There it was in the news: A rejected federal appropriation bill left the  DeepCwind Consortium's distant water  offshore windpower project quite suddenly stripped of nearly all of its funding! 
   Said the PPH: "Funding in the [now-dead] legislation included... $10 million for deepwater, offshore wind research at the University of Maine at Orono, and myriad of other spending initiatives."

    Dr. Habib Dagher,... said the $10 million was a continuation of funding from a competitive grant won by the university......Dagher said that the program was also promised $20 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy budget after Secretary of Energy Steven Chu came to visit Maine. That funding also is contingent upon Congress approving a new budget."

Absent philanthropic grand gestures from the Monied Progressives; this project may have no where to go for the foreseeable future.  One hopes this doesn't open the door for pressure to be brought to induce closer-to-shore piledriven wind nightmares like those proposed as "Cape Wind"...

Sears Island: Maine Supreme Court told "solemn occasion" merits their intervention

I went to Portland Friday and, as required, filed my Sears Island Supreme Judicial Court case's "Appellate Brief". By law, the Supreme Juidicial Court meets as the "Law Court" to consider appeals like mine. Here is a  link to the 20 page Brief and other filings

The brief (well I guess at 20 pages it's not very brief)  lays out my arguments as to why the Law Court should agree with me and tell the lower court (Judge Jeffrey Hjelm of Waldo County Superior Court) to take a fresh look at my case and actually consider the issues.

As a  non-lawyer's effort. this appeal is of course prone to imperfections that a legal secretary etc would polish away or prevent. Yet it takes a certain naiivete to break new ground. To raise one's head out of the box and chart a different yet logical course.  That is what the case attempts.

Judge Hjelm had ruled in September that since there wasn't an actual port plan out there, there was no way I or anyone else was being harmed by the conservation easement that gives 2/3 of Sears Island to Maine Coast Heritage Trust "in perpetuity", and defines the rest of the island as a "Marine Transportation Zone".  Something shamefully agreed with by the Sierra Club, which argued ridiculously in favor of MDOT's claim that the island could support BOTH an industrial port AND wildlife and scenic & recreational resources; the so-called "Joint Use" plan.

I told the Law Court that there was another issue I had raised in my case, one Judge Hjelm didn't consider. Can the Supreme Judicial Court make him consider it?

 I hope so.  I had to  raise a few..novel constitutional arguments.

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

Offshore Wind Conference: Dec 14th Belfast

On Tuesday December 14th, 2010, the Island Institute will host the "Offshore Wind: Tools and Information for Coastal Stakeholders" conference. 

Topics are the standard fare for these events:

* "Maine's new offshore wind goals
 

* Critical factors that will impact the development of offshore wind
 

 * East Coast experiences with offshore wind siting
 

* Concepts and tools for evaluating ocean renewable energy projects

* Improving the community outreach and permitting process "

In this context, "improving the permitting process"  means weakening the environmental & conservation rules .  Island Institute, NRCM, CLF and a host of other eco-yuppy outfits have decided the War on Carbon's end justifies the means; laudably global in thinking but hideously impractical for the health of the wild Gulf of Maine.

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