09/26/09 - The SAMP — or special area management plan — is halfway through its two-year course to “develop a zoning, if you will, of the waterways,” said Coastal Resources Management Council Chairman Michael Tikoian at Town Hall Tuesday.

Tikoian was joined by CRMC subcommittee members Paul Lemont and Dave Abedon.

The SAMP effort was spurred on by Gov. Donald Carcieri’s call two years ago for 15 percent of Rhode Island’s energy needs to be eventually supplied by renewable means. This led to the state’s selection of, and agreement with, developer Deepwater Wind, which is proposing two wind farms off the coast of Rhode Island, one within three miles of Block Island.

If built they would be the first offshore wind farms in the nation.

The SAMP, which will engage the expertise and efforts of at least 60 scientists, is “unique in the country,” said Abedon,

Tikoian concurred, adding that “lots of people are watching us.”

CRMC Executive Director Grover Fugate led the hour-long presentation aimed at bringing island residents up to date on the multi-disciplinarian efforts to provide an index of practically everything to do with the marine area of Rhode Island: wind, currents, birds, bats, fishing grounds — both recreational and commercial, geology, ocean floor depths and contours, mammal and turtle traffic, shipping lanes, military traffic, local and trans-Atlantic cables, as well as tourism.

Acoustics and electromagnetic fields will also be studied.

The CRMC was established in 1971, Fugate explained, and the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act followed the next year. The act allows states to operate with federal authority if the state adopts the same standards.

Regulating coastal activity is a balancing act, said Fugate, because of “intensive economic interests” and quite sensitive ecological conditions.

Rhode Island is the nation’s leader in creating SAMPs, the current one being the state’s seventh.

While there was much fanfare recently about Massachusett’s developing an ocean plan, Rhode Island actually created its first Ocean Zoning Plan in 1983, creating six different use types, explained Fugate.

Rhode Island was also the first state to consider climate change, which serves as a background in the entire SAMP and renewable energy drive.

The state could “adapt, mitigate or suffer,” according to Fugate.

He said that there was currently a real danger of losing the Arctic polar sea ice cap during the summer in as soon as 10 years. Without the ice to reflect so much of the sun’s energy, the heat would instead be absorbed by “dark water,” and would exacerbate the warming process.

So far, according to Fugate, the temperature has risen 0.8 degrees; a rise of three degrees would result in mass extinctions, and five degrees would result in the collapse of the world’s agricultural systems.

A principle source of the warming, said Fugate, is greenhouse gases coming from carbon-based fuel sources.

Twenty-eight coastal states consume 80 percent of the U.S. electricity. However, there are 330 gigawatts of potential wind energy off the mid-Atlantic states, more than five times the oil and gas reserves in those states, said Fugate.

“Every state from Georgia to Maine is looking at this,” he said.

A “technological development index” (TDI) will be created as part of the SAMP, which would weigh optimal wind farm locations as a function of the wind resource versus the costs of installation. There will also be an “ecological services value index,” to weigh the environmental trade-offs.

Fugate pointed out that there is very little record of wind speeds at the 80-meter hub height — wind turbine height — that a developer would need “for the banks.”

A wind speed of at least seven meters per second is required to be commercially viable.

He also pointed out that it is potentially very expensive to pile drive or dig trenches in an ocean floor that is glacial terminal moraine, which can leave boulders “the size of houses.”

The team will eventually arrive at an “ease of construction” map to focus the study.

Fugate pointed out that “fisherman utilize virtually every square inch out there.” The fishermen have been providing input.

Three research vessels have been collecting data throughout the year, and the work remains ongoing. They expect to have about 25 percent of the area completely mapped in the next year. They are using side scan sonar and multi-beam technology to map the bottom.

Jennifer McCann of the University of Rhode Island explained that phase one was about complete, and phase two — putting together all the chapters, is about to begin. Monthly stakeholder meetings are scheduled. Learn more at http://seagrant.gso.uri.edu/oceansamp/

Questions

Rosemarie Ives, a Mohegan Trail resident and former mayor of Redmond, Wash., asked if the state had considered a collaboration with other states, such as Massachusetts or Connecticut. Fugate answered that Connecticut doesn’t have any renewable plans, but would like to purchase any electricity generated by Rhode Island. New York is reviving plans to build off Long Island, he said, and Massachusetts is looking at the same swath of federal waters as is Rhode Island.

At some point the two states will have to negotiate, Fugate predicted.

James Bailey, a Pilot Hill Road resident, asked, since the federal government is being an enthusiastic and cooperative partner in the process, why wouldn’t it allow Deepwater another mile or two off Block Island to “get started.”

Fugate said he didn’t think the federal government would be that generous. He added that Block Island was included “at the governor’s insistence to help them with their utility costs.”

Ives, who once chaired the U.S. conference of mayors, said she had dealt with many utilities in her role as mayor. Until she sees what the Public Utilities Commission decides about what island ratepayers will eventually pay for their electricity, she said it is “premature” to say the wind farm is necessarily a “win” for Block Island.

Tikoian reminded the group that the CRMC’s purview was purely environmental, and that there was a “firewall” between it and the politics and business end.

At the end of the presentation Fugate showed a slide of a large offshore wind farm at Horns Rev in Denmark. The turbines are generating trails of what appears to be exhaust. Some in the audience thought the photo had been manipulated.

“Are we to expect to see something like that?” asked Town Council member Peter Baute.

It was a non-doctored photo, said Fugate. The spinning turbines formed the contrails in the right set of atmospheric conditions. But he said not to fear, because the lesson learned was to stagger turbines rather than align them in a row; also the new turbines turn much more slowly.

A representative from Save the Bay asked if the SAMP would replace the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Environmental Impact Study for any farm. Fugate replied that the SAMP wouldn’t replace it, but would certainly assist in speeding up the process.

Island Resident, Cathy Payne said she was opposed to the wind farm and “getting hooked to the grid.”

She questioned the foreign ownership of National Grid said she wants to “remain soverign.”

“I speak for the people of Block Island, because they aren’t in this room.”

She called the wind farm a “very dangerous bit of business,” and that “Block Island people do not want that off our shores.”