Lake County Record-Bee

Fishermen join forces amid offshore wind developmen­t

- By Sonia Waraich swaraich@times-standard.com

A recently formed associatio­n is seeking to afford some protection to the fishermen who will lose access to fishing grounds as the state and country transition to running on renewable energy like offshore wind.

Earlier this year, Humboldt County's commercial fishermen joined with other members of their industry across the North Coast, from Crescent City to San Francisco, to form the California Fishermen's Resiliency Associatio­n. The associatio­n is a point of contact for offshore wind developers, with whom the associatio­n wants to develop industryto-industry contracts called fishing community benefit agreements that will ensure harm to California's community fishing grounds is minimized and mitigated.

“Fishermen are not opposed to renewable energy,” Ken Bates, a board member of Humboldt Fishermen's Marketing Associatio­n and a representa­tive of the California Fishermen's Resiliency Associatio­n, told the California Coastal Commission earlier this year in April. “But fishermen are opposed to the industrial­ization and loss of California's fishing grounds.”

There are already a lot of restrictio­ns on when and where commercial fishing can take place along the California coast and fishermen have said the installati­on of offshore wind turbines would further limit their access. The two leases being sold about 20 miles off the coast of Humboldt County total 132,369 acres. The total is 373,268 acres when including the three lease offered in Morro Bay.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is partially requiring and partially encouragin­g developers to work with local communitie­s if they secure one or more of the leases. The proposed sale notice with preliminar­y details about the offshore wind leases and auction process includes proposed incentives that would be given to developers that commit to community benefit agreements.

Community benefit agreements are arrangemen­ts made between community benefit groups and developers in which the former agrees to support a project, which generally requires several public hearings, in exchange for a developer's commitment to fund or provide certain benefits to the local area or industry. Those benefits can range from offering workforce training programs to helping fund road repairs.

Years before BOEM's offshore wind lease process began, developer Castle Wind and the Central Coast Fishermen's Associatio­ns were negotiatin­g a comprehens­ive fishing community benefit agreement that committed to avoiding, minimizing and mitigating the harm done to commercial fishing from developing offshore wind farms in the state's community fishing grounds.

That set a high bar for industry-to-industry agreements and the fishermen's resiliency associatio­n is pushing for a statewide fishing community benefit agreement, the provisions of which would be locally administer­ed by the associatio­n's regional management committees.

The associatio­n is made up of seven Northern California Port Commercial Fishermen's Associatio­ns, including the ports of Crescent City, Trinidad Bay, Humboldt Bay, Shelter Cove, Fort Bragg or Noyo, Bodega Bay, and San Francisco. The associatio­n is planning on expanding membership to the California Port Fishermen's Associatio­ns of Central and Southern California, too.

Dr. Erin Baker is a professor of industrial engineerin­g and operations research and is the faculty director of the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Massachuse­tts Amherst. She said commercial fishermen and wind developers on the East Coast encountere­d similar challenges and it was good the fishermen were trying to work with the developers.

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