LUBEC, Maine — The U.S. Coast Guard fielded comments and suggestions Monday evening from Cobscook Bay fishermen and others attending a public hearing in Lubec to discuss a proposal to test five experimental underwater turbines.
Portland-based Ocean Renewable Power Co. has been engineering and field-testing its turbine designs in waters off Eastport since 2004. It now wants to submerge five turbines in 82 feet of water with a 61-acre footprint between Goose Island and Grove Point.
Each of the units is 98 feet wide and would extend 31 feet above the ocean floor. If an eight-year pilot project permit is approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, placement of the first of the units would happen sometime next year.
The Coast Guard has determined that the submerged turbines would not pose a hazard to vessels at the surface, but would pose a “significant” hazard to underwater activities such as dredging, dragging, anchoring and diving. Lt. Megan Drewinak, chief of the region’s Waterways Management Division, said those hazards include entanglement of fishing gear and possible electrocution through contact with underwater cables that will deliver the electricity generated by the turbines to the shoreline.
“Subsurface, it’s a hazardous condition,” she said. “In terms of innocent transit, it’s not.”
Many of Monday’s public comments focused on how best to mark the area should FERC approve the project, so that its location is made clear to mariners who are unaware of the underwater test bed. ORPC has offered to supply and maintain four large, lighted buoys that would mark the corners of the rectangular test area.
Chief Warrant Officer Bob Albert, the region’s aids to navigation officer, said the Coast Guard prefers not to add buoys to navigable waterways, as they represent hazards. “But this is a unique project,” he said. “It’s a project that requires that it can take advantage of the natural resources that the currents and tides here provide.”
Among the 35 people attending, Bob Peacock, who captains a pilot boat that ferries large ships into and out of the Port of Eastport, was one of those who made comments Monday.
“I would suggest that it be marked as an area to be avoided for underwater activities,” he said. “These fishermen here tonight are professionals, and I’m sure nobody in this room wants to get entangled. But there’s no question that you have to have it marked clearly so that everybody knows where this area is. And you need good-sized buoys, given the currents and tides.”
Albert said he sees a potential hazard in draggers not familiar with Cobscook Bay getting in the test bed area and becoming entangled with a submerged turbine.
Monday evening’s hearing at Lubec Consolidated School was the first of two being staged by the Coast Guard. More comments will be solicited on Tuesday during a similar presentation to be held in Eastport. That public hearing begins at noon at the Friends of the Boat School on Deep Cove Road.
NUTTS!
So, I guess we definitely want to avoid any upgrading & employment here in WASHINGTON COUNTY?
DUH!
JIM of the GREAT WAYY DOWNEAST!
Or do we need more sayanora??
Leave it to the NIMBY’s
Internet trolls making idiotic comments. The only people who object to this are local fishermen, and that is tempered with their suggested solutions. They don’t want their livelihood endangered either.
You can made a case for every advance in human history having some aspect that is a danger or disadvantage to somebody or thing. Aside from trying to live in stasis you have exercise your best judgment and move forward. Never any shortage of nimby’s.
Well there goes this project. We can’t have anything interupting the visual asthetics of these beautiful waters. It would be even more beautiful if we could ban all motorized water craft from plying these waters. Sail and paddle worked just fine for our ancestors. Good exercise and maybe put a lot of people back to work, hand lining from dory’s. Just think of all the photo opportunities, and all the art tourists lining the shore with their easles set up painting the wonderful scenes. Locals could offer to pack picnics for all these people. Why we would be in a veritable paradise. No smelly freighters belching polution, no filthy diesel powered fishing boats. No body making a living wage.
I must have missed it. Where in the article are the comments from the artsies and nimby’s? I only read that folks wanted buoys and the CG was against the idea.
Holy ‘ol golly gee wizz……. i tot watta and lectricity don’t go ‘gether
I don’t know if it’s a tradition here in coastal Maine, I’ve only been here 12 years, but the people here are sure Debbie Downers; always sure nothing is going to go right and that someone is out to take away their livelihood or hurt them in some way. If it weren’t for people coming in from the outside this area would have deteriorated into nothing by now. Grumble and complain about everything. If the ingenuity of the American people isn’t enough to make this project work then we might as well just give up. I’m sure the complainers will be more than happy to enjoy any benefits it brings. And as far as people complaining about damage to the environment, if you have NEVER been in parts of the eastern bloc or Russia, where there is no concern for the environment, then believe this: it’s ugly, desolate and depressing and dangerous. Not fit for human habitation. So there is a place for concern; just not to the extreme. Cooperation, people!
Do you make your living on the water fishing probley not lets see 1/3 of the bay is closex and they just closed another 1/3 and orpc wants the other 1/3 ws left for the fisherman nothing but a sore a** lets put several people out of work for somethingthat aint gonna workwhat about all the jobs its not gonna create it is all a big joke anyway
You mark the territory with buoys and update the navigational charts to show it. I can’t imagine anyone trying to dredge in that zone if they knew what is there. They they decide to venture in and get snagged or better yet fried? We can be assured they won’t do it a second time.
It’s a no brainer. Mark it off well and you’re done. Why all the drama and negativity about this? Some people act as though the bay is going to be peppered with 100’s of these. what is the projected amount ?five? Geeze!