A permit application by an offshore floating wind company received California Coastal Commission’s staff recommendation for approval with conditions.
One of three offshore floating wind companies was slated to have its application for a permit before the Coastal Commission at the agency’s July meetings, and the staff recommendation is to approve it with conditions.
Equinor, dba Atlas Wind US LLC, was seeking approval for a Coastal Development Permit (CDP) from the Commission to allow them to conduct underwater sound surveys and testing in the more than 55-mile-long transmission line corridor where the proposed wind farms’ high voltage electrical lines are expected to run, buried in the sea floor.
Atlas Wind’s CDP would cover the corridor starting 0.25-miles offshore and out to the State’s 3-mile territorial waters limit, and some 3-miles wide.
Atlas Wind plans on using the same type of underwater testing gear it is currently using for surveying the sea floor inside the company’s offshore lease area, part of the nearly 400-square miles in the so-called “Morro Bay Call Area,” located 20-30 miles off San Simeon.
That’s where the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) sold leases in 2022. Each lease is about 80,000 acres, with two additional leases sold by BOEM off Humboldt County.
The commission staff report said, “The proposed surveys include: (1) low energy, high resolution geophysical surveys to map seafloor features, sediment types, and subsurface sediments; (2) geotechnical sampling to confirm the data interpretation of the geophysical survey mapping, provide information about sediment variability and stratigraphy, and provide samples for geo-archaeological analyses; and (3) benthic (seabed) habitat surveys, consisting of the collection of sediment plan view and profile images to evaluate the presence and abundance of benthic organisms (including rare or sensitive species).”
In plain language, the tests are mapping the contours of the sea floor looking for things like reefs, sea mounts and rock piles that they want to avoid as they trench for the transmission wires.
They will also take soil samples to determine the types of sediments and or rock layers they will encounter, and also look at the sediments to determine what sea creatures might be living in the mud, and whose habitat a big trencher would disrupt.
The report acknowledges that the testing equipment, which is mostly towed behind a work vessel and just off the sea floor, would increase the levels of underwater sound, “the majority of those sounds would be at frequencies outside of the hearing range of marine wildlife and would decay below natural background levels within a limited distance from the sound sources,” reads the report.
The Coastal Commission’s concerns with this permit are three-fold: to minimize effects “to marine resources, commercial fishing, and cultural resources,” reads the report.
Under the Commission’s conditions, Atlas Wind would have to survey the testing area for fishing gear, i.e. fish or crab traps, and nets — before doing any testing.
The work boat must have a “fisheries representative” on board at all times “to monitor for fishing activity and gear and would contract with a local recreational fishing vessel to scout the survey area for fishing gear and activity.”
If they come across old fishing gear, Atlas Wind is supposed to retrieve it and remove it from the ocean. If the company does all this, the Commission said the project complies with State Law.
“As conditioned, staff recommends that the Commission find the proposed project protects commercial and recreational fishing and is therefore consistent with Coastal Act,” the report said.
If the surveys come across any artifacts, in particular, Native American cultural spots, they are required to notify the Commission’s executive director, and “Native American Tribes with historic ties to the project area of any observations of archaeological or cultural resources.”
Atlas Wind had already tried to get a waiver from the normal CDP process, and was about to be granted it in May, but the company withdrew its application for the waiver and immediately submitted an application for a full CDP review, which was apparently done in short order to come back to the commission in just 2 months.
Part of the reason why the wheels of government have churned so quickly is because the Commission already approved of the Federal Government’s offshore floating wind energy projects.
“In June 2022,” the report said, “the Commission conditionally concurred with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s [BOEM] leasing of a wind-energy development area offshore of Morro Bay.”
The same gear and methods being used to survey the Call Area in Federal waters would be used for the near shore, State waters. “All acoustic equipment proposed to be used,” the Commission report said, “is classified as low-energy imaging/sensing equipment and includes multi-beam echo sounders, side scan sonar, and sub-bottom profilers.”
As for sampling the sea floor itself, the testing protocol calls for Atlas Wind will be “collecting a total of 11 vibracores, 11 piston cores, six cone penetration tests, two sediment grab samples, and three sediment plan view and profile images during their geotechnical and benthic sampling surveys.”
A vibracore is taken using a 4-inch diameter, vibrating driller some 6-meters deep (about 19 feet). The piston corer slams into the sea floor gathering a 3.3-inch diameter core of mud, and going down 20-meters deep (over 60 feet). A cone penetration test just drives a rod into the sea floor some 6-meters but doesn’t collect any samples.
Altogether, Atlas Wind said it would collect and remove 2.35 cubic yards of sediment, roughly equal to a medium-sized garbage dumpster, and involve just over 825 square feet.
Which vessel is used depends on water depth with a large, 250-300-foot long ship used in water over 130-meters deep and a 30-foot boat for water less than 130 meters.
Atlas Wind said this testing would be done over a 40-day period with the actual sampling and removal of the sediments taking about four days.
The company said it plans to hire “Ocean Infinity,” a company that has a special permit from the State Lands Commission to conduct these underwater sound surveys.
This permit differs from the withdrawn May application for a waiver in a couple of significant ways.
First, it removes the survey area south of Morro Rock, down to Point Buchon and off Diablo Canyon Power Plant, which has been talked about as an alternative landing site for the undersea transmission cables.
Now, it shows the testing area to swing east just past Cayucos Point, and coming ashore at Morro Bay’s Dog Beach, the only beach in SLO County where dogs are allowed to be off leash.
It should be noted, that none of the three OSW companies has given any details about where they want to come ashore with the power, nor where they plan to build needed substations, which one analysis said would each need 10-12 acres of land (unless they build an offshore floating, substation).
Numerous people soundly criticized the Commission’s 36-page report, with its recommendation for approval, in correspondence to the Commission ahead of the July 12 meeting in San Rafael. Letters were sent to the Commission from residents as far south as Santa Barbara and up to Santa Cruz in the north.
The opponents out-numbered the supporters, but not by much.
Among the opposition comments were: “Why are you permitting surveying of the ocean at all as best practice adoptions are required by CCC. Your rush sounds like an appeasement to the wind developers,” reads a brief comment from Roberta MacKenzie of Santa Barbara.
“The project and associated information is too brief, superficial and wholly inadequate as the cumulative impacts are HUGE on local biology/cultural resources, geology, soils, public safety, land use, recreation, traffic, transportation, commercial fishing, whale mitigation, underwater noise, long-term fishing, etc.,” reads a note from someone named, Myra Mahoney, no town given.
Elizabeth Quinn of Santa Cruz also took the Commission to task for an inadequate report. “I am disturbed and dismayed that the Staff report does not take into consideration the mass mortality events of hundreds of whales and thousands of other cetaceans on the East Coast that coincide with location and time of HRG surveys.”
Quinn concluded, “If this CDP is approved, it will look as if the CCC is responding to pressure, rushing the permit to appease wind developers, to the detriment of the people, animals, and environment that the CCC is entrusted to protect.”
And some 40 “form letters” in opposition were signed and sent in by residents.
Among the supporters, Don Garde of San Luis Obispo wrote, “Offshore wind is an important part of the effort to fight climate change, and replace fossil fuels with electrical power. The location of this wind farm is far enough away from the coast to avoid marring the view.”
Another SLO resident, Dean Thomas, said, “The clean wind energy resource off of the Coast of California is one of the best in the world. Responsible development of this resource is desperately needed to help stabilize our climate, provide good jobs, and meet growing energy needs of California and our nation.”
And in a letter from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, which owns a casino resort in Santa Ynez, was generally in support of offshore wind energy, but was critical of the Commission report with regards to tribal monitoring and involvement.
“To date,” reads the Chumash letter signed by Sam Cohen, the tribe’s Government Affairs and Legal Officer, “the applicant has provided no resources to assist the Tribe in monitoring the habitat surveys even though the lease has express requirement for capacity building for monitoring and Community Benefit Agreements (often referred to as Tribal Benefit Agreements).”
Jim Dantona, president and CEO of the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce sent a letter of support as well. Dantona said, “The San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce, the Central Coast’s oldest and largest voice for business, believes that we must support and allow the federally awarded leaseholders the ability to conduct these surveys and studies in order to understand how and where these future oshore wind farms will go, where their infrastructure will be and to analyze any potential impacts of that work.”
Dantona added, “We know that the State of California continues to work towards the electrification of our state and that there is a focus on clean and renewable portfolio of energy to provide that energy. These offshore wind farms, that could bring us an additional 5GW of energy, are another step to moving our state in that direction. In order for us to understand how we will do all of this and establish a stable energy grid, we need these surveys and studies to produce the data that will allow us to consider all of the opportunities and challenges.”
