Planned wave energy site makes waves with fishermen.Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard NEWPORT - Not a single fisherman testified at a hearing Thursday night giving the public a chance to weigh in on state rules for Oregon's newest power bounty bounty, payment made by a government bounty, amount paid by a government for the achievement of certain economic or other goals. It often takes the form of a premium paid for the increased production or export of certain goods. : wave energy. But the fishing community took center stage nonetheless, as state land officials heard from several speakers who said the skippers skippers larvae of Piophila casei, the cheese or ham fly. The larvae skip around on the cheese that they inhabit in a quite repulsive way. who make up Oregon's most valuable fishery - Dungeness crab Dungeness crab Edible crab (Cancer magister) found along the Pacific coast from Alaska to lower California, one of the coast's largest and most important commercial crabs. The male is 7–9 in. (18–23 cm) wide and 4–5 in. (10–13 cm) long. - have mounting concerns about commercial wave energy parks built on sensitive sections of shoreline. In particular, concern has sprung up in recent months among crabbers who fish in the Reedsport area, where a company known as Ocean Power Technologies is poised to build the first 14 buoys offshore, a test project that could lead to a 200-buoy commercial park. The problem, explained Onno Husing, director of the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association: The company's preferred site is smack-dab in the middle of one of the area's best fishing grounds. So far, Ocean Power has been unwilling to consider an alternative site, Husing said at the hearing. That hitch hitch to fasten by a knot, usually used to describe tying a horse to a post. in an otherwise promising new energy source - one that's said to be capable of generating as much electricity as U.S. hydropower hy·dro·pow·er n. Hydroelectric power. systems do now - threatens the smooth sailing of the clean, reliable power supply as the nation works to decrease its dependence on oil. The solution, Husing told officials with the Department of State Lands, is to make sure that the rules the agency is now considering that would govern commercial parks require developers to be flexible about where they will put buoys. The division is in charge of rulemaking for the state-owned waters between shore and three miles out to sea. Beyond that three-mile zone, said Rob Bovett, Lincoln County's assistant county counsel, there's a battle for control being waged in the federal government between the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. some language in a recently passed U.S. House of Representatives bill, the Department of the Interior is likely to win control over the placement of offshore buoys, Bovett said. Because energy companies are more accustomed to dealing with the federal Energy Department, Bovett predicted that if control fell into the Interior Department's hands, developers could scramble To encode (encrypt) data in order to make it indecipherable without having a secret key to "unlock" it. The term came from the early days of cryptography which camouflaged analog transmissions with secret frequency patterns. into the state-owned zone within three miles of the shore, meaning state regulators will have more say about what gets approved. That responsibility should be used to protect the fishing industry, Bovett said. "We have a sustainable fishing industry that is the model throughout the world," Bovett said. "We don't want to replace one industry with another." What's unclear at this point is whether other wave energy companies will be as insistent in·sis·tent adj. 1. Firm in asserting a demand or an opinion; unyielding. 2. Demanding attention or a response: insistent hunger. 3. as Ocean Power, Husing said - and whether prime wave energy sites are in inherent conflict with prime crabbing crabbing the pattern of movement when a dog's body is at an angle to the line of travel. grounds. Ocean Power representatives like the spot they've chosen because of the particular depth, distance from shore and sandy ocean floor, which makes anchoring easier. But the same kind of area makes for good crabbing up and down the coast, so if other wave energy companies use the same criteria and technology, more conflicts could arise. "Very few people have the direct financial stake in this that fishermen do," Husing said. That's why they're getting organized. Fishermen are sitting on regional committees to discuss wave energy and have formed their own group in Newport. "The crab industry is a critical part of our economy. It's the glue that's holding the fishing industry together," Husing said. The first testing of a wave buoy will take place later this summer. HOW TO COMMENT To view rules for wave energy parks being considered now by the Department of State Lands, visit www.oregonstatelands.us and click on "Wave Energy Rulemaking," or call Liz Bott bott n. Variant of bot1. at (503) 378-3805, Ext. 239. To comment, write to Bott at Oregon Department of State Lands The Department of State Lands (DSL), one of the oldest agencies of government of the U.S. state of Oregon, is principally responsible for the management of lands under state ownership, as its name implies. , 775 Summer St. N.E., Ste. 100, Salem, OR 97301-1279 or e-mail waveenergyrules@ dsl.state.or.us |
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