Offshore lease sales announced
BOEM seeks feedback on proposed conditions
The federal government has officially announced its intention to sell offshore wind leases off the coast of California for the first time, and the proposed leases include stipulations that prioritize workforce and supply chain development.
On Thursday, the Department of Interior announced it will publish its proposed sale notice for five leases — three leases in the Morro Bay wind energy area and two leases in the Humboldt Bay wind energy area, totaling 373,268 acres with the potential to generate 4.5 gigawatts of offshore wind energy if fully developed — with the Federal Register on Tuesday. The proposed leases include, among other things, requirements to work with the surrounding tribes and communities to mitigate any adverse impacts as well as incentives to invest in workforce training and enter into community benefit agreements.
“That's the direction we've wanted to go towards for a long time,” Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, told The Times-standard. “We'll learn more as we go, but the community benefit agreement is going to be useful to us as locals to make this project be meaningful and help deliver benefits to Humboldt County.”
The proposed offshore wind lease sales are coming a few years after an onshore wind project being developed by Terra-gen failed to get off the ground after facing opposition from the Wiyot Tribe. Engaging the community and entering into community benefit agreements would go a long way in fostering local support by committing to things like familywage jobs, Wheeler said.
“There's also an opportunity to use community benefits agreements to get commitments for environmental protection at the outset of a project,” Wheeler said. “That means we don't need to wait and fight projects further down the development process about what sort of mitigation measures they might include.”
Once published, the public sale notice is expected to include detailed information about the lease areas, the auction, and the provision and conditions of the leases. Members of the public will have 60 days to comment, which will be considered before BOEM decides if it will issue a final sale notice.
The final sale notice would include the day and time of the lease sale alongside the companies expected to participate. It would need to be issued at least 30 days before the auction, which is really just the first step.
“These lease sales are the first step towards the real work of assessing environmental impacts and how to avoid or mitigate them,” Jen Kalt, director of Humboldt Baykeeper, said in a statement. “Once developers enter into lease agreements, those site assessments will begin and we'll have a much better understanding of how best to protect wildlife and their habitats as these projects move forward.”
The Biden-harris Administration has set a goal of developing 30 GW of offshore wind energy by the end of the decade and has so far issued 25 active offshore wind leases off the East Coast. California set a preliminary goal of developing 3 GW of offshore wind also by 2030.