Tensions ran high between community members and Port San Luis Harbor District commissioners over offshore wind during a July 23 board meeting.
During the meeting, commissioners discussed collaborating with Clean Energy Terminals (CET) on studies, ranging from six to 12 months, about whether Port San Luis can be a potential site to support offshore wind development.
“Multiple offshore wind planning reports identified Port San Luis as a high-potential site to host an operations and maintenance port,” the July 23 staff report states.
Wind projects off the coast of Morro Bay will need landside support from a local port to help with construction. A lack of existing offshore wind ports on the West Coast gives SLO County the opportunity to become a hub for offshore wind and clean tech innovation, according to the staff report.
Brian Sabina, a representative for CET, told commissioners that one of the company’s main goals is combating climate change. Nuclear, solar, wind, and geothermal energy are the technologies needed to address the challenges ahead of us, he added.
“What you quickly realize is that you can’t have offshore wind without ports, and we just don’t have the port infrastructure to make that happen,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons we started Terminals is because we realize there’s a big opportunity for communities across the country to benefit from what is a multi-billion-dollar new maritime and energy industry happening off the coast.”
Harbor staff said during the meeting that this is the beginning staging of developing information and CET has included several commitments in its proposal to the harbor.
“This includes engaging and supporting stakeholders through a project labor agreement and community benefits agreement to engage with local communities as part of the project development. [This] includes Avila Beach residents, local advisory groups, surf riders, other local ocean users and local tribal governments, which have a long historic association with the lands and tidelands,” staff said. “It worked with agencies and organizations including the Harbor District, PG&E, San Luis Obispo County, and local municipalities to avoid where possible, and otherwise minimize potential traffic impacts.”
Staff said CET also proposes to partner with local economic and workforce development entities to support local job creation and maximize economic benefits, including specifically contracting with local and tribal businesses wherever possible, hiring local and tribal employees wherever possible, and establishing diversity and small business goals for the project.
“Addressing environmental justice concerns, seeking to ensure that individuals from historically overburdened and disadvantaged communities are able to benefit economically and progress the project in a way that protects the environmental, cultural, and recreational resources of the surrounding communities, including tribal and cultural resources,” staff said. “They also committed to a rigorous, thoughtful, and transparent environmental review process compliant with all state and federal requirements.”
Sabina said they understand that fishing is an important part of the Central Coast and that lots of people make their livelihood in that industry, so they want to build the support now because they believe both can coexist.
“We know one of the reasons we’ve made a lot of these commitments, one of the reasons we did that is because we know it’s going to lead to a better project,” he said. “It’s going to lead to a stronger project if we engage with all of you who are here today. We hope to build a long-term relationship with many of the stakeholders who are here today so that we can build those values.”
Before public comment, Harbor District board President Bob Vessely reminded everyone that commissioners were just voting on whether to have CET conduct a study, they weren’t voting to approve turning the port into an offshore wind port.
More than 20 county residents spoke out against offshore wind, including Ted Key from Cambria, who said the harbor wants everyone to accept a project they don’t even know can be built.
“If it’s built, it’s going to take a huge bunch of machines that are fossil fuel dependent; each one is going to take hundreds and hundreds of gear oil gallons that have to be replaced every six months,” he said. “How does that make any sense to get us off of fossil fuels? It really doesn’t.”
With several community members focusing primarily on offshore wind, Harbor Commissioner Drew Brandy told those in attendance that the “public has to understand that we do not say yes or no on wind power.”
“The Harbor District cannot say yes or no on wind power or suggest anything else for power,” he said. “We are here to talk about this study, about what might happen in the harbor, whether we like it or not. That is what the issue is tonight, not wind power. We have about as much control over that as anybody else does. Each one of you has as much power as I do.”
Brandy added that Port San Luis was put there more than 120 years ago to serve industrial purposes, and commissioners were continuing the port’s history by listening to the proposal.
“All three of these piers were planted here for industrial purposes. The middle pier was an oil pier supplied to Pacific Fleeting Oil, the biggest industrial offshore oil supplier in the world at that particular time,” he said. “We have a history here, that’s all we’re doing, following the history of Port San Luis.”
After about an hour of public comment, the Harbor District passed the study proposal 3-2. Δ
This article appears in Education Today 2024.
There was a shipping port. There was a petroleum industry. Then there was a fishing industry. Then there was a utility-scale nuclear power plant. Then there was the Unocal cleanup and demolition of Avila. Then there was a booming tourism industry. Then there was planning for the decommissioning & repurposing of Diablo Canyon, and the extension of MdO trails to the port. Now there’s moves toward an offshore wind industry.
Is there anyone with a vision for Port San Luis that doesn’t include “industry”?
“We’re just going to study how to eliminate the remaining fishing industry, pleasure craft industry, and tourism industry. Because Port San Luis has a long history of industrial development”
This is the WalMart model, where the money is in building and opening them. And leaving big empty ones behind as they go along.