Archive for June, 2009

MMS issues lease for met towers off NJ Coast

Written by Mike Pisauro on June 28th, 2009 in Federal, Ocean, Renewable Energy, Wind | No Comments »

Last week, MMS announced they would be issuing leases to the three proposed wind farm developers so that they could begin the process of installing their meteorological towers. Bluewater Wind NJ Energy, Fishermen’s Energy of New Jersey, and Deepwater Wind will all be placing met towers off the coast of NJ. These towers are a necessary first step to the eventual development of shore wind. Once the met towers are in place, they will be recording data for at least 12 months or mid to late 2010.

Back in October 2008 the State issued its Energy Master Plan. The Plan sets a goal of having 1000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2012. I have always thought that time table was very aggressive and was unlikely to occur. Assuming the developers do not begin the NEPA process at the same time as they collect the data from the met towers, that process will begin late 2010 or early 2011. The NEPA process of obtaining information, analyzing the information, etc will take a significant period of time. For example, the Cape Wind project, which began around 2001, took almost three years from the very beginning of the NEPA process to the issuance of the draft EIS. It then took another four+ for MMS to issue its final EIS on the project.

Now, a lot has changed from the time Cape Wind started their project. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed. The State of New Jersey has convened a Blue Ribbon Panel on Wind; evaluated the issues and set forth its recommendations. MMS has interim rules for renewable energy developed on the OCS. The nation as a whole has hopefully progressed towards acceptance of wind generation. (I question how far we have progressed on this score). Also, the State is in the process of doing performing their own biological studies off the coast of NJ. All of these things may help move the process along so that the planning of these projects is not a decade long process. The NJ developers will have a framework to follow that Cape Wind did not.

Hopefully, the fact that there is a legal framework in place will shorten the legal wrangling over the project. I do believe that there will be many lawsuits challenging these projects. Local, county and some legislators have expressed concern over off shore wind development. Local property owners will certainly band together to challenge these projects. There may also be an environmental group or two who may challenge the projects in Court.

In short I believe after the NEPA process has been engaged and the lawsuits resolved one or more of the proposed wind projects will go forward. What I am fairly certain of is that no project will be in the water and generating electricity by the end of 2012. The State will have to adjust their energy master plan to account for the revised time table.

State, Regional and National focus attention on our Oceans.

Written by Mike Pisauro on June 22nd, 2009 in Clean Water, Federal, legislation, Ocean, Politics | No Comments »

June, as national ocean month, has been a fairly busy one. Two weeks ago the Governors of NY, NJ, DE, MD, and VA met in NY to create the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Oceans. Governor Corzine has just appointed members to the NJ Coastal and Ocean Protection Council. President Obama also has created an inter-agency task force. These are all laudable steps on addressing the dire condition of the Oceans. They are long overdue steps.

In 2003 and 2004 the Pews Ocean Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy issued their reports on the health of our oceans. Without going into great detail the cliff notes of these reports were that our oceans are in serious jeopardy and actions had to be taken to reverse course. It has been 5 to 6 years since those reports were issued and at least in NJ the course has not been reversed. There might be debate on whether the continued degradation of our oceans has been slowed, but it clearly has not been reversed. There is still a dead zone stretching along 100 miles of NJ’s coast. Fishing stocks are still declining. Pollution is still running off compromised watersheds further deteriorating the health of our ocean. At the same time there is a push to increase exploration for fossil fuels and to install new renewable energy off our coast.

In order to help NJ address the Pews and U.S. Ocean recommendations, the New Jersey Coastal Ocean Coalition issued a report called: Ocean Protection in New Jersey: A Blueprint for Success. After several years of lobbying, the COC successfully got passed and signed into law the Coastal Ocean Protection Council law. That law took effect on January 13, 2008. In part the law created a council to help the State look at the issues affecting the coast and how best to address the issues. It took over 18 months from the time Governor signed this legislation into law to when he made appointments to the council. It has been 18 months without the council working towards strategies on improving NJ’s regulation of the ocean and coastal environments. It has been six years since the Pews report called for coordinated approaches toward regulating this resource without any meaningful movement to correcting the problem.

When Governor Corzine, entered into the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Oceans he said:
Any threat to these natural resources brings economic consequences that threaten jobs, local economies, and our economic well being. New Jersey is committed to working with our Mid-Atlantic partners to provide adequate safeguards and formulate a shared vision for the region’s future.

This is not a new sentiment, but one that the State asserted when the New Jersey’s Coastal Area Facility Review Act was passed in 1973. I hope that New Jersey and the surrounding states are seriously but addressing the multiple threats to our oceans.

We need a mechanism to coordinate policy with our neighboring states because as we all know the water along our coast does not stay within the jurisdiction of anyone state, but it moves. It is the plan that the Council will help the States examine the issues on the regional level and help the State address them in ways that are not counterproductive to each other.

Even more recently, the President created the Ocean Policy Task Force. One of the goals of the Task Force is to propose a national policy that will protect, maintain and restore the oceans, coastal and Great Lake ecosystems including the implementation of adaptive management; a way to coordinate interagency actions, and how to implement these proposals. The Task Force is also put together a recommendation for coastal and marine spatial planning. If I am reading this Memorandum right the goal for the Task Force is to take the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and to figure out how to implement it.

These are very important concepts that I hope are more than catchy phrases to government. If these are no more than words than there will not be an improvement. These words must the announcement of actual action. For NJ, they must implement the Coastal and Ocean Protection Council and allow the council to get to work. For the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Oceans the States must look how many of their regulations both water and land based affect the oceans and how each State can compliment their neighbor’s work. Lastly, the Federal Task for can look at how to assist the States and Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on their missions as well as to provide a uniform framework across multiple agencies on how to cherish and protect this vital resource. We will see if actions do speak louder than words.