One local group plans to protest California’s offshore wind projects on March 9.
REACT Alliance is organizing a Save Our Seas march beginning at noon in front of the Morro Bay Veterans Memorial Building. Participants will walk down to the T-Pier and meet with local fishermen and discuss the impacts of wind farms and return to the vets hall for a fundraiser event.
“We’ll have a guest speaker come out and also do a silent auction as another way to raise money,” spokesperson Betty Winholtz told New Times. “We will also have a play area that will be supervised for parents that want to bring their kids because we think families would be interested, as this will affect their future.”
REACT (Responsible Energy Adaptation for California’s Transition) Alliance spokesperson Nicole Dorfman also told New Times that Bear City Social and Taqueria Cinco de Mayo will have their food trucks at the event.
“Our silent auction items include EV chargers and installation from Photon Brothers, nature themed artwork, cases of wine from Stolo Winery, various gift baskets of organic products from Soto’s True Earth, Avocado Shack, and Sunshine Market, and more,” she said.
A variety of gift cards will also be auctioned off, and the event is free to attend.
“We also have Carolyn Porco as our special speaker, and she’s a planetary scientist who was a lead scientist on two of NASA’s biggest space missions,” she said. “She was also named in 2012 one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential people in space exploration.”
The U.S. Department of Interior auctioned off the first California wind energy leasing areas off the coast of Humboldt and Morro Bay in 2022. The two areas were divided into five lease areas and auctioned off for a total of $757.1 million, according to an Aug. 22, 2023, Morro Bay city staff report. The wind energy areas are located roughly 20 miles offshore.
The project is expected to take between 12 and 15 years to complete, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s environmental impact statement states that the project could impact air quality, animals, wetlands, coastal habitats, and commercial and recreational fishing.
“Project structures above the water could affect the visual character defending historic properties, properties of traditional religious and cultural significance, and recreational and tourism areas,” the study states. “Additionally, the project could create space-use conflicts with military activities, air traffic, land-based radar services, cables, and scientific surveys.”
Winholtz said she’s passionate about opposing the wind project because she believes that the wind farms will harm whales as they move through the Central Coast as part of their migration pattern.
“Right now, mother whales are just giving birth down in Mexico and they’ll bring their babies up through here as they swim up to Alaska. These babies are young, and when project developers start sound testing, that’s going to have a real impact on their ears, causing some of these babies to die,” she said. “Also, it’s going to affect bird migration patterns as they fly from north to south.”
Fast facts
ā¢ Cal Poly accounting students are offering free tax help to qualifying local community membersāwith $67,000 or less in gross incomeāvia the Volunteer Assistance Tax Program (VITA) on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. by appointment through March 16. Those interested can visit orfalea.calpoly.edu/volunteer-income-tax-assistance to learn more. The clinics will be held in Cal Poly’s Business Building (No. 3) near California Boulevard. VITA will also be running two off-campus locations in Oceano and Santa Maria through March 16.
ā¢ Atascadero High School students are partnering with Tree-Plenish to host a tree planting event with the objective of planting enough saplings to compensate for their school’s energy consumption. Those who are interested in helping students reach their 150-tree goal can order a sapling by March 20. For more information, please visit tree-plenish.org. Ī
Reach Staff Writer Samantha Herrera at sherrera@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Weddings 2024.
Don’t these losers have something better to do than whine and complain? Windmills are exactly the type of industry/tax base this county needs. Clean/renewable and out of sight. Smdh.
I am concerned about the claims that wind farms will harm whales. The largest impacts to whales by far are commercial fishing (by-catch), climate change, ship strikes, toxic waste contamination, oil and gas development, and habitat degradation.
As an example, North Pacific right whales are one of the rarest large whale species with an estimated 30 individuals in the eastern population. Climate change is considered one of the most significant threats facing their northernmost habitat in the Pacific. North Pacific right whales feed on zooplankton, but sea ice coverage determines where and when zooplankton can be found. Warming ocean temperatures change sea ice coverage, impacting zooplankton distribution and availability. Impacts to prey could affect the foraging behavior and success of North Pacific right whales leading to nutritional stress and diminished reproduction.
Warming ocean temperatures are causing unprecedented changes to seasonal ice coverage and thickness.
Beluga foraging behavior has also changed due to altered prey distribution from warming oceans. Belugas must dive longer, deeper, and more frequently to find food. The resulting increased stress can reduce their ability to reproduce. This can make it more difficult for endangered populations, such as the Cook Inlet Beluga whale, to recover.