“There’s very little [ocean] bottom that isn’t fished for lobster,” stated Spruce Head fisherman Robert Baines, referring to state waters from the beach to three miles out. Ocean bottom chosen for offshore wind testing sites, “will inevitably displace fishermen,” he said.
The Maine State Planning Office and the Maine Department of Conservation have nominated four areas in state waters for testing of offshore wind technology.
Representatives Kathleen Leyden from the State Planning Office, Robert Marvinney, Ph.D., state geologist, Jake Ward, Assistant Vice-President for Research and Economic Development at the University of Maine, and others held informational meetings up and down the coast this year.
Information from those hearings helped officials pare the list of sites from an original seven to four, according to a press release from the planning office, although the four draft sites are not final.
Those sites are off Boon Island, Damariscove, and Monhegan islands, and off Cutler. The sites will include floating platforms, anchoring systems, and new lightweight blade composites, according to the release.
By law, one site will be designated as a wind energy research center operated by the University of Maine, which received an $8 million federal grant for this project.
The state agencies must identify the sites by December 15. They will meet again in January and February to talk about environmental impacts and public benefits.
Cutler fishermen John Drouin, who attended informational meetings, said he is worried about the proposed tests. At Machias, he and the other fishermen were given copies of a chart dissected with coordinates in square blocks: one nautical-mile blocks, and said, “We were asked to grade them 1 through 5: 1 being ideal for a wind site project and 5 being no way. If there were 50 blocks on the paper, I had 45 of them with a 5.”
“Being pushed 6 or 7 miles offshore is an international boundary line,” Drouin said. “We’re being pushed by the Canadian fishermen on that side. Now we’re being pushed by our own state and our own government. We just don’t have the room.”
But the sites are large. At an initial meeting in Machias in the summer, Jonesport fisherman Dwight Carver asked the size of the test platforms. A rough estimate came to a diameter of 200 feet with 500 feet around, or a 1,200-foot area. At a recent meeting, he heard the researchers were thinking of putting two or three platforms in each area. Carver said, “If you could promise fishermen that you would put one in each [site], one platform wouldn’t affect fishermen that much, and they could live with it. But when you’re talking two or three or more. If you put three in one area, you’re going to disturb a huge amount of fishing bottom.” He went on to say he doesn’t think anybody is against wind power, and if the researchers would stick to one platform per site, the fishermen would work with them, but if they want to put in two or three, then, he said, “You get the hairs ruffled up; the fishermen are not happy. They’re not happy,” he said, “Because there’s no place inside the 3-mile line … that there aren’t lobster pots. That’s the fear the fishermen have, and it’s a legitimate fear.”
Marvinney, state geologist, acknowledged the problem, saying, “We have been meeting with fishermen to minimize impacts of whatever testing takes place. We know there’s no place we can go that they’re not there.” Each site would be limited to testing two deepwater, offshore wind turbines and could host a demonstration of new wave energy technology, according to a press release.
Although Cutler fisherman Nicholas Lemieux has not attended any meetings, he suggested that Cutler might not qualify as a test site because, he said, “We don’t have any major transmission lines close. They’d have to do a fair amount of line work also on land to get it to tie into the grid.” He also suggested that sites chosen be in a low-density area or an area that is fished only certain times of the year. Ward, though, noted that a test site is not meant for long-term energy generation or transmission, adding, “We have to evaluate the site to see if we can bring a line to shore and if there is a place to connect. The power generated for a test site would be small enough to connect into smaller sub-stations.”
“Our hope is to not affect fishermen too much,” Ward said and noted that the $8 million-dollar program is for smaller scale rather than a full-scale device. “We hope to be able to evaluate the technology, evaluate how it survives in that environment, evaluate how it interacts with the fishing environment and the animals themselves or other folks fishing in the area,” he said. Once researchers know where the site will be, they plan to sit down with fishermen and, he said, “Figure out the best way to make this work for everybody.”
Nevertheless, some fishermen remain unconvinced. Deer Isle lobster fisherman David Heanssler has doubts based on past experience. He contends that windmills cause low frequency vibrations that, in the water, might affect lobster. He feels this way because, as reported recently in Island Ad-Vantages, five or six years ago, in late November or early December, an earthquake stopped the lobster from moving until the following spring.
Of that earthquake, he said in a later phone interview with The Working Waterfront, “It seemed to me the one time when the lobsters stopped within a couple of days.” He added, “I feel like it might be only a 10 percent chance, it might only be a one percent chance, but it might adversely affect fishing. I’m really worried. It’s the only [kind of fishing] we can do now.”
He said, “I’m not totally against wind, but I’m really worried about the fishing more than the visual impact,” and reiterated his contention that windmills cause low frequency vibrations that, in the water, might affect lobster. Marvinney stated researchers would be testing floating technology.
Deer Isle fisherman and Stonington Lobster Co-op president Frank Gotwals summed up the general feeling when he said, “I’m generally in favor of wind generation. I just think we have to figure out a way to make it work.”
Information on the proposed testing is at:
www.maine.gov/doc/initiatives/oceanenergy/oceanenergy.shtml